Tag Archives: menopause

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AMH News

How yoga can help during the menopause

With October marking Menopause Awareness Month, we’ve been speaking to various women who are all raising awareness of the menopause and helping other women navigate this significant stage of their lives. Having previously featured Dr Siobhan Kirk, along with Roisin Hillman from the Menopause Together charity and Siobhan Kearney from Menopause NI, our final blog as part of Menopause Month is with local yoga instructor, Lisa Copeland. 

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Specifically trained in menopause-specific yoga – and with 20 years general yoga teaching experience – Lisa explained how yoga can help to alleviate perimenopause and menopausal symptoms, both physical and mental.

“I think yoga always helps women – it helps everybody,” she said. “It has certainly been the anchor I needed. What the menopause yoga course does is it gives women the tools that they need to manage each stage of the menopause.”

According to research carried out by Abiç and Yilmaz Vefikuluçay (2024), the psychological, somatic and urogenital symptoms of menopause may be reduced by yoga. Their findings came from a randomised control study which focused on menopausal women aged between 40-60 years old who completed 60 minutes of yoga twice a week for 10 weeks.

Meanwhile, Petra Coveney, whom Lisa trained under and who created the world’s first accredited yoga and wellbeing programme for women experiencing menopause in 2013 – Menopause Yoga™️ – says the following on her website:

“Yoga is scientifically proven to reduce stress and inflammation, which exacerbates many menopause symptoms such as anxiety, hot flushes, joint and muscle pain. Yoga may also help with sleep, digestion, fatigue, general mental health and may help prevent falls and fractures by developing posture, balance (proprioception), inner sensory awareness (interception) and muscle tone.”

With yoga for menopause increasingly popular amongst women, Lisa pointed out that it wasn’t something which would magically solve all menopause-related issues, but was best used alongside various lifestyle changes. These include things such as diet, weight training to increase bone density and potential HRT use – with regular reviews of what you’re doing the key to ensuring a holistic and more effective approach to managing symptoms.

“It’s important to consider the effect that low oestrogen has on the body during menopause,” she said. “According to the Royal Osteoporosis Society, one in two women over the age of 50 will break a bone due to poor bone health and replacing oestrogen, as well as making lifestyle changes, can help reduce this statistic. Cardiovascular health can also be affected during the menopause, as well as mental health.”

While the feedback has been incredibly positive from women who have attended Lisa’s yoga sessions, she said her initial motivation to become a menopause yoga teacher was very personal.

“I’m 55 years old now and I was going through the perimenopause in my late 40s but didn’t realise I was,” she said. “I hadn’t even heard of the word ‘perimenopause’. My own experience of this journey called menopause has been challenging and difficult. Yoga for menopause is a very specific course and Petra Coveney approaches this from a scientific and clinical basis, so when I saw the opportunity to do the course I just went for it.

“I came to it when I was post-hysterectomy, so I had been going through a very rough time, both physically and mentally. It was another aspect of my menopause journey. I did the course for myself first and then I thought I could decide if I wanted to share it. It was so beneficial to me.”

What to expect during menopause yoga classes

With the course for menopause yoga comprising four weeks, each session takes women through the key stages of the menopause journey, incorporating discussion, breathing techniques and modified yoga poses. There is also mindful meditation, while Lisa always signposts women to useful sources of information at the end of sessions, as well as providing healthy snacks and nutrition information.

She said that one of the first things women said about yoga for menopause was that it offered an inclusive and welcoming space where they felt safe and able to share aspects of their own journeys. Indeed, classes typically comprise 10-12 women and always begin with a shared conversation session, where attendees can discuss as much as they wish about their own peri/menopause experiences.

“It’s very helpful, that protection aspect of it, which helps with feelings of overwhelm and exhaustion,” said Lisa. “I’ve found that many of the women who come to me are absolute beginners and have never come to yoga before. They’re attracted to it because it’s specific to menopause.

“They’ve maybe felt in the past that yoga wasn’t for them and that you had to be really fit and flexible. So, when it’s specially tailored to their needs, it’s more appealing. They get the information they need – with take-home techniques and tips that are easy to put into their day – and leave feeling empowered and enlightened.

“It’s been a real eye-opener for me, for the need for women to get into a space like that. And then, of course, it’s great fun as well.”

In week one, women receive an overview of the menopause journey and what they might expect throughout this, although of course, it’s very much a unique experience for each person. Lisa added that the cooling breathing techniques incorporated into the sessions helped with feelings of overwhelm and anxiety, which can often cause the heat to rise.

“The mental health issues can also really rear their head during menopause,” she said. “For example, a fear of driving. There are grounding and relaxing techniques I teach on the course to help with this, which again are easy to use and access in the moment.”

