Self-Help Hormone Plan for Peri-Menopause and Menopause: A Step by Step Guide

Are you still struggling with your hormones?

Finding it hard to make sense of everything you’ve learned about the peri-menopause, menopause and hormonal health, and harder still to put into practice in your own life?

I know... Hormones are incredibly complex and can be ridiculously confusing, especially if you’re trying to heal your menopause symptoms on your own.

Several of my clients have shared how they often feel overwhelmed with all the information that’s out there about hormonal health and holistic healing, especially if science wasn’t their favourite subject at high school. They don’t know how to make this information work for them.

So today, I’ve created a step-by-step guide to healing your hormones that will point you in the right direction (whilst keeping the science to a bare minimum).

I’ve broken it down into seven steps that take you through what you need to start doing to heal your menopausal and peri-menopausal symptoms, so you can still start healing your hormones even if you’re not yet in a position to work with me one-on-one.

Step 1. Find out your hormonal status

Before we do anything else, we need to look into what exactly is happening with your hormones, and discover which ones are out of whack. Otherwise, how else will we know which is the most effective holistic treatment plan for you?

There are several ways in which we can do this. We can start by working through my detailed hormone quiz (you can download it here for FREE) to give you a better idea on what is going on.

Once we’ve worked through the hormone quiz, we can take it further and conduct some hormonal tests to get a clearer, more comprehensive and more accurate picture of what’s going on. If this is what you choose, we’ll use something called The DUTCH Test (plus Organic Acid testing)

Step 2. Create a plan

Now we know which hormones are out of whack, let’s create a hormone rebalancing plan which we’ve tailor-made for your stage in the peri-menopause or menopause.

We’ll be doing this using a combination of factors such as your personal circumstances, dietary choices, exercise preferences, likes and dislikes and even how you feel about yourself, your body and your hormones to create something unique that works for you, and you alone.

There’s an important point that I’d really like to highlight here- the only completely successful way you can heal YOUR hormones is to follow a 100% customised hormone-healing plan.

Yes, you can read all the magazine articles, read the blogs and do what you can with what you know, but unless you can pinpoint the problem and have experience treating that exact peri-menopause or menopause problem, you won’t get the kind of results you deserve.

Step 3. Reduce your stress levels

Whether you have an issue with cortisol, progesterone, oestrogen, or any other hormones, it’s vital that you first start by addressing your stress levels.

And let’s face it- most of us are under stress. Having young kids at home (or older ones out in the world), having a stressful career, having relationship worries, caring for an elderly relative or having money worries takes its toll on how you’re feeling. This will have an impact on your hormones.

Great ways to reduce stress include getting more sleep, leaning on those around you for support when you need it, spending time doing what you love and spending time outside in the fresh air. Also consider learning to meditation, practice visualisation or self-hypnosis and learn breathing exercises which could help most during moments of crisis.

Start tweaking your diet to include more omega 3 fatty acids, more healthy fats and more protein too. It’s also essential to start balancing your blood sugar by eating breakfast within an hour of waking and avoiding skipping a meal.

[Read more about anxiety and stress here: ‘How to Beat Menopausal Anxiety and Stress ‘]

Step 4. Eat more veggies

Happy, healthy hormones need a happy, healthy diet that is rich in nutrients. The best way to do this is to start including more colourful fresh produce in your diet.

Forget what you’ve heard about getting your ‘five a day’ and instead aim for around ten if you can, aiming for around seven portions of veggies and two to three of fruit.

I know this might be challenging at first, especially if you’re used to eating pre-prepared foods or you’ve never been a fan of veggies, but stick with it. You’ll soon surprise yourself and start enjoying those lovely fresh flavours. Besides, your hormones, your skin, your mental health and your energy levels will definitely thank you for it!

Step 5. Overhaul your gut health

Did you know that your gut plays an important role in the health of your hormones?

The healthy bacteria in your gut help produce and balance your hormones, reduce inflammation, lift your mood, and give you all that energy you need to stay looking younger, longer. So it’s high time we all started taking care of it.

