Are you having menopausal symptoms and want to find a way to control them? The answer is simple— exercise! Daily exercise is healthy for your mind and body and for combatting a hormonal imbalance. But when it comes to menopause, you want the best activities to support menopause symptoms, so we rounded up the most useful ones.
Light to Moderate Strength Training
Resistance training is a great exercise to ease menopause symptoms like bone loss and decreasing energy levels. Women, as they age, lose bone density due to lowering estrogen levels. Light weights can help build bone density, increase weight loss, and alleviate perimenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal symptoms. Strength training pulls and tugs on bones to nudge them into bone-forming cells.
Benefits of Strength Training
Not only does bone density decrease as we age but so does muscle mass. Lowering levels of muscle mean higher levels of fat. Strength training helps build muscle, which burns fat and increases your metabolism.
Done correctly, it can also help you manage chronic conditions such as back pain, obesity, heart conditions, and diabetes. Research is mixed on the intensity needed when weight training, but it’s best to start off slow to ensure you master proper form.
Bend Into Yoga
Yoga is both meditative and cardiovascular and a sure way to build muscle and flexibility and decrease menopausal symptoms. The best part is that yoga can be as easy or as hard as you make it. So when you feel a hot flash, whip out your yoga mat, and try a few restorative poses to bring down your temperature. Menopause can also cause heightened anxiety, depression, insomnia, and a general feeling of unwellness.
A daily yoga practice can help you control these symptoms. However, it’s important to remember that some poses are more beneficial than others. If some poses seem to aggravate the problem, bend into these restorative poses that generally make your body nice and relaxed.
- Child’s Pose
- Corpe’s Pose
- Legs-up-a Wall Pose
- Forward Pose
- Downward Dog Pose
- Pigeon Pose
Overall, the asana that brings the most comfort and joy when experiencing anxiety and hot flashes is the Child’s Pose. You bend your legs and sit comfortably on your heels. Stretch your arms up and put your palms together. Then slowly stretch forward with your ears and head between your arms until you touch the mat with your hands. Sink into the floor and breathe in and out. Make this a daily practice; the benefits will go beyond alleviating menopausal symptoms.
Get Your Steps In
How many steps did you take? This has become a common question amongst those with FitBits and Apple Watches. But you don’t need an extra gadget when your phone can count them. Walking is an excellent way to fight stubborn belly fat and help battle the slew of possible menopause symptoms. Also, walking doesn’t require a gym membership or even a park to make it happen. You can walk from your front door any time of the day.
Of course, walking alone has the same benefits as walking with a friend, but talking and walking makes time go by faster and opens up opportunities for sharing, giving and receiving advice, and generally increasing your connection with your walking partner.
But if you don’t have a walking partner, you can listen to a podcast, audible book, or song. In addition, walking clears the mind, helps put life into perspective, and is one of the best exercises to support menopause symptoms.
Explore the Outdoors
We are often wrapped up in our gadgets, staring at a computer screen or watching the next hit series. It can be hard sometimes to get outside and explore. Hiking is another great way to lose weight and reduce stress and anxiety.
Mother nature infuses your body with fresh oxygen and helps you to sink into a more natural way of life. Hiking is also an activity you can combine with friends and family and make it as easy or strenuous as you like. So pack a lunch and climb to the top of a mountain and breathe.
Dip Your Toes In Water
Swimming is an excellent activity for every body part and helps battle menopausal symptoms. While consistent swimming practice is suitable for all ages, for menopausal and postmenopausal women, the actual benefits have to do with joints and muscles.
In addition, swimming helps with blood pressure which decreases vascular stiffness that occurs with low estrogen in menopause. Many women report swimming helps with brain fog, mood swings, and achy bones. The non-impact aspect of swimming makes it a doable exercise for women of any age.
It’s Like Riding a Bike
Bike riding keeps your muscles and heart strong. Walking, hiking, and biking all release feel-good hormones that lift your mood, which helps reduce menopausal symptoms. Some research shows that interval bike sprints for women experiencing menopause help increase vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D is the building block for bone density. You can supplement with a vitamin D transdermal cream or cycle daily to soak up vitamin D from the sun’s rays. At the same time, biking also helps stress the bones and encourages estrogen production.
Treating Menopause Symptoms
Menopausal symptoms can be excruciating and debilitating. Routine tasks you’ve always done well and enjoyed may now be complex and overwhelming. However, daily exercise focused on reducing menopausal symptoms will bring new vitality to your life. In addition to exercise, consuming foods good for menopausal women will also help. Another choice women often make is trying hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
HRT is a natural way to replace depleting hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, with bioidentical ones. However, traditional HRT is made from non-natural sources and contains additives, chemicals, and preservatives. Alternative yet highly effective are bioidentical creams made with all-natural ingredients and without harmful chemicals, parabens, and preservatives.
Estrogen hormone creams are greaseless, easy to apply, and work magic on the whole body. Hormone supplementation pairs nicely with exercise to support menopause symptoms. Together you can and will feel better.
