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How to Survive the Holidays with Menopause Symptoms
The holiday season is always stressful. Buying presents for your family and friends, often at the last moment. You are juggling between decorating your house, cooking meals for your guests, and visiting your in-laws and distant family. All of these things are already hard on you. But this year you may also have to deal with the stress of menopause. Hot flashes, insomnia, mood swings, and other symptoms leave you stressed and out of balance, on top of all of your other responsibilities. Know that even though it might be hard to survive the holidays with menopause symptoms, it is certainly not impossible.
Managing Menopause Stress on Holidays
During the holidays, many women want everything to be perfect. All dinner meals have to be exceptionally tasty, decorations aesthetically pleasing, and presents carefully picked. So naturally, if something goes wrong, they begin to stress out. Add to that depression, anxiety, and other mood disturbances in menopause (1), and stress piles up. Your guests can feel when you’re insecure or irritated, so try to enjoy the time you spend with them to the fullest. Try not to worry whether everything matches their tastes and enjoy the moment. Here are some things you can do to manage menopause stress on holidays.
Socialize
Holidays are great for bonding with your friends and family. So focus on this instead of trying to please everybody. If you are happy and enjoying yourself, your guests will most likely feel the same way. Share stories and jokes at the dinner table, laugh and become closer to one another. Perhaps remember some event from the past, a memory of which you all share in common. Keep the good mood, share happiness, and enjoy the good things in life. Isn’t that what holidays are for in the first place?
Find Time for Yourself
Planning family dinners and outings takes a lot of time and effort. And you probably have a very long to-do list in preparation for the holidays. But have you put yourself on that list? Surely taking some time for some self-care goes a long way for improving your holiday mood. Have a manicure, get your hair or makeup done, go shopping for a beautiful holiday outfit, or go to a spa or massage. You can also just enjoy your own company in silence for some time and breathe or meditate to clear your head. You will notice how just a few minutes alone with yourself can make a difference.
How to Avoid Gaining Weight During Holidays with Menopause
Let’s be real – during the holidays; you always end up packing on some extra pounds. It’s difficult to avoid thanks to the delicious and rich meals you eat at the family table. The problem is that you might already struggle with weight gain issues thanks to your menopause. Hormonal changes during this transition lead to an increase in total body fat, specifically abdominal fat (2). So avoiding overeating and overtreating yourself might be a good goal. Here are a few tips on how to handle yourself with food during the holidays.
Grab a Smaller Plate
If you have a large plate, it will be tempting to pile everything on it, after which you will feel like you are forced to eat it all. So to avoid that, grab a smaller plate and fill it up with vegetables and fruit mostly. Eating like this will also help you manage how much you eat. While you finish your first serving, you will start feeling less and less hungry, and so on. This way, it will be pretty hard to overeat.
One Drink Is Enough
You cannot imagine the holidays without alcohol. But you also probably know by now that alcohol is a major trigger of hot flashes. So keep it to a minimum. Drink a glass of wine or champagne at a dinner table. Also, try to avoid cocktails, because they usually have a lot of calories. Do not mix alcohol with caffeine or eat spicy foods at the same time. These will only make your hot flashes worse, and you do not want them to happen at a dinner table.
Limit Sugar
Cookies, cake, cupcakes, muffins, sweet bread, candy – holidays give you an abundance of sweets. And of course, you want to try them all without fail. You do not have to force yourself to the point of being unhappy but limit your sweet snacks. Have a cookie or a small slice of cake so that you can satisfy your cravings, but do not go all out only to regret it after the holidays have passed.
Sweat It Out
Are we being serious about exercising during the holidays? Yes. It can be tough to fit it into your busy eating and meeting with family schedule, but try to have at least a few workouts during a holiday week. 30-60 minutes of moderate exercise every day should be your goal, but you might not find the time to do it every day. Still, do the best you can. Maybe walk to the grocery store instead of taking your car or go for a jog in the morning. You should also consider restricting calories alongside exercise for better chances of losing weight (3). Everything works to help keep the weight off.
Managing Your Symptoms of Menopause after Holidays
Holidays have passed, but your symptoms are still there. Menopause is a long-term transition, and you need to learn to manage it well so you can feel better and live happier. Taking probiotic supplements is an effective way to control your hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, weight gain, and low libido. MenoLabs knows about the symptoms of menopause women experience. That is why we have created a line of probiotic supplements to fit the needs of women in menopause. Learn to manage your symptoms for many years to come.
(1) Abolfazi Fattah. “Effect of Phytoestrogen on Depression and Anxiety in Menopausal Women: A Systematic Review.”
(2) S.R. Davis et al.. “Understanding weight gain at menopause.”
(3) Damon Swift et al. “The Role of Exercise and Physical Activity in Weight Loss and Maintenance.”
