Yoga for Menopause: Soothing Anxiety and Moving with Grace.

Why do Yoga for Menopause?

Yoga for Menopause can be a balm during the perimonopause or menopausal transition.

When we move towards the end of our reproductive years, our shifting hormones are recalibrating our whole system to get ready for the next phase of life.

This is a time of increased sensitivity, both physically and psychologically. We notice not only our bodies changing and adjusting, but also an unsettling of our mood and energy levels. Peri//menopause is a bit like adolescence in reverse.

While these huge shifts are occurring inside, on the outside there are a whole set of other stressors at play; the world we live in is constantly stimulating, encouraging us keep all those plates spinning, and suggesting that older age is something to resist.

For some women all this can make peri//menopause destabilizing and distressing. But it doesn’t have to be that way – Yoga can be a balm to support you through your peri//menopause journey with greater ease and confidence.

Research shows that one of the triggers for increased and prolonged peri//menopause symptoms is stress, which is where yoga – proven to reduce stress levels – can be really helpful. Yoga posture, breathing, and meditation practices offer simple but effective resources to calm the nervous system, and balance hormones – especially when aligned to suit peri//menopausal bodies.

Yoga for Menopause can also…

· Release physical stress and tension, including joint and muscle aches.
· Improve resilience to menopausal symptoms, such as hot flushes.

· Balance low moods and emotions, such as irritability, anxiety, and frustration.

· Recover energy lost through insomnia and fatigue.

· Invigorate slow metabolism, and boost heart health.

· Strengthen muscles, and build bone density.

Stepping out of the whirl of daily life and on to your yoga mat is in itself a gesture of kindness towards yourself. Rather than just pushing through, yoga teaches us how to deeply rest and give ourselves the Meno-PAUSE we need. Yoga also connects us to a sense of wholeness, and grounding self acceptance. We can acknowledge the shifts and changes we are going through, understand how to move in ways which boost our physical, mental and emotional health, and also learn how to listen to our intuition more so that it’s easier to understand what we need and when.

When we are empowered with a personalised toolkit of yoga techniques we can be reminded of our personal resilience and capacity to adapt to change.

~ Tiffy George

Tiffy George is running a Menopause Yoga workshop at Yogarise on 19th October in celebration of Menopause Awareness Day. This workshop is specifically tailored with yoga resources to support anxiety, overwhelm and fatigue. It will provide an enjoyable and safe space where women can come together and share their experiences, laugh and embrace the changes while learning form one another.

Tiffy George

Tiffy George has been practising yoga since the 1990s. After completing a one-year full-time yoga teacher training with YogaArts in Australia, she qualified as an International Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher in 2002. She has continued to explore and study many forms of yoga with various teachers over the years: Astanga, Iyengar, restorative and therapeutic yoga, breathwork and meditation, and yoga for pregnancy and beyond. Most recently her ever-deepening passion has led her to develop additional expertise in Menopause YogaTM with Petra Coveney, as well as yoga for pelvic health with Leslie Howard. Tiffy’s classes and workshops offer a therapeutic route to finding and unravelling tension and moving towards greater ease and balance.