Stress and It’s Impact in Peri

Stress, we now know, possibly has the greatest impact on our long-term health outcomes. But even closer to home, stress can deeply impact our experience of perimenopause and how smoothly we navigate through this transition.

Okay, what is NORMAL during Perimenopause?

• Fluctuating cycles 26-34 days
• Night sweats before period
• Lighter periods
• Shorter periods

This is what we should be experiencing as our ovarian function starts to decline, and our estrogen slowly decreases.

However, a LOT of us are going through perimenopause with a hormone imbalance, so we might be experiencing more extreme symptoms like:

• Heavy periods
• Night sweats during ovulation
• Longer periods
• Ovarian pain
• Mood swings – anxiety, anger, rage
• Weight gain (particularly around the middle)
• Insomnia (difficulty falling asleep and/or getting back to sleep once awake)
• Low libido
• Fatigue and brain fog

If we are out of balance, our body is always giving us signs, and in this instance – our bodies are giving us strong clues that there is some hormone imbalance going on. So let’s use that information to create a more optimal state in our body for her to do the work that we need her to do.

You might be thinking that the biggest shifts you need to make are in your food and exercise. Decades of programming have told us this, however, it is only partly true.

But before we kick things off, it’s important to remember that our body’s primary purpose is survival and reproduction. And it doesn’t matter that our lives are in so many ways a world away from our primitive ancestors, our bodies have not evolved that much since. So when our body senses anything is out of balance, it is interpreted as danger and our body reacts accordingly.

So, with this in mind – we need to look at STRESS and how that is impacting our experience.

Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone. In fact, the human body is designed to experience stress and react to it (in doses!). When you experience changes or challenges (stressors), your body produces physical and mental responses.

That’s STRESS in the most common definition.

But what causes stress? Yes, stress is grief or chronic illness, caring for an ill loved one, a breakup, a lost job, a big move, or a massive deadline at work, but stress can also be caused by busy days, annoying jobs, frantic mornings, too many emails, overdue bills, a traffic jam, fighting kids — these too are all stressful events. So, while you might feel like you are not in a stressful job or going through a major life disruption right now, there are little things that many of us are doing every single day that are STRESSING our bodies out… and it really adds up over time!

There are two types of stress:

1. ACUTE stress – where your body will release a shot of cortisol to respond to an immediate threat. As soon as that threat has passed, cortisol generally returns to normal. This response is perfect for when we step off the footpath and didn’t see the car flying around the corner. Cortisol gives us the shot of energy to jump out of the way – as soon as that threat passes, our cortisol level should return to normal.

The problem comes about in modern-day when stress is literally everywhere, and our body cannot tell the difference between a car about to run you over or your child freaking out because they are about to miss the bus. Or a pending deadline at work. Or a fight you had with your husband. Or an exhausting workout you had that morning… our beautiful body reads ALL of this stress as the same thing and in each instance releases a little cortisol.

Now you can begin to see that even over the course of a regular, not-so-stressful day, we are exposed to so many forms of micro stress (and of course some big stress too) that begin to accumulate in our system.

2. By now, your cortisol levels are high, and there is little break for them to return back down. We now start to experience longer-term or CHRONIC Stress. The real issue with this is that our bodies are not designed to be experiencing high levels of cortisol (stress) for sustained periods like we are, and this now begins to impact our entire hormonal system.

But WHAT is chronic stress actually doing inside your body?

Chronic stress negatively impacts us because cortisol takes precedence over every other hormone — remember, it was a matter of life or death. And given that all hormones impact all other hormones, if cortisol is high, over time it can begin to compromise every other hormone in your system (including your sex hormones), unless we actively do something about it.

During perimenopause, our body’s level of cortisol is naturally higher as we are less resilient to it, PLUS we are probably at peak stress given everything that we have on our plate right now – this heightened state of cortisol might start to show up as the Peri symptoms we discussed above.

Now, this is where it becomes a little more complicated – you might be thinking, but I am a pretty chill person – not much gets me upset… but stress can also come from our lifestyle – our lack of sleep, the exercise we’re doing and even our nutrition.

Ways you might be stressing yourself out without knowing it:

• NOT EATING BREAKFAST or EATING A HIGH CARB BREAKFAST
• DRINKING COFFEE BEFORE YOUR FIRST MEAL
• EXCESSIVE, HARD WORKOUTS (might be long cardio or longer HIIT training)
• TRAINING FASTED
• IMBALANCED BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS (not being strategic in HOW you are eating your foods)
• LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING
• NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP (7-9 hrs every day) or GOOD QUALITY SLEEP

How many of these can you relate to?

What we find interesting is that even two of the most incredible tools that we have at our disposal to uplevel our health – our nutrition and exercise – may, in fact, be negatively contributing to us feeling so down – if not done correctly!

What are some ways to reduce your stress?

FIRST UP – AWARENESS. Becoming aware of how you respond to stress in your life is the #1 place to start. Each of us will respond differently to the exact same stressor, and what we need to be aware of is how we respond and is there a better way for me to deal with/respond to that situation?

PRIORITIZE YOUR SLEEP. It is difficult to remain calm and be organized and firing on all cylinders if we are not getting the right amount of sleep. Adults should be getting 7-9 hours of good quality sleep every night. Work out how much you need by monitoring your energy during the day. To improve your sleep, be mindful of how you spend your nights and ditch some of your less than desirable nighttime habits in favor of extra sleep. Sleep is really the foundation of all of your health.

GET INTO A REGULAR RHYTHM. Wake up at the same time, go to sleep at the same time, and eat at the same time to help balance your hormones. This will help you optimize circadian & infradian rhythm. Your body loves predictability. Sun exposure within 30 minutes of waking also assists with the sleep/wake cycle – making it both easier to fall asleep at night and easier to wake in the mornings.

FUEL YOUR BODY PROPERLY. Focus on protein & fiber and fueling yourself before and after training. Do not skip meals (eat every ~4 hours)! Avoid alcohol (or at least limit your intake). Drink caffeine AFTER breakfast.

ACTIVELY RELAX WITH MINDFULNESS. Yoga, warm baths, or meditation. Stop and BREATHE (deep belly breaths). Journal your heart out! You choose. Any or all of these amazing techniques work – it’s up to you to choose what works best for you. And just do it!

Watch YOUR EXERCISE – MOVE YOUR BODY AND LIFT WEIGHTS. Gentle and regular light exercise (especially outdoors!) + resistance training 2-3 x/week. Walking as often as you can, ~look at current step count and increase it! Break up your work days with different movements and postures (standing/sitting/walking). Limit or cut out long, exhausting cardio and HIIT workouts.

PRIORITIZE YOUR SLEEP. Be mindful of how you spend your nights and ditch some of your less than desirable nighttime habits in favor of extra sleep. This is really the foundation of all of your health.

Now while these are not the only things that might be impacting your perimenopause experience, these lifestyle suggestions will go an incredibly LONG way to helping you experience this transition a lot more pleasantly. If you feel like you have ticked all of these boxes but you are still not feeling great, it might be time to speak with a professional as it could be something else.

Let us know where you are going to start in the comments below.

Anna & Em xo