Adapting sessions to suit the needs of the room at any given time, Lisa rounds off the four-week programme with “a lovely class in the final week where women are encouraged to find their ‘second spring’ and find that they’ve come full circle.”

She added: “A lot of women come back for another four weeks. There’s such a need for this. I remember one woman, who had never done yoga before, said at the end of the course that it had been an eye-opener and that every woman should do it, as it looked after both your body and your mind.

“I think the compassion element is really interesting. Women can be very hard on themselves. From a mental health perspective, that’s the worst thing you can say to someone – to pick yourself up and get on with it. But we often do it with the menopause. For me, it’s always about meeting women where they are and teaching from my personal experience.”

Also a qualified reflexologist, Lisa provides bespoke treatments for menopausal clients. Again, she teaches techniques that women can then take home, as part of her mission for educating and empowering women.

For anyone considering coming along to a yoga for menopause class, she said there were multiple benefits, not least in the fact the sessions created that safe space where women could share their thoughts and emotions – something which supports their mental health.

“These emotions they’re feeling – particularly that really low mood – is all part of the menopause journey, but the classes show that there’s help there and they can also help themselves,” she said. “Anhedonia – that feeling of nothing being of interest to you anymore – becomes really prevalent in menopause. It can become a vicious cycle.

“For some women, the yoga for menopause classes are the very first time they’ve shared anything about their personal journey. Quite a lot of relief comes with that. It’s a very bespoke programme that has been tried and tested and I just love it.”

Why women love menopause yoga

“Menopause yoga with Lisa was the most fantastic and relaxing shared experience with women at different stage of their menopause journey. It really helped me sleep and my sanity and set me up for the week.”

“I attended Yoga for Menopause and it has been a lifeline for me.”

“Every session was enlightening. I left each class with a sense of calm and inner strength.”

“It’s a beautiful four-week journey which takes you through the four seasons of the change. I never thought positively about menopause before this programme and now I’m embracing my ‘second spring’ with much more understanding and compassion.”

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AMH News

Menopause, mental health and the workplace

With October marking Menopause Awareness Month, there’s no better time to get talking about the perimenopause and menopause.

For the third of our menopause-related blogs this month, we’ve subsequently spoken to Siobhan Kearney, founder and CEO of Menopause NI, an organisation which raises awareness of the menopause and delivers training to workplaces, communities and the statutory sector. Established in 2020, Menopause NI draws on evidence-based research for all of its workshops – currently delivered by Siobhan – with clinical insight and support provided by Dr Gwyneth Hinds.

Siobhan Kearney of Menopause NI.

Having spent more than 25 years working in senior leadership roles across the community and voluntary sector in Northern Ireland, Siobhan was a CEO within the mental health sector when her own experience with the menopause began. As is the case with many, however, when she began feeling low, anxious and overwhelmed in a job she had hitherto been managing just fine, the menopause didn’t even cross her mind.

While there are a variety of both physical and mental health symptoms associated with the perimenopause (which occurs in the lead-up to menopause itself), Siobhan said that the mental health symptoms could be particularly hard to identify and understand. Indeed, along with other menopause symptoms, they can often cause people to reduce their working hours and even leave their jobs altogether. 

“When I’m doing presentations to workplaces it seems that the common physical health symptoms of menopause are easier to talk about,” she said. “When it comes to the mental health impact, however, I don’t think people fully understand this. The menopause is also still really stigmatised. It can still be very difficult for people to talk about it, let alone talk about the mental health side of things alongside that.”

Although Menopause NI is now helping to increase awareness and understanding of the perimenopause and menopause, when Siobhan started her own menopause journey, she didn’t understand what was happening to her. “That’s why I do what I do now, at Menopause NI,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘Here I am, a chief executive and I’m feeling anxious with hot flushes and palpitations’. I didn’t know it was the perimenopause. When I began to understand, however, I then thought – why did I not know this? It actually contributed to me leaving that job.”

Impact of menopausal mental health on careers  

Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2023) found that, in a survey of 2,000 employed women aged 40-60, more than half said they had been “unable to go into work at some point due to menopause symptoms.”

They further found that two-thirds of the women (67%) reported their most common menopause symptoms as being “psychological, such as mood disturbances, anxiety, depression, memory loss, panic attacks, loss of confidence and reduced concentration.” Meanwhile, approximately one in six people (17%) had considered leaving their job “due to a lack of support in relation to their menopause symptoms,” with a further 6% having actually left work.

“It’s important to get the recognition that perimenopause can have a real impact on your mental health and wellbeing,” said Siobhan. “Things like anxiety, loss of confidence, low mood, depression, feeling overwhelmed, having difficulty making decisions… For myself, I remember thinking – where did the real Siobhan go?”

