Menopause is not a destination; it is a journey.

Menopause is not a destination; it is a journey.  

Many of us watched our mothers, our grandmothers, our sisters, and our friends go through menopause and we fear that our journey will look the same or at the least mimic the journeys of the women in our lives.  We watched them suffer and, sometimes, subconsciously, created our own beliefs about what our journey will be.  

I want to remind you that you are unique; your story is your own and you have the choice how the beginning, middle, and end of your life-story will be written.

We are all made up of many parts.  Part of you is responsible for making sure you wake up in the morning while another part of you is in control of creating the narrative that surrounds a specific event in your life.  Each of these parts work synergistically together to create the whole you.  

Every cell of your body works together with all of the other cells to ensure your survival and continued life experience.  When we arrive at the point of menopause, when our bodies have determined that bringing new life into the world has passed, many of us suffer symptoms of depression and anxiety.  Sometimes disease sets in and many of us go through major crises of identity.  Our minds, bodies, and spirits are inseparable, and they will remind us, as disease can manifest within, that we can no longer ignore any one part for too long.  We need to consider and treat out body and mind as one holistically.

The first step to treating ourselves holistically and with love is to understand hormonally what is happening during the menopausal process.  On the of key hormones, we don’t always consider in the menopause conversation is testosterone.

The role of Testosterone 

As a woman you should have a certain amount of testosterone, it is a smaller level than males have but we still have it and it is important.  You have a certain amount of testosterone regulated throughout your life, increasing a little bit more during puberty and then again right around the same age that you experiences hormonal fluctuations as you evolve into your perimenopausal body when levels then start to decrease.  As a woman you should still maintain healthy levels of androgen and testosterone and where that shifts and changes for a lot of women is when you have a lot of hormonal issues.  Other factors, for example excess stress and sometimes medications can decrease your testosterone production.

These hormonal imbalances contribute even more to that brain fog we strongly associate with the menopause.  Testosterone imbalances can increase brain fog, lack of memory and overall cognition depilation, it can also contribute to a decrease in muscle mass and the ability to maintain your weight as well as contribute to weight gain, weight loss, resistance, as well as libido and vaginal dryness.

Those are the main dysfunctional experiences that can happen with having decreased testosterone levels in both perimenopause and menopause women.

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To learn more about PMT and hormonal imbalance join LabFemme at www.labaroma-education.com.  Empowerment begins when we understand the challenging but beautiful world of hormones while also embracing and embodiment our formidable femme energy.

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