Menopause and Exercise – Hot flushes and sweaty exercise; do they mix?

Women I hear you; you’re already suffering with hot flushes why would you go and make yourself hotter by exercising? Well there are good reasons to and there are ways to make exercise a little more comfortable for you.

I hate to start with the doom and gloom but let’s get it out the way first right!!

Unfortunately, with this change comes an increase risk of chronic conditions osteoporosis, breast cancer and heart conditions. Not only this but our waistline typically increases with menopause and that put us at risk of further chronic conditions like diabetes. Exercising regularly will help you maintain a healthy weight and reduce these risks.

We’ve got to get strong and stay strong!

All my strong women out there let’s get stronger; we need to do some form of resistance training to keep our bones healthy. No this doesn’t mean throwing weights around if that’s not your thing, you can use your body weight to complete exercises.

Your muscles are already sore, and your joints ache won’t exercise make this worse?

Yes, exercise makes your muscles sore we call this delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS for short however this won’t make your muscle aches worse. Contrary to popular belief exercise is good for pain! Exercise helps us access our natural pain medication in our brain through hormones. By making our muscles stronger we can help take pressure off our joints and ease the aches.

What’s sleep????

You are tired and your sleep is disturbed, you don’t have the energy to exercise however exercise gives us more energy and improves our sleep. Sounds paradoxical right, burning energy gives us more? Its true our body becomes more efficient at creating energy. Regular exercise also has great sleep benefits, it improves our sleep quality and helps us sleep deeper for longer.

So, with this change try to maintain the habit of regular exercise but change it to help with the symptoms of menopause.

If you’d like to find out more information book in with our women’s health specialist Eden or maybe even, try our women’s health class.