A pause for menopause in the workplace

If you have not seen us live, now you have the chance! We will be at Lund University Sustainability Week! We will have a presentation on the changes women might experience during perimenopause and how you can benefit from resistance training during this time of your life.

When? The 5^th of May at 2 o’clock

Where? Botulfshörnan at Stadshallen at Stortorget in Lund

It is free, you can only show up!

You can read more about it here:

https://www.hallbarhetsveckan.event.lu.se/evenemang/pause-menopause-workplace

So come by, say hi to the three of us and get a pause for menopause!

Strength training with colleagues is both fun and gives a positive social pressure to keep at it when motivation starts to wane. Here we are, post-workout, red-faced but jazzed and happy!

Strength training doesn’t have to be complicated or take long. The routine we do takes about 25-30 minutes. Do short intervals (45-60 seconds), high load (aka heavy), maybe 6-10 exercises and just keep going.

What do we talk about when we talk about the symptoms of perimenopause? Is it a hot flash now and then, some night sweats and a grumpy mood? At times that’s what both society as a whole and even the medical profession seems to believe. I wish they were right. Unfortunately, they are not and that is why it is so important to talk about what can actually happen once you hit 40 and your estrogen levels start to decline. Read through the picture above. It is a list of symptoms that can be related to perimenopause or menopause according to the most recent science and research. You might not experience more than a few symptoms; you might experience a lot of them.

25% of women describe their symptoms during menopause as severe. 20% have mild symptoms. Over 80-90% have symptoms. In Sweden there are currently 644 000 women between the ages of 40-55, which means that approximately 580 000 women right now are most probably experiencing menopausal symptoms. And that 160 000 experience severe menopausal symptoms that dramatically affect their daily lives. Let that number sink in. 160 000.  It’s as many as inhabitants of Västerås. Or Lund and Kävlinge kommun combined.

If you are among the “lucky” ones that don’t experience the most grave of the symptoms you might likely have a few of the most common ones:

• Hot flashes
• Sleep problems
• Mood changes and depression
• Dry mucous membranes and skin
• Body composition changes/belly fat
• Urinary tract infections
• Lower bone density
• Changes in your menstrual cycle
• Vaginal dryness
• Brain fog
• Night sweats

It really feels like a shit show, this puberty in reverse. So, should we just suffer and power through the whole ordeal? Well, you can, but you don’t have to. If your experience during these years is too much for you to bear, seek medical help. There are pharmaceutical solutions, such as HRT (Hormonal Replacement Therapy). There are anti- depressants that can not only deal with mood problems but also hot flashes.

Many women want to go through the perimenopausal years without medical intervention even though they have symptoms, and many cannot take HRT due to other conditions (such as breast cancer and cardiovascular disease). Can they do something to make it less of a struggle? Yes, of course! Working out has been proven effective against many of the symptoms such as weight gain, hot flashes, bone density and mood changes. It can also help you sleep better. In a previous post you can read all about exercise and menopause (which is good for you even if you take HRT).

Another way of coping with hot flashes is wearing clothes made from breathable fibers such as wool or bamboo. Studies have also shown that caffeine and alcohol make the symptoms worse so you might want to limit the intake of that. I know, it can sound like a boring life, only working out and not drinking coffee or wine, but that is not what I mean you should do. I strongly believe that you should also fill your life with the things that makes you feel good, take time for yourself, let yourself lay on the sofa and binge watch a tv- show, lower the demands and expectations and maybe, just maybe, let yourself be at bit lazy. I, a single mum of two teenagers, always crash on the sofa for 20 minutes when I come home from work, just to get my energy back before starting up the household chores. That makes my evenings so much easier.

You have all probably heard this many, many times before. Exercise is good for you. Exercise will help keep you healthy. You should exercise on a regular basis. I’m sorry to say, this blog post will not say anything different. On the contrary, if you’re not already exercising, it is time to start.

Take a minute and imagine how you want to live when you are older, what kind of life do you envision yourself having when you are 70+, 80+? Do you want to be able to go shopping, get your groceries, go for a walk, carry your grandchildren (if you have any will say)? Do you want to be able to get out of a car or a sofa with ease? If the answer is yes, it is time to prioritize yourself and your exercise.

The dramatic fall of our estrogen levels during perimenopause and menopause also affects our ability to maintain muscle mass and bone density (amongst much more, but let’s focus on that for a while). If you live a sedentary life after menopause, you will lose 1-2 % of your muscle mass (lean mass) a year. That is a lot, especially when you consider the average life span of a woman in Sweden is 84 years, by that time you will have lost 30-60 % of your muscle mass. Just imagine what that does to your ability to move around and live an active life. At the same time, your bones are becoming less dense. By the time we are 50, about 2-3 % of Swedish women have osteoporosis and by the time we are 80 about half of all women have it. So, what is the harm of having brittle bones? In Sweden alone, we had 124 000 fractures due to osteoporosis in 2019. That is 338 per day. Fractures from osteoporosis don’t need trauma to occur, it can happen from day-to-day activities such as bending over or rolling over in bed.  The sad fact is, it can be fatal to get a fracture when you are elderly, one in three people will die within 12 months of having a hip fracture, 40% will not be able to walk on their own again.