She added that depression associated with menopause was hormone-related but that many were still being prescribed anti-depressants by their GPs, instead of being offered HRT. Indeed, the NICE Guidelines state that there is no clear evidence that anti-depressants such as SSRIs or SNRIs ease low mood in menopausal people who have not been diagnosed with depression.

Meanwhile, for those who may have pre-existing mental health issues, Siobhan added that it was important to discuss this with GPs, so extra steps could be taken. Having GPs who were attentive to the perimenopause was key, she said, in supporting those navigating this transitional period of their lives.

“Menopause happens at a very very busy stage in our lives,” she said. “So, maybe you’re not thinking about the menopause at all. Perimenopause can last anywhere for up to ten years, however. So, when you think about experiencing these mental health symptoms for up to ten years, perimenopause can be the most challenging time for women.”

Reflecting on her own menopause experience, Siobhan said that, once she began to understand what was happening to her, she was able to take back control and better manage her symptoms. She did this through a combination of lifestyle changes and HRT, working on herself in terms of reassessing her diet and exercise. She added that, while HRT was “very helpful” for her own symptoms, the menopause was a “very individual journey for every woman” and that each person should find what worked for them.

“The good news is that symptoms tend to diminish over time,” she said. “A lot of people who are post-menopausal say things have got back to a new normal. For me, I’m a different version of myself now. I’m a stronger person – and more confident. I no longer care what people think about me.”

Realising that there was an obvious deficit when it came to awareness about the menopause and how to handle it, Siobhan decided that someone needed to do something about that.

“That’s why I started to develop menopause awareness programmes and workshops and looking at clinical governance,” she said. “My main programme was 12 hours, so then it was all about tweaking that for workplaces. I knew it needed an identity of its own.”

Tackling menopause in the workplace

Keen to create a culture in workplaces shaped around understanding menopause and supporting staff who are menopausal, Siobhan said that being able to have conversations at work about these issues was key – and “so empowering.”

“To have an understanding manager on the other side of those conversations is so important,” she said. “It’s all about having that balance. The statistics support the fact that the mental health symptoms of menopause are some of the most common symptoms reported by women and yet, they’re the most difficult to talk about. 

“When I speak to companies, a lot of them want me to speak to their management team first and also, to consider what legislation is in place to protect staff experiencing menopausal symptoms. When speaking with the staff, however, that requires a more proactive approach, looking at how to build up the confidence to have that conversation and to look after yourself.”

With the feedback from women who have attended Siobhan’s workshops overwhelmingly positive, there is now an increasing demand for these. She added that many men attended them as well, talking about their wives or partners and how they had changed due to a loss of confidence or anxiousness resulting from menopause.

Siobhan also shares her own menopause experience at the events, using humour to help ease people into the conversation.

“I’m doing all this for the generation coming behind me,” she said. “We need to talk about the menopause with confidence and competence and understanding. That’s a legacy I would like to leave – that women are confident about the menopause. It’s not embarrassing. There’s no shame attached. We need to educate about it and provide access to good information.”

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AMH News

Tackling the Menopause Together …

October is Menopause Awareness Month, with October 18 specifically being World Menopause Day – all of which is focused on tackling the stigma surrounding menopause and creating conversation about this important transitional stage in women’s lives. With mental health symptoms often a significant part of the perimenopause/menopause journey, we’ve been speaking to women who are raising awareness about this, as well as providing support and signposting to services across Northern Ireland.

Having already featured an interview with one of Northern Ireland’s first accredited menopause specialists, Dr Siobhan Kirk, our second blog focuses on Northern Ireland’s first menopause charity, Menopause Together. Established by Roisin Hillman from west Belfast and Fiona Brown from Magherafelt, the charity was created to provide a space where women experiencing the menopause could find the information and support they needed. Initially beginning as a private Facebook group – which is still a thriving social space of more than 10K members – Menopause Together officially launched as a charity at Stormont on October 17, 2023.

“For us as a charity, it’s about making sure women are getting the support and the knowledge that they need – and that we’re able to sit around the table with the different government departments,” said Roisin. “Women need this support and at every meeting so far, the door has been open, so it’s been very positive.

“The menopause isn’t just a health issue – it affects every single walk of life. We’ve now met with all the departments, including the health committee and have come up with four key asks:

  1. Mandatory menopause training for all GPs.
  2. The development of a fully funded Women’s Health Strategy which makes provision for services and support for menopausal women across Northern Ireland.
  3. Removing barriers to prescribing for menopausal symptoms – for example, if a woman goes private and the consultant gives her a prescription, that the GP fulfills that prescription.
  4. For research to be conducted into the broader benefits of prescribing testosterone for women.”

