7 bad habits that can impact menopause

Today's topic

Today on A.Vogel Talks Menopause, I take a look at bad habits that can make your menopause worse.

Last week, I was talking about good habits to employ to help you through menopause. So today, I thought I would look at some of the bad habits that we may be doing regularly, not realising just how big an impact they can have on your menopause.

Bad habits you should avoid or limit during menopause & why

1. Smoking

There are many health drawbacks to smoking, but unfortunately, when it comes to menopause there can be a few more which you may not know about.

As your oestrogen starts to fall, it can affect the mucous membranes anywhere in the body and that includes the lungs. So, for some women, lung tissue can start to dry out. And this can cause wheeziness, or coughing, or even difficulty in breathing deeply.

So, if you're smoking as well and this happens, you are possibly making yourself much more vulnerable to lung infections, and colds, and flu.

The other main drawback is it is known that if you smoke for a long time, you may end up approaching menopause maybe two to three years earlier than you would have done normally.

So, this is one to maybe think about stopping, even before you reach menopause if possible.

You may also be interested in my blog, '5 menopause symptoms made worse by smoking'.

2. Fad diets

Weight gain is very common during menopause. The problem is that if we end up going on low-calorie, low-fat diets, these will trigger your nervous system, flight-or-fight will kick in, and your body will try to save every ounce of fat that it can.

And for some women, this can mean putting weight on rather than losing it. So, in this situation, it's really important to have a sensible diet with enough healthy fats and good nutritious food. If you give your body everything it needs, then the flight-or-fight is not going to kick in and it can be much easier to lose weight.

Some women have asked me about the 5:2 diet. This is a diet where you're going very, very low calorie for two days a week. For the majority of women, it will probably make you feel worse. I don't recommend it. But it's one of these situations. If you want to try it, try it.

If after a week or two, if you feel great, then by all means continue with it. If, however, you start to feel really tired, if you get headaches, if you find that the weight is not shifting, then at this particular time, this diet is probably not for you.

3. Stress eating

We all do it. I do it. If I'm really stressed, if I'm feeling down, if things are looking a bit tough, I think of chocolate cake. So, we all want these lovely, comforting foods when we feel that little bit down or unwell. The problem with these foods is that they tend to be high sugar, high fat, high calorie. And they will not help with our weight control.

Also, these foods, very often, if you eat too much of them, especially the high-sugar foods, they will trigger your blood sugars to go up really quickly, which results in them crashing quickly as well, making you feel worse and end up reaching for more.

And it can get to the point where you find yourself bingeing on lots of sweet things for example instead of eating just one biscuit, you end up eating the whole packet and then you feel really guilty afterward.

So here, it's about doing other things to support your nervous system when you're feeling a bit low. You've got things like your magnesium intake. You've got herbs like maca, or ashwagandha, or our lovely Stress Relief Daytime.

Also, make sure that you eat little and often of good food that will keep your blood sugars level and that will help stop your sweet cravings.

4. Skipping meals

If you were going on a long car journey, you wouldn't even think about not checking the petrol and the water in your car. You would make sure that everything is tiptop and that your car had enough fuel to get you to where you need to go. In menopause, your body is doing a long, long journey every day, and it needs plenty of fuel to keep it going.

Breakfast is probably the most important meal of the day. For those of you who think, "I can't face anything at that time of the morning." Then maybe look at just a protein powder drink. You can get this from your local health food shop. You can get really good, dairy-free, plant-based ones, so it doesn't matter if you are vegetarian or vegan. These will be suitable for everybody.

And these will give you a nice range of vitamins, and minerals, and nutrients in a simple drink that will just keep you going until you are ready to eat.

5. Drinking alcohol to help you sleep

We know that falling oestrogen can affect our ability to fall asleep. And there is nothing worse than lying there at night, tossing and turning, longing for sleep and it doesn't come.

While drinking alcohol can help you fall asleep, it can interfere with your sleep quality.

When you drink alcohol, your brain produces chemicals to help counteract the alcohol. So, these are chemicals that will try and keep you alert and try and keep you awake. When you've had that really deep sleep with alcohol and it usually turns out to be about four hours, so you'll get a really deep but restless sleep.

Once the alcohol has worn off, you will wake up but all those excitatory chemicals in the brain will keep going and you will not be able to fall off to sleep no matter what you do. And sometimes, it can be another two, three, four hours before these chemicals decrease enough for you to get back to sleep.

If you want to drink alcohol during menopause, it should be a nice treat now and again and not used to help you sleep. If you need something to help you sleep, you could look at our herbal sleep remedy Dormeasan. You can also look at taking a magnesium supplement with your evening meal, just to help you calm you down for sleep.

6. Relying on caffeine too much for energy boosts

I do go on about this but the number of women who get back to me, who say they've cut it down, and it's made such a difference. I'm not saying cut it out altogether because I love a little cup of coffee once a day. But I have mine at about 9:30 in the morning, and that is usually enough for me.

If I drink coffee in the afternoon, it gives me palpitations. That 3pm cup of coffee in the afternoon, can also affect your sleep! The caffeine can still be whizzing around your system and it can be interfering with your sleep.

So, if you feel that you need a cup of coffee, then try and have it as early as possible but not first thing in the morning. Please don't have a cup of coffee as your first drink of the day because that will rev your nervous system up. It will trigger hot flushes and night sweats. It will trigger palpitations. It will give you headaches. It will shoot your blood sugar levels up and you will start craving sweet things from early on in the morning.

So, make sure if you have that cup of coffee a day, to have it after your breakfast, and you're getting the best of both worlds then.

7. Too many late nights

We are busy people. We have lots to do and sometimes, the day isn't long enough to fit everything in. But too many late nights will affect our body in all sorts of different ways.

We know if you don't get enough sleep, it can contribute to weight gain. It can contribute to anxiety. Our body doesn't get enough rest and recuperation. When we're going through menopause, the physical and emotional changes that go on are huge, which drains our body of energy.

So we need a good night's sleep to rest, rebalance, and re-energise ourselves. So, again, try and treat yourself to a couple of early nights every week if you possibly can. And that can make your body more robust and more able to stand the stresses and strains of the following day.

And that can also mean that your general menopause symptoms can decrease as well. Sleep is the one medicine that we can't do without. And sometimes, we do forget that.

I hope you found this one helpful. There are lots of other bad habits as there are lots of other good habits. So, this is just a little picture of some of them and I hope they will help you.

If any of you have other things that you've done and have realised that they have made your menopause symptoms worse and you've done things to change it, then please share them with us.

Until next week, take care.