That is quite gloomy. And you won’t even notice it until you are there. But is it a fact of life and we cannot do anything to prevent it? Of course not! And that’s where exercise comes into the picture!

A lot of times, when talking to friends and relatives (and nagging them about working out) I hear: But I am active, I take brisk walks and get my steps in every day! Or: I go out and jog for 30 minutes 3 times a week, I won’t get osteoporosis. But that doesn’t prevent it. Science has shown that dynamic, intermittent training, increasing the load, done rapidly and in diverse or unusual patterns in few repetitions is what our bones need to stay healthy.  With that said, if you like to take walks or go out for a run, that is super good and you should do that as well!

Another way of decreasing the risk of fractures is maintaining your muscle mass.

Estrogen acts on a woman as testosterone does for a man when we talk about lean mass. Estrogen stimulates the basic muscle cells to grow. Estrogen also regulates different proteins in your body to come together and those proteins cause muscle contractions. With lower levels of estrogen in your body these processes are thrown off track and we can’t stimulate our bodies to contract the muscles as strongly as we were able to do before perimenopause. But is it impossible? No, we just need to work out perhaps differently than what we are used to. We need to stimulate the nerves connected to our muscles and they will send a message to our body that the muscles need to grow. This calls for lifting heavy weights. Which can seem daunting, scary and maybe even boring. (But it is not, I can assure you!) As a woman in your mid-life, you need to let go of what we have been taught regarding lifting weights in the gym. We have to dare to lift really heavy. We have to lift until we cannot do one more repetition. We need spaghetti-legs and jello-arms after our work–outs. We need to lift until failure. But, you might think, I don’t want to be bulky and big and have huge muscles. I can promise you, you won’t. You will get leaner but it is damn near impossible to become bulky as a postmenopausal woman, that would require many hours every day in the gym, absolutely no cardio training and a focus on diet that is hard to pair with a normal life.

But what about here and now? Can exercise help with the symptoms of peri–menopause? Studies have shown that resistance training (weightlifting) helps with hot flashes. Hot flashes occur when your hypothalamus misinterprets your body temperature and tells your brain to fire up the engines and warm you up. When you are super warm, your body realizes that you really didn’t need all that heat and cranks the thermostat down to cold in order to cool you down. This leads to an almost unbearable sweat, starting in your torso, making its way up through your head, quickly followed by chills and shivering from the cold that follows. It can be really uncomfortable but not dangerous. Night sweats also get better with exercise, no more waking up soaked in the middle of the night!

Weight training also helps to regulate your glucose control, gut microbiome and your body composition (that stubborn belly fat that creeps up on you with age). It keeps your cholesterol in check. It helps you maintain your cardio–vascular health. It will make you sleep better, it keeps anxiety at bay. It clears up the brain fog. And as an added bonus – it can make you feel more at peace with yourself and your body and enhance your sex life!

But what kind of work out is the best for a woman in her perimenopause or post menopause?  It is recommended that you ought to focus on resistance training over moderate intensity training.  That means going to the gym to lift heavy stuff. How heavy? Start off with lighter weights until you know how you should move your body and maintain your form during the exercises and then add weight. In the end it should be so heavy that you can only do maximum 5 reps in 3 sets. And it should get heavier over time, when you can easily do all your sets you have to add weight. Your work out should also include some kind of sprint training that gets your pulse up to about 80% of your maximum heart rate (your maximum heart rate is easily calculated, just take 220 minus your age, for me that is 220-46= 174) for about 30 seconds. It should be so hard that in the beginning you might only make 30 seconds and no more. In time, you should reach 30 seconds + 1 minute’s rest for 5 sets, but that takes time. This can be sprinting on the tread mill, doing burpees, squat jumps or anything that gets your heart pumping. The third part of your exercise regimen should be plyometric training. That means explosive jump training. Again, squat jumps (what has been shown to be the most effective exercise for bone density), box jumps, rope jumping. If you can’t jump, or you want to have some options, kettle bell swings or taking a medicine ball and slamming it into the floor is effective too. The last important part of your training is balance training, such as exercises standing on one leg.

I know, it is a lot. It can sound overwhelming, remember this is just a recommendation from studies produced on the topic. With a well put together program you can do all this and be out of the gym in 30-40 minutes.

If you don’t ever want to do this kind of workout, remember that all exercise is better than none. And you don’t need to do all parts during the same session, you can do your jumping and/or sprinting when you go out jogging or walking. You can do your weightlifting at home with a heavy backpack and everyday items (do some squats with your grocery bags or why not some bicep training). You can train your balance by standing on one leg whilst putting on your socks and shoes or balance on the curb when you’re out walking.

Exercising should be fun so find your favorite way to get going and remember – if you are new to it, the hardest workout session is the first!

