Are your Negative Thoughts Affecting Your Menopause Experience?

“If you think the cause of your problem is “out there”, you'll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut, solve it from within.”- Byron Katie

It’s not just those stereotypical perimenopause and menopause symptoms (like hot flushes, insomnia, weight gain, low sex drive and brain fog) that can make our lives incredibly difficult once we hit the menopausal years.

It’s also how we feel about the menopause.

It’s those words of self-doubt that spring out when you least expect it. Thoughts like ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m just fat, ugly and frumpy now’, ‘It’s all downhill from here’, ‘I’ve lost my sex appeal’ and so on.

And whilst these thoughts, emotions and beliefs about ourselves can be uncomfortable at the time, they seem relatively harmless. So we just do our best to brush them aside or to bury them out of sight.

But did you know that by not addressing your internal struggles you’re actually worsening your menopausal symptoms? By just crossing your fingers and hoping these negative thoughts go away by themselves, you’re actually leaving yourself more vulnerable to illness and disease.

So today I’d like to explain why addressing your negative thoughts, emotions and beliefs is so important for your menopause experience (and health as a whole).

We’ll start by asking what thoughts and emotions actually are and then we’ll take a look at how exactly these affect your physical health, both psychologically and biologically speaking. Then we’ll round it all up by taking a look at what you can do right now to break the cycle of negative thinking and start healing your self-esteem and your physical symptoms of the menopause. Let’s get started.

What are thoughts and emotions?

Our thoughts are those ideas, opinions and beliefs that we have about ourselves and the world around us. They are usually shaped by your upbringing, your education, your life experiences and also your genetics and can be short-lived (‘Ooh look at that lovely rainbow!') or more long-lasting (‘I’m so stupid. I always make mistakes like this.’) Generally speaking, your thoughts are under your control.

On the other hand, our emotions are strong feelings that we experience as the result of something going on outside of ourselves (like seeing the news about the latest terrorist report) or inside (remembering something negative that you’ve experienced). They’re an important part of building relationships, forming bonds with our loved ones and thriving as human beings.

Emotions themselves are usually beyond your conscious control, but you can potentially reduce your response to them. And most interesting of all, your thoughts (remember, you can control these) affect your emotions which in turn affect your physical body. If these thoughts are continually negative, you can unintentionally harm your overall health, disrupt your hormone balance and even find yourself slipping into depression.

Let me explain a bit more about how this works.

How your thoughts and your emotions affect your body

You’re probably wondering how on earth your thoughts can affect what is happening in your body. After all, thoughts aren’t exactly tangible ‘things’ are they? They’re just thoughts. At least that’s what we think. But our bodies just don’t work like this- our minds and bodies are actually closely connected and can physically affect one another.

For example, let’s say you can’t help but worry about your youngest child going to uni this year. You’re scared that terrible things will happen to him or her without your protection. You’re concerned that they won’t eat properly, will fall into drugs or alcohol or something else shockingly bad will happen.

So understandably, you start feeling more and more stressed. You start sleeping badly at night, spending many an hour tossing and turning as you worry about what might happen. Your IBS really starts flaring up and your libido vanishes into thin air. Your hot flushes increase, your PMT goes bonkers and you don’t know how you’ll make it through the day without either crying or killing someone. Sound familiar?

You see, your thoughts have affected your emotions which in turn have affected your health and happiness.

The science behind it all

You’re probably wondering exactly is going on to make this happen, so I’ll tell you!

It all comes down to the way neurotransmitters work within your body. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers (including adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, GABA, and many more besides) which allow your brain to communicate with the rest of your body.These are wonderful bits of biology which help us respond to our environment, stay healthy, reproduce, feel happy, enjoy a rewarding sex life and even stay safe from danger.

This worked really well in the old days, where the primary threats we came under were from hungry tigers or rogue spears. But these days, we live relatively comfortable lives. We don’t need to feel worried about being eaten, or murdered, or starving to deal. In the modern world, our greatest threat to ourselves is ourselves.

