Wednesday, August 18, 2021

6 Ways Younger Women Can Prepare For Menopause

I get it---you're young and not really thinking about menopause yet. You're probably still dealing with periods and buying feminine products in bulk from the store. But guess what? Menopause is coming sooner or later, so you might as well start preparing for it. Today on the blog, the content team at Sophia & Grace has some great tips on preparation for menopause to share with you!


6 Ways Younger Women Can Prepare for Menopause


If you’re a young woman, menopause probably seems a long way off — but it might be closer than you think. Some women begin having early symptoms in their 30s and even their 20s, and it’s never too early to start preparing for menopause. Here are six things you can do right now, no matter how young you are, to start preparing for the transition to menopause to be as smooth as possible:


  1. Learn about menopause.

The first thing you can do to learn about menopause is to learn about it! Menopause is often treated as such a hush-hush topic that you may know very little about it, if at all. Most doctors also receive minimal-to-no training about menopause — especially if they don’t work in
gynecology, so they may not actually be as much help as you might think. Seek out trusted information from sources such as Medline Plus, the National Institute on Aging, and others. While there’s a certain level of disinformation on the internet, if you stick to trusted sources you can learn a lot about menopause with a quick Google search. You might be surprised to discover what you didn’t know about menopause and bloating, incontinence, and more.


  1. Don’t forget perimenopause either!

While menopause isn’t super well-known, perimenopause is even more mysterious to many women. Perimenopause begins when you start to experience certain signs that indicate menopause is incoming, such as irregular periods. While perimenopause starts when most women are in their 40s, for some, it can happen as early as their 30s — and it can last for years prior to fully entering menopause. Learning about the symptoms of perimenopause, how to identify when you might be perimenopausal, and the difference between menopause and perimenopause will go a long way towards helping you get menopause information early and often once you do finally enter into this life phase.


  1. Check out your hormone levels.

Perimenopause and menopause occur due to changing levels of the hormones, mostly estrogen, produced by your ovaries. That amount of change is relative because everyone has a different natural baseline of hormones. What’s normal for you may be low or high for another woman. It can be hard to tell just how much your hormones are fluctuating later in life if you don’t get tested before you enter perimenopause. One thing you can do to prepare for menopause as a young woman is to get your hormones tested so that you know what your baseline is. This involves drawing a tiny amount of blood and sending it to a lab for chemical analysis. Your primary care physician can order this kind of test for you. Make sure to ask for a copy of your results and store it safely with your other medical files so you can refer to it in later years.


  1. Talk to your older female relatives.

Each person does experience menopause in a unique way, but there will likely be certain similarities between you and your relatives based on genetics. Talking to your mom, aunts, grandmothers, and any other older female relatives about their own menopausal experience will give you a better idea of what you personally might experience later down the line. It will also help you identify if there is any family history of menopause-associated medical problems. Bear in mind that some of your older female relatives might be a bit reticent to talk about their menopausal experiences. It’s still kind of a taboo topic now, and it was even more so in past years, so they may not be comfortable talking about women’s health issues yet. Explain to them why you’re asking these questions and listen with an open mind.



  1. Establish healthy habits now.

Many of the recommendations for menopause relief will come as no surprise: eat a balanced diet, maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly, stay hydrated, get enough sleep, and so on. However, you don’t have to wait until menopause starts to begin building these healthy habits! In fact, it will be easier to cope with menopause if you already have these building blocks in place. It can be hard to suddenly start an exercise routine or overhaul your diet as you’re trying to deal with hot flashes and night sweats. If you start making these changes now, it will be one less thing you have to deal with whenever you actually enter menopause. Plus, it can help lessen your symptoms before they even begin.


  1. Be open about women’s health issues.

Part of the reason why menopause isn’t talked about openly is that our society has a culture of minimizing or ignoring women’s health issues, including menstruation, fertility and pregnancy, and other issues. This culture can only change by everyone being more open about discussing women’s health — not only menopause, but also periods, birth, and more. You can be a part of this shift by talking about women’s health issues in your trusted circles, such as close family members and friends. Menopause isn’t something shameful to be hidden away or ignored. It’s a natural part of aging that every woman will grow through once she gets old enough. By talking about it more openly, you can help others grow comfortable with the idea as well.


Small changes that you make now can really make a difference later in life in terms of easing your menopause experience. It’s never too early to start preparing for menopause, and you can do just that starting with the seven items on this list.



8 comments:

  1. I fully support talking about all women's health issues. Perimenopause was a challenge for me, and I know it is still a relatively unknown experience, as the spellcheck as I write this does not recognize the word! Get your hormones tested young, and talk about it!!

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    1. I'm sorry perimenopause was a challenge for you---but yes, we need to keep the younger women informed on what to expect!

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  2. I sure do appreciate this post because I was entirely unprepared, myself. And kept saying "why didn't anyone tell me this?"

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  3. I remember when my first wife thought she was pregnant because her period skipped. Mentally challenging times.

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  4. Such good advice, Marcia!
    How I wish I could have talked to my Mom. Anything to do with being a woman was strictly avoided. I discovered later her extreme reticence was a result of a history of abuse at the hands of her father. How I wish I could have consulted her at the beginning when perimenopause reared!

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