The transitional period of menopause can pose mental health challenges. Read more about rebalancing your mental health during menopause, including strategies for coping with mood swings and more.
Around the average age of 50, women undergo hormonal changes that mark the end of their reproductive years. It’s said that you’re in menopause when it’s been 12 months since your last period, and your menstruation ends for good.
The years of menopause create a transitional period in your life that comes with unique frustrations, joys, challenges, and opportunities. At Zephyr Health of Arvada, Colorado, Dr. Janna Gelderman-Moffett, Certified North American Menopause Practitioner (NCMP), supports her patients with both physical and mental health care during menopause.
Understanding the impact of menopause on your mental health helps you make this transition with greater ease, comfort, and grace. Talk to Dr. Gelderman-Moffett about your mental health concerns related to menopause now, and benefit from her compassionate approach and extensive expertise.
Hormonal changes and mental health challenges
When you go through perimenopause—a period of hormonal changes leading up to menopause—and menopause, you experience profound changes in the production levels of hormones such as estrogen. Your hormones regulate physical, mental, and emotional functions, including your metabolism, sleep, and moods.
Hormonal swings and changes of menopause aren’t that different from hormonal changes of puberty, yet they can make you just as stressed as you remember being back in high school. Menopause may come with symptoms like mood swings, increased irritability, or insomnia that are detrimental to your social relationships and mental health balance.
This can be a lot to handle in terms of your mental health. You may benefit from hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to rebalance your mind and body during and after menopause. There are also natural ways to rebalance your system and relieve hormone-related stress.
Mental health and your menopause transition
Menopause also affects your mental health in terms of your self-image and your concerns about aging. You might find that this period of your life challenges you to confront hidden assumptions about yourself and your role in the world.
For some women, the reproductive changes of menopause bring a total realignment of self-regard. If you’ve defined your value by your ability to reproduce, menopause may shake some of your foundational views and threaten your self-esteem.
It’s important to know that the end of your reproductive years doesn’t mean that you don’t still have a lot to give as an individual, a partner, a family member, a lover, and more.
With the right mental health support, you can overcome menopause feeling strengthened in your self-knowledge and understanding of your own value, freed from doubts and fears that may have haunted earlier parts of your life. Mental health care can help with emotions of depression, anxiety, or self-confidence relating to menopause.
Supporting your life-long mental health
At Zephyr Health, our team is here to support you physically and mentally as you go through the changes of menopause. Dr. Gelderman-Moffett can recommend mental health support options as well as physical treatments and therapies to benefit mind and body during menopause.
Call now or book your appointment online and learn more about mental health support and menopause today.