Struggling with anxiety during menopause? Here's what you need to know

At Spabreaks.com we (unsurprisingly) spend a lot of time thinking about wellbeing, and we also do our best to support our team members when it comes to their own health.

While sometimes that help is about action - team yoga sessions, chair massages, nutritional advice and more, sometimes it's just about having space to talk. It's for that reason that we started having a monthly menopause chat, which is simply a safe space where anyone can join to talk or listen, discussing different aspects of their experiences with women's hormonal health.

It's a beautiful group where individuals are able to share their own experiences without necessarily asking for answers, and simply know that they're not alone. It's a chance to gain awareness, understanding, and often learn a bit as well.

We are privileged to have a team of strong, capable, independent women within our ranks, and one of the topics that has come up quite a lot is the increasing levels of anxiety that often plague individuals as their hormones start to change. It's often a point of embarrassment (though of course it needn't be) and frustration for individuals. More often than not, they find that their characteristic calm and infinite ability to rationalise does little to assuage an overarching feeling of distress in situations that historically wouldn't have bothered them, and equally anxiety appears to descend for no tangible reason at all.

With the growing conversation around menopause, the impact it can have on mental health is becoming much more widely acknowledged. In amongst that awareness is recognition that increased levels of anxiety are not a figment of one's imagination but a very real consequence of hormonal change. Here we share some thoughts, stats, and ideas for helping to navigate changing emotions amongst the changing hormones.

Anxiety in menopause is common

Reporting on a clinical study into anxiety and menopause published in Menopause - The Journal of The Menopause Society, the National Institutes of Health concluded:

"Women with low anxiety at baseline were more likely to report high anxiety symptoms when early or late perimenopausal or postmenopausal compared to when they were premenopausal, independent of multiple risk factors, including upsetting life events, financial strain, fair/poor perceived health, and VMS."

Meanwhile, another study estimates that: "Approximately 15% to 50% of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women may experience a range of psychological and emotional symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, and forgetfulness."

Why do women experience increased anxiety in menopause?

Broadly speaking, everything in menopause is about hormonal shifts, resulting in a myriad of menopause symptoms, which seem to grow in number by the day as more and more research is done.

When it comes to anxiety and other emotional or psychological symptoms, the NIH writes that this is the impact of: "changes in endocrine status in the body, such as the decrease of physiological estrogen level".

Navigating anxiety in menopause: practical tips

As with all things, different people have different ways of managing the consequences of menopause. For some, exercise, nutrition and mindfulness are helpful, others prefer medical solutions including HRT, and many women find that a combination of solutions is best. The NHS recommends a combination of lifestyle factors in general, and when it comes to mood changes they place emphasis on:

• Rest
• Exercise
• Relaxing activities

Spa treatments and menopause

Spas can be a powerful resource for supporting women in menopause. In part that's because they are intrinsically relaxing, offering space to exercise, unwind, and even to learn about different wellbeing options with classes, spa treatments, and even onsite expertise like nutritionists.

There's also a growing body of research into different holistic options to help navigate hormonal change in the best way to suit you. For example, The Menopause Million Project set out to be the largest global research study into menopausal symptoms ever undertaken, and included a number of leading practitioners from the spa world within its team.

As part of their research they set out to identify specific complementary therapies which help to ameliorate groups of menopausal symptoms. Amongst them, they found that the following all showed signs of having a tangibly positive impact on wellbeing, including anxiety symptoms, during and after menopause:

• Reflexology
• Homoeopathy
• Hypnosis
• Acupuncture/acupressure
• Exercise
• Mindfulness
• Yoga
• Aromatherapy

With a growing body of knowledge, many spas have instigated dedicated training for their spa therapists, so they can deliver treatments that are tailored to addressing the side effects of menopause. For example, seaweed based skincare brand, VOYA has a dedicated collection of menopause spa treatments, and ESPA also launched a menopause skincare and treatment collection in partnership with GenM.