Why Joy loves Downward Dog
Many of you are familiar with my constant companion and office assistant - my dog Joy.
But did you know one of her favourite positions for me to take is downward dog…and why is that? She thinks it’s playtime…as she licks my face no end, making me laugh, so more often than not it does turn into playtime. She’s a clever one!
I love yoga, I do miss my regular classes filled with other people in the local community hall but the great thing is we can still attend on line.
But why is yoga such a great tool in menopause?
For that Niamh Daly from www.yinstinctyoga.com has written a blog about how she came to create Yoga for the Stages of Menopause
Anxiety, sleeplessness, weight gain, low mood, heart health, brain health…
What unites all these things? Peri/menopause!
Looking for advice on how to ease these struggles? You’ll notice two recommendations coming up again and again:
exercise
easing stress.
What two things are available in a yoga session?
Yep! Exercise and easing stress!
When I began my perimenopause journey in 2013, like most women, I was afraid. And just as in the rest of society, I was dismayed to see that the yoga world makes barely a reference to menopause, and had no specific training in this area for teachers, despite the fact that 80% of Yoga students are women!
So I dived into endless months of research, and taught myself what was going on in our bodies, our minds, and emotions, so that I could figure out how to help myself and others. Again and again, exercise and easing stress came up as the two most important, and immediately accessible things that would help support this huge change, in the short and longer term.
As a yoga teacher, I realized much of the care I needed might be right under my nose, and if I could adapt Yoga to really target the changing needs of women in perimenopause and beyond, I could create a rounded resource to support my students physically, mentally and emotionally. At that point I had no idea how grateful women would be to have a safe space to understand and be understood, and to feel that care for their changing experience was a priority.
Oestrogen and progesterone buffer our systems against the effects of stress, and help us recover. Exercise is essentially a stress: it triggers a release of cortisol. In addition, our cortisol levels tend to rise as oestrogen declines. Without those buffers, many women notice they don’t recover as readily after exercise and other stressors, as they used to before perimenopause.
After stress, any mammal will rest. Except us non-stop humans! And if women in peri/menopause don’t offer their bodies the extra rest they need after a run, or even an argument! cortisol can stay more elevated than it used to. If you don't recover, and then you stress your body again, you are setting the stage for chronic inflammation.
There’s a well-researched relationship of chronic stress/high cortisol to:
sleeplessness
low mood
weight gain
heart and brain health
osteoporosis
anxiety
We need to keep exercising though: stressing our body a bit promotes strength, mobility, brain health, heart health and emotional health. So how do we find balance? Because so many other factors are contributing to excessive levels of stress hormones, our body needs to learn how to come back from stress to Rest and Restore (parasympathetic nervous system).
Most Yoga offers exercise and de-stressors (like breathing, meditation and conscious rest) in each practice, right?
But a Yoga for the Stages of Menopause teacher is trained to help you:
Understand what’s happening in your body at this time
Use yoga in ways that target the changing needs of your changing body
Help you to adapt and find the right kind/level of general exercise for you
Through "functional Yoga", encourage more mobility and less pain in your joints (unfortunately, some traditional yoga can also damage joints in the long term)
Build muscular strength (thereby also reviving your metabolism, which may help with unwelcome weight gain)
Target re-building of bone tissue (with unique ways of using the body, as well as weights/resistance bands, to maximize this)
Release your feel-good hormones which have wide-ranging health benefits (Yinstinct Yoga motto: No Pleasure, No Treasure!)
Feel supported and understood, without judgement, whether you are on HRT or not
Empower you by giving you researched, easy to use tools from Yoga and beyond, to help with sleep, anxiety, and more
Give you confidence in your body again, and a sense that you can navigate this time with more equilibrium.
The great news is the number of such teachers worldwide is growing! In 2020 I created and launched the Certificate in Teaching Yoga for the Stages of Menopause, to bring you teachers who are educated about, and understand your needs. Over 100 teachers worldwide have graduated so far, and are offering courses in Ireland, the USA, the UK and Europe. Spread the word! Just like Yoga for Pregnancy, Yoga for menopause is finally here!
Niamh lives in Ireland by the sea in Greystones. Knowing our bodies need variety, she also hikes, and is one of those crazy Irish year-round swimmers (but she doesn't own a dry robe!!). She runs classes, workshops and retreats online, including nutrition for menopause (and residential retreats in Co Clare). You can find her at www.yinstinctyoga.com or by email at niamh@yinstinctyoga.com