When you were a cavegirl (imagine!), you’d simply run away from the tiger or fight it off. Problem solved. But these days, we can’t escape our metaphorical tigers quite so easily. They’re often just our thoughts. They’re trapped inside our own heads. We struggle so hard to find any kind of release and we continue to do battle with them year after year.

Because your neurotransmitters don’t understand where the stress or threat comes from, they simply respond in the only way they know. Believing that danger is close by, your body adjusts by releasing yet more stress hormones like cortisol, norepinephrine and adrenaline to help you escape. Blood will be rerouted to places like to your limbs so your body can use it to flee. And all of this will affect your overall hormonal balance, your mood, your sleep patterns, your perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms and almost everything else as our bodies work hard to stay safe.

What kind of negative thoughts and emotions am I talking about here?

Whilst any negative thought or emotion can potentially impact upon your hormonal balance, your stress levels, your ability to sleep well at night, and even your menopausal symptoms, I’m primarily talking about those negative thoughts and emotions that we carry around with us.

They’re those constant thoughts that you’re not pretty enough, you’re not clever enough, you’re not tall enough or you’re generally not enough. These negative thoughts poison our minds and take control of our happiness. These thoughts influence how our menopause will be, how our relationship with our partner will be, the kind of career we choose, the amount of money we earn, and even how many kids we choose to have (or not.)

I’m sure you’ll agree that this is crazy and it has to stop.

Because whilst you believe these horrible, negative things about yourself, you aren’t just holding yourself a victim, you’re also holding your body a victim too. Whilst you can tweak your diet, take supplements, and get more exercise, if you’re not addressing what’s going on in your head, you’ll never really feel better. Those shadows will still keep following you. It’s time to break free.

Because you absolutely are good enough exactly as you are. You are lovable enough. You don’t have to do anything, be anything or even look in a certain way to be deserving of your own love and the love of the people around you.

How we can change our thoughts and emotions (and balance our hormones)?

The million pound question is, what exactly can we do to heal our thoughts and emotions and to feel good? How can we break these patterns of toxic thought when they’ve been formed over decades? Let me help.

1) Ask yourself if these statements are really true.

Next time you catch yourself having a negative thought, ask yourself ‘Is this really true? Do I have evidence of this?’

For example, let’s say that you never feel good enough. When was the first time you thought this?

“It was when I got my maths exam result at secondary school. Everyone knew I wasn’t good at maths. I knew this because I never hit 50%. That’s evidence, right?

“Then I didn’t get that job that I really worked hard to get- I came second. I failed. That's evidence that I’m not good enough, right?

“And I knew I wasn’t good enough when my partner left me for someone new, prettier, sexier and more interesting. That's evidence too, right?”

No is the answer. That isn’t evidence. That doesn’t mean that you’re not good enough.

Sure- you’ve done what most humans do and you’ve found ‘evidence’ to suggest that your beliefs are right. But that doesn’t mean that your beliefs are right. Far from it.

But when we find this so-called ‘evidence’ to back up our thought patterns, it becomes a habit and we feel that we have no control over our thoughts or then the way we feel.

2) Choose to believe the opposite.

What would happen or who would you be if the opposite was true? How would you live your life? How would your body feel? Would it be easier to relax, to feel calm or even to fall asleep?

Challenge these thoughts with the truth. Give yourself the other side of the story. Remind yourself of all the times when you triumphed, when you made a success of your goals, when you felt sexy, when you really believed in yourself. Break that pattern and remind yourself of what you’re capable of.

3) Create a positive affirmation or anchor

A great way to ensure that old negative thoughts patterns are lost and new thought patterns stick is to create a positive affirmation, or an anchor and use them often. I have many powerful affirmation and anchors which I can share with you.

Now don’t expect to see results overnight. As I said earlier, you’ve probably been trapped in these cycles of negative thoughts for a very long time. But simply by breaking the pattern, challenging your beliefs and replacing them with positive, self-affirming thoughts and emotions, you can feel much better about yourself. Of course, this means more confidence, greater self-esteem, greater happiness, and most of all, better, more vibrant health.

So please, don’t allow these negative thoughts to ruin your life. Take action and you will see amazing results. It could be the very thing that finally makes a difference to how you’re feeling.

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