Managing Perimenopause Anxiety
What can help deal with anxiety in perimenopause?
One of the first unexpected and unwelcome symptoms of hormonal flux can be debilitating anxiety in perimenopause - all too often misunderstood, or misdiagnosed, so continues to flourish unchecked, affecting our daily lives. It’s no surprise that women want advice on how to manage their anxiety in menopause, to know if anxiety will go away after menopause, or how to stop anxiety during menopause.
Clinical psychologist, Dr Becky Quicke empowers women struggling with anxiety during menopause. She teaches the psychological skills they can add to their kit bag, contextualising and reframing hormonal anxiety; to help them make clearer decisions and start doing all the things that anxiety has stopped them from doing and to show how women can feel more confident in responding to menopause anxiety.
Becky believes that with better awareness of what is happening to them as they move through perimenopause, women can start to feel like themselves again and move forward to what she sees as a ‘transformative time’, the post menopause years, allowing for so many new beginnings.
Focus on what really matters!
How many women say ‘I don’t feel like me’ as hormones flux? As perimenopause is the start of a new way of being that’s not previously been talked about, women lack an understanding of what it is, and therefore won’t see it as the ‘transformative’ time that Becky identifies. Women don’t feel like themselves because things have changed, the nurturing, protective reproductive hormones are disappearing but instead of fighting this and seeing it as a negative, she recommends that we focus in on what really matters to us now and what we can realistically do during this ‘initiation’ into life post-menopause. What can we let go of? How can we express ourselves?
What’s the link between anxiety & menopause?
Our emotions are regulated by three nervous systems - the drive, threat & soothe systems. Drive and threat activate us, and the soothing system makes us feel calm, safe and relaxed. As our hormones change in perimenopause, the threat system ramps up causing us to feel more anxious. Depending on the baseline for our anxiety before this flux in hormones, the impact will be lesser or greater. Those with a history of anxiety (heightened sense of threat) may find that their anxiety notches up quickly in response to hormone fluctuations, whilst for those with little previous experience and whose anxiety comes completely out of the blue, the brain is similarly affected by the same change in hormones levels causing the brain to ramp up a previously low level threat state.
How do we respond to anxiety?
The language around anxiety and the perception that it’s bad and has to be got rid of, means that we try to avoid it, because of the tricky thoughts and feelings it brings. So, we distract ourselves - doing things to avoid anxious feelings and sensations, like shopping, eating, drinking too much and trying to ‘think positively’. We may sidestep the underlying anxiety but by doing this we perpetuate the cycle.
The more we push anxiety away the stronger it pushes back trapping us in an ongoing anxiety trap. Research shows anxiety is easier to manage and will pass over more quickly if we notice, acknowledge and allow the feeling. Becky’s own practice features a different way of thinking about and responding to anxiety - accepting it and working through.
What we can do to move through anxiety?
Accepting that we experience anxiety as threat levels turn up, Becky encourages showing self-compassion and self-love as effective anxiety antidotes and active strategies. Research shows that they can help to dial down threat levels and heighten the sooth system.
So, acknowledge when you’re suffering and be kind to yourself at these times, using meditation, mindfulness, colour imagery or by taking time out for yourself. Find more ideas.
Managing anxiety when you’re ‘in the moment’
Noticing and understanding what’s happening in your body can help to diffuse anxiety, using the NOW approach.
Notice symptoms – where in your body are you feeling it?
Open senses – ground yourself by smelling (a handcream or handwash) touching, pressing or stroking something.
Wrap up in compassion – take a mindfulness moment or use colour imagery.
May 2020