Åsa and I have been invited to speak at Forum Jämställdhet – Sweden’s largest forum for discussions around equality. What an exciting programme to be a part of!

https://lund.se/evenemang/forum-jamstalldhet

And recently there’s been an uptick of articles and posts about our project and messages through different Lund University channels – welcome to check them out:

LUM article (in Swedish) https://www.medarbetarwebben.lu.se/artikel/fem-anledningar-att-trana-under-klimakteriet

How can Lund University become a more menopause-friendly workplace? https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/how-can-lund-university-become-more-menopause-friendly-workplace

or the same text as above in Swedish:
https://www.medarbetarwebben.lu.se/artikel/hur-kan-lu-bli-en-mer-klimakterievanlig-arbetsplats

The Instagram post has already gotten an incredibly wide reach, wow!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFIq75kqP8p/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&img_index=1

LinkedIn as well:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7287459042904432640

There are thousands of podcasts out there on the topic of menopause or female health in midlife. We thought it would be a good idea to give you some of our favorites if you want to listen during the holidays!

The Mel Robins Podcast

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Klimakteriepodden

And as a small tip for training during Menopause, listen to: Fitness routines for menopause with Dr. Stacy Sims – exercise for every stage (with Dr. Stacy Sims) on the Zoe Science and Nutrition Podcast.

We are not affiliated with or sponsored by any of these, but it is podcasts we’ve come across and find helpful on the topic of menopause.

Today we spent World Menopause Day (yeah it’s a thing! 18th October) doing our weekly intensive workout.

For five weeks we colleagues at CEC are spending 30 minutes every Friday at the gym for a full body workout with Åsa as our personal trainer. It is a great way of wrapping up the work week. Fredagsfys innan fredagsmys!

With one year to run this pilot project we have some specific activities we plan to carry out. They are mostly aimed at staff at the Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC) at Lund University, sometimes including our close academic networks and sometimes – as with this blog and the coming questionnaire – having a wider target group.

This is what we’ll be doing:

• Give two presentations on topics related to menopause for all staff at CEC. The first presentation in September 2024 explores physiological changes that occur during perimenopause and menopause, and how hormonal fluctuations can impact a woman’s health and well-being well beyond her reproductive cycle. The second presentation in the spring of 2025 looks at how menopause affects the workplace, what support is available at LU, what can be improved and where lessons can be learned from other workplaces.
• We’re putting our money where our mouths are and doing 30-minute strength training sessions at Gerdahallen, starting 4 October. With fellow female colleagues at CEC aged 40+, Åsa will lead these sessions with appropriate strength training exercises for five weeks. One group trains in the fall and another in the spring. We will use our health promotion hour (Friskvårdstimme) to do so.
• Writing this blog
• Administering a questionnaire to female employees at LU aged 45+ to identify good practices from the workplace and where improvements are needed.
• Liaising with Occupational Health Service (Företagshälsovården), Human Resources, and other units at LU centrally with our findings in an effort to support the normalizing of menopause at the university.

The female reproductive system, the cycles and the changes are something we are all familiar with but often there are a lot of words that might not be easy to understand. Here follows a brief explanation of some common concepts.

Let’s start from the beginning with the actual meaning of the word menopause. Menopause is derived from the Greek words pausis (“pause”) and mēn (“month”) literally meaning end of monthly cycles. You can also use the word climacteric (or in Swedish, “klimakteriet”) from Greek klimakterikos which means progression or gradation.

Menarche – is when you have your first period.

Pre-menopause is not actually a medically accepted word. All women who have started menstruating are premenopausal, pre meaning before.

Perimenopause – this is the period when fertility and hormones change in a major way. You cannot say an exact age for when this happens, but usually around the mid 40’s. It can last from two years to ten years. During this time the ovaries produce less and less estrogen until finally they stop. This is also the period most people refer to as “being in menopause”.

Menopause  – this is just one day of your life – the one year anniversary of your last period. The day before you are perimenopausal, the day after you are postmenopausal. The average age for women in the western world for this day is 52.

Post-menopause – all the time after the day of the menopause.

Estrogen – the major female sex hormone responsible for the reproductive organs and cycle amongst much more. It is created in the follicles in the ovaries.

Luteinising hormone (lutropin or LH) – stimulates ovulation, a surge occurs about 24 hours before ovulation.

Progesterone – female sex hormone that amongst much more prepares the uterus for pregnancy and decreases the immune system in order for the body to accept a pregnancy.

FSH or follicle stimulating hormone – a hormone that stimulates the growth of follicles and makes them mature enough to create an egg that can be fertilized.

Menses phase – the first phase of the menstrual cycle, this is when you have your period.

Follicular phase – the phase of the menstrual cycle where (usually) one follicular matures and releases an egg. This phase usually last for 14 days.

Ovulation – when a mature egg is released from the follicle into the fallopian tubes.

Luteal phase – the last part of the menstrual cycle. If the egg is not fertilized the levels of progesterone decrease and trigger a new menses phase.

Wow – interest is through the roof! So many colleauges at CEC (female and 40+ years old) have registered to strength train together this year. Let’s see if we’re all as enthusiastic after the fifth kettlebell swing…but I have high hopes for my colleagues and me! 💪