Menopause mental health 🩷

During the stages of menopause, it’s common to experience mood changes such as irritability, sadness, aggressiveness, heightened anxiety, loneliness, and depression and these can all cause emotional strain. Add into the mix, that you may be feeling that you’ve ‘lost yourself’, and/or have a perceived need to make some drastic life changes, it’s no wonder that the mental effects of peri/menopause can sometimes be even more devastating than the physical. With all this going on, it comes as no surprise that relationships can suffer and sometimes break down. The good news is that there are lots of different approaches that can help. Whilst Hormone Replacement Therapy is the first-line treatment for peri/menopause, it's best used as part of your menopause toolkit rather than the ONLY tool in your kit 🙂 Taking better care of yourself with improvements to nutrition and exercise, and staying hydrated (yes, it's true!) are really great ways to help manage your symptoms. (And yes, we know you might not feel like doing it, so just try little steps rather than a great big overhaul!) If you’re not comfortable with a pharmaceutical approach, you might find that a therapy such as hypnotherapy or CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is the right fit for you. Relationship and/or family counselling can help put things into perspective and give an important opportunity to let off steam without being confrontational and making a bad situation worse. You may feel like you’re alone, and you might feel as though things are never going to improve. But it isn’t ‘just you’, and you don’t have to be on your own with these challenges. Those fluctuating and falling hormone levels can be replenished and rebalanced with Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), and you can further support your mental wellness with other things too. You just need to ask, and find the right fit for you to feel more like you again... We provide support and guidance in our private M-brace The Change Menopause Support groups on Facebook too. Our main peer-to-peer support group, and our special smaller group with individualised support from our team, and access to our library of factsheets and handbooks 🙂 You'll find us Monday-Friday in our lovely corner of Facebook ❤️ Our Peanut M-brace group will still be here for you until the end of January.