If you’re a woman over the age of 40, the answer is probably yes.
Are you gaining weight for no reason you can fathom? Are you finding yourself craving sleep earlier and earlier in the evening, yet sleep eludes you when you finally crawl into bed? Are you snapping irrationally at the people you love, only to feel immediate frustration and guilt, yet seem helpless to control your irritability?
You might be spending a lot of time pondering a question you can’t answer – Why do I feel like this??
Dr. Uzzi Reiss, author of Natural Hormone Balance for Women, and one of the world’s foremost experts on female hormone depletion, says estrogen is a potent ‘youth’ hormone. It makes you feel sensual, brings clarity to your mind, stability to your moods, limpidity to your eyes, and a glow to your skin. Progesterone is the yang to estrogen’s yin. It balances the stimulating effects of estrogen, quiets your thoughts, and allows you to fall into those deep, natural sleeps that may seem like a distant memory.
When you enter the life phase where these two major hormones start to desert you, havoc ensues. One fact is absolutely clear; our bodies NEVER stop needing hormones (this includes men too, by the way, but that’s another article), we simply stop making what we need on our own. The imbalance that occurs with this rapid hormone depletion can cause not just the few symptoms I’ve listed here, but many more besides, and can have a detrimental impact on your physical, mental, and emotional health.
Now, before you throw your hands up in despair, there is good news. Replenishing and rebalancing your hormones in a safe yet extremely effective way is not only doable, it’s fairly simple. You don’t need advanced degrees in biology. You don’t need a deep, medical understanding of your reproductive system. You really don’t need much beyond the desire to improve your health, and the ability to find a menopause specialist.
I’m asked at least once a week how I ended up making women’s hormones my life’s work. Fair question. My father is a medical doctor who has specialized in the treatment of women in menopause for almost 30 years now, so I suppose my interest was sparked early, and mostly by osmosis. However, it was my mom’s journey and experiences when she hit menopause that cemented this path for me. I watched her struggle as she never had before, and turn into someone I barely recognized. My mom was a stubborn lady, and even though her ex-husband (and lifelong friend) specialized in this, she pushed back hard against the idea of hormone replenishment. “This is what’s supposed to happen,’ she would say. “It’s natural. All women deal with this.” What’s good about exhaustion? Wild mood swings? No interest in sex? Weakening bones, increased risk of cancer, loss of brain function? Absolutely nothing. So yes, this process may be ‘natural,’ but so is childbirth. Yet we avail of everything modern prenatal care provides us, to make it as safe and trauma-free as possible. Why shouldn’t we take the same approach with menopause? My mom finally acquiesced, and her life changed. She became, once again, the vital, energetic, funny, life-embracing person we all knew and loved. Her only regret was not seeking treatment sooner.
I will soon be hosting a free, groundbreaking series of online interviews with a diverse group of experts who know of what they speak, from fitness gurus, to neuroscientists, to doctors who specialize in natural medicine and nutrition, to medical professionals who have dedicated their professional lives to helping women through menopause and beyond. For more information, and to sign up for this free event, please visit www.menopausemethod.com/series. To be connected with a menopause specialist and begin this journey today, click here; menopausemethod.com/for-women-in-menopause/
Whether you find a specialist through us, or by another means; whether you chose a customized solution, or you simply start with a ‘one size fits all’ estrogen prescription from your own doctor; start somewhere. Because the preponderance of medical and scientific research tells us with absolute certainty that doing something, even if the dosing is imperfect, to address your hormone imbalances is always better than doing nothing.
To your good health.
Joshua Rosensweet
Co-Founder, The Menopause Method