Roisin’s story

Having started Menopause Together in July 2021, the journey of what has become a thriving charity is tied in with Roisin’s own experience of the menopause. Following a hysterectomy in May 2021, she had to come off the HRT she’d been on to manage her perimenopausal symptoms. Told that she would have to wait some weeks post-surgery to get back onto HRT, Roisin felt she had no choice but to put up with the physical and mental symptoms that HRT had, for her, successfully managed – alongside now recovering from major surgery.

menopause together
Roisin Hillman from Menopause Together.

“By week two, the night sweats and the anxiety and mood swings were all back,” she said. “I had written a post on an app to ask if there was anything I could take while on blood-thinner and someone said ‘you could have been on transdermal HRT all along.’ To say I was angry was an understatement. I did some research and discovered that it’s a gel you rub onto the skin.”

While HRT may not work for everyone, because Roisin had previously benefitted from it, she rang her GP to request the transdermal version, which she duly received. She said that “within two days, the night sweats had stopped and everything was back to normal.”

The theme for this year’s Menopause Awareness Day is Menopause Hormone Therapy, known as HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) in the UK. For Roisin, HRT has been a great help in managing her symptoms, although it may, of course, not be the solution for everyone.

“When I was 46/47 and trying to get HRT I probably went to my GP about seven times,” she said. “I had real itchy skin and sore joints, especially my ankles. It felt like I was 90 years old – I wasn’t able to stand up. Menopause wasn’t even something on my radar. I told a friend about the itchiness and she said, ‘could you be menopausal?’”

Recovering from her operation in June 2021, Roisin spotted an online survey about the menopause which she went to fill in, only to find that it wasn’t applicable to Northern Ireland. Frustrated about this, she subsequently got chatting to another woman from Northern Ireland on social media and the idea for a menopause Facebook group arose.

“I thought about what everybody would think about me,” said Roisin. “I had all the self-doubt but I thought, ‘I’m doing it’. In July 2021, I started Menopause Together. To date, we have just over 10,000 people on the Facebook group. It just went from strength to strength.”

As the group grew, Roisin realised there was a need for a more joined-up approach regarding menopause services and related support, as “nobody really knew what everyone was doing.” This inspired her to create Northern Ireland’s very first menopause conference, bringing together menopause experts to speak to local women and share knowledge, as well as signposting to various services.

“I contacted Dr Siobhan Kirk, along with a yoga teacher I knew and a GP,” said Roisin. “Marie-Louise Connelly then asked if we needed a hand. We got a plan together and she became a number one supporter of the group. It was just absolutely fantastic. I also got in touch with Robin Swann as a keynote speaker. The room was full. That was Northern Ireland’s first menopause conference.”

Creating NI’s first menopause charity

Following the conference, Roisin was subsequently contacted by Fiona Brown, who asked if she could offer any help with what was fast becoming a dedicated menopause mission. The pair subsequently met in November and began having conversations around starting an official menopause charity. Many other women had also been in touch with Roisin after the conference, requesting something similar for their local communities, so it was clear there was huge demand for events providing information about the menopause.

Indeed, Roisin began delivering awareness sessions in January 2023 alongside her full and part-time job commitments – the first one being in the Foyle area. A key element for her was in keeping costs low, so that anyone could access the sessions without financial barriers.

“I know that £30 could be meals for a week for someone,” she said. “So, I’m very aware that it’s very important to keep costs as low as possible. That was one of the factors for starting a charity – so any awareness events could be free. I didn’t want women not being able to go. We needed women from every walk of life to feel they could come along and to get access to the information they needed.”

Having spoken with many women since launching the charity and delivering awarenss sessions, Roisin has heard lots of first-hand accounts about how menopause has affected women’s lives. This information, combined with both her own and Fiona’s experience with menopause, has ultimately led them to their current position of having four key ‘asks’ for government.

menopause together
Fiona Brown (L) and Roisin Hillman (R) of Menopause Together.

“When a woman is 45 it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re perimenopausal,” she said. “So, if you’re 45 and you’re saying to your GP, ‘my mood is low and I don’t feel I can go on anymore,’ the GP should have training to know that it’s more than likely that you’re perimenopausal.

“At work, women often reduce their hours because of menopause symptoms. I had a hysterectomy in May and in November I started a new job, so I was learning a whole new system. Even though I was on HRT, however, my cognitive thinking was shot. It was absolutely terrible and I thought I might have to leave my job.

“We have to talk to the ministers about that – about the drain on work and the economy. If a woman is having menopausal symptoms, then it affects everybody. Every male has a mother or a sister or a partner… They will have someone in their lives who is potentially perimenopausal or menopausal.

“We’re holding another conference on October 13 – with amazing speakers and goody bags – so we hope that as many people as possible come along to that. We have to bring everyone along on this journey. Talking about the menopause needs to become the norm.”

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