Great ways to do this include eating more probiotic and prebiotic foods, or taking a probiotic supplement.

[Did you read my recent blog on the link between gut health and the menopause? If not, read here.]

Step 6. Do a life laundry

When you think about your hormones, you likely think about everything we’ve spoken about before- what you’re eating, how much exercise you’re getting, and other habits connected to your physical body.

But did you know that your mind- what’s going on with your thoughts and your emotions- also has an important role to play in the health of your hormones.

Stressful or traumatic situations in the past, or current life stressors will increase levels of the stress hormone, cortisol which impacts upon your overall hormonal balance). This builds tension, resistance, and general unhappiness within your physical body, subconscious mind and conscious mind too.

Read more about the effects that this can have on hormones by scrolling to the bottom of this pace and reading one of my client's stories. 

Step 7. Radical self care

If you really want to beat your hormonal problems and make lifelong changes to your health and happiness, it’s time to start putting yourself first.

As women, we often neglect our needs, preferring to think of our kids, our partners, our parents or the rest of the world. It’s often only when we’ve taken care of them that we start thinking about ourselves. And even then, it’s often with a lingering sense of guilt or feeling that you shouldn’t be so ‘lazy’ or ‘self-indulgent’.

So I’m asking you to stop thinking like this and start being own health CEO. Start putting your own needs for a change.

Go to bed early when you need to, say no to things that either overwhelm you or you simply don’t fancy, ask for help when you need it, and avoid those people who drain your energy.

When you learn to be kinder to yourself, your body will calm, levels of those stress hormones like cortisol will drop, and most importantly of all, you’ll start feeling happier and in control of your life.

Take your health back into your own hands by reading through each of the blogs I’ve linked to, complete the hormone quiz and start making the lifestyle changes I’ve suggested.

You’ll soon be on the road to better hormonal health.

Of course, if you want to know more about the DUTCH test or you’d like to know more about working with me, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Client Stories

Healing after a messy divorce...

It’d been over ten years since I started the menopause and before I started work with Pamela, I felt that I’d actually been managing quite well. I’d managed to go through without any kind of hormonal replacement therapy, I was managing my weight and I was keeping active.

However, following a traumatic and long, drawn-out divorce, I’d found that actually, my ability to cope was getting less and less. That despite running half marathons and exercising, I was putting more weight on around my middle, I was feeling lethargic and I just didn’t feel like me.

I came to see Pamela because I trusted her. I’d previously done personal training with her and found her very supportive in helping me reach my goals. I wasn’t sure she could help me as I was so far past the menopause but she assured me that she could.

Going through the process of working with her was really enlightening. I felt at ease, I felt that she reassured me, I felt that she gave me back my confidence and the ability to be myself. The process was very enjoyable. It was challenging, and I found that it made me reflect a lot about what I wanted for myself and my future. It wasn’t just about controlling my hormones. Although I felt that being able to be more in control gave me the space to think.

I think the biggest thing for me was after four weeks...I can’t remember whether it was four or five weeks of work, I measured my waist and found that I had lost quite a few inches off my waist. This was a bit of a surprise as Pamela’s first instruction to me was to stop exercising, which was kind of the thing that had kept me going over the years. So I didn’t really expect to lose any inches with doing no exercise.

The most difficult thing about the process was actually trying to relax. I work at a fast pace, I have lots of friends, I entertain, I’m very sociable, I’ve got a high-powered job, and being told to relax was probably the hardest thing she could have told me to do. I just remember the blind panic when she asked me to have a bath. And not only was it that I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I had last had a bath, I couldn’t even remember whether I had a plug to put in the bath in the first place. But I did it, and now having a bath is part of my routine.

I think the best thing I’ve learned is to trust myself. I feel much more positive, I feel much more able to trust my gut instinct, and as part of the process with Pamela, we did some NLP, and finally, not only was I able to let go of the hurt going through such a messy divorce, but also be able to trust myself much more. I’m looking forward to the future, I’m very proud of myself, I’m very proud to be me.

Thank you Pamela. Couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you