To be 14 again…

Now, let me start with saying I never want to be fourteen again. As many sleepless nights as I have filled with hot flashes and hormonal headaches, nothing will make fourteen sound like a place I want to be.

I am currently the observer of my own fourteen year old daughter’s world and I am consistently struck by what a cold, confusing, heartbreakingly vulnerable place it can be. I watch from the sidelines as another sleepover occurs without an invite but with a barrage of late night snapchat “streaks” that remind my daughter she didn’t make the cut. I sit in the stands and watch the clique rearrange the team so that at each social pause they can create a nice tight circle that excludes the others and lends perfectly to whispered comments and shared secrets. Schoolhouse Rock told me that three was a magic number, but now I know it’s deadly when coupled with fourteen. Three is often two and one extra, just in case, and they know who they are.

I remember fourteen with no fondness myself. Awkward, both socially and physically, I struggled to find my place in the Lord of the Flies-like set up of my own mid-size public middle-school. Grasping on to a few friends who seemed almost as traumatized as I was, I tried the best I could to figure out who I was within a frightening sea of conformity and judgement. We all did whatever we could to blend in and survive. I wish we had evolved since then.

Now, I feel for my Gen Z daughter. No sleepover goes unrecorded and unreported. No hangout is complete without a filter and a caption. No picture on Instagram is without unsolicited comments or critique.

With the magic of childhood dying down, Santa is no longer eagerly tracked on the computer Christmas Eve and Fairy Tales are only found in books, fourteen brings a new belief: the narrative of who we are within our peer group is accurate and definitive. The belief that we are not good enough, wealthy enough, smart enough or pretty enough sinks in and we add it to our list. Painful comparison forces a new hierarchy, one that becomes well known and used into adulthood. We begin to figure out who we are by what others say about us. And in this day and age of social media, they say a lot.

Now, almost 50, with fourteen long behind me, I am amazed at how still fresh are the wounds. Sitting with my daughter, I feel her pain. I feel my pain. I want to hold her and protect her. The fourteen year old in me knows what she is feeling. And while I am on the other side of life, I realize I am just now, at almost 50, starting to untangle my own web of opinions, beliefs and narratives that my own fourteen year old self absorbed.

I try the empowerment speech with her: “Be true to yourself,” “Don’t let it bother you,” “It will all get better.” They fall on deaf fourteen year old ears. She can only see that she is not in the pictures and she feels left out and abandoned by those that, right now, are her world. Truth is, I still haven’t figured it all out – I am not even close. I still don’t know who I am, when I am not invited to a meeting I think I should have been, it still bothers me and I wonder if they “like me” and I know from experience that sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets really, really worse. I want to take away her fourteen year old pain, I want to absorb it and deal with it for her and hand it back neatly folded. But I can’t.

The mom in me wants to run to the other moms and ask why – why do we let this happen when we know how we all felt going through it? I want to get angry and be protective and find someone or something to blame. But I don’t. What I do know is that is not how life works and this will solve nothing. Inclusion and diversity and flattening the pyramid is hard work and even the adults haven’t figured it out yet. So I sit with my fourteen year old and try to let my own fourteen year old be there too. I don’t promise her it will get better, I don’t try to fix it. I just love her and accept her for who she is, right this moment. In the end, isn’t that what we are all looking for?

picture of lotion bottles and a hand trying lotion

New products aimed at the “middle aged” woman seem to pop up everyday. Are they hip or hype?

As the conversation around perimenopause and menopause becomes more commonplace, it seems that so do products geared specifically towards women in midlife. I tend to be skeptical about all the items that I have seen pop-up and have tried some myself.

Better Not Younger was a product I tried last year. Toted as the “hair whisperers who create products for the accomplished woman in her 40s and beyond.” And created for “The woman whose skin and hair may have changed, but whose confidence, style, and sense of self get better every day.” Hmmm…. great marketing. I took the bait. I had the shampoo and serum. The shampoo was nice, but I really didn’t see the results that warranted the high price. I also bought their serum, but never found a rhythm to put it on every night as directed. Sorry, just too much work.

The Good Patch is a patch aimed at cooling us off. It boasts 15mg premium hemp extract, black cohosh, & menthol that supposedly keeps one cool for 12 hours. I am not sure how it works, I have not tried that one. I rely on Saje’s Peppermint Halo roll-on for cooling relief. My sister gave me a collection of Saje’s essential oil roller balls and this one, rolled around my hairline and neck has done a wonderful job of cooling me down.

The Pause Hot Flash Cooling Mist, which has gotten really good reviews on Amazon, with 74% of buyers giving it a 5 star review.

Sill another hot flash related product that seems to also have some promise is the Embr Wave Bracelet that claims to allow you to cool of OR warm up with a touch of a button. It is not marketed as a product for hot flashes, but is marketed as a personal “thermal companion” allowing you to be able to trigger cooling or warming sensations in your body. It is pricey at $299, but if it lasts for a few years then this may be something to look into.

Korres has recently launched a few skin products aimed at specifically menopausal women. Their Meno-reverse deep wrinkle concentrate claims to be specifically designed for the needs of menopausal women. They launched on the Home Shopping Network recently. I am not sure how the product is different from any of the anti-aging products we are bombarded with and they have yet to have a review posted, so I am curious to see how the product is – I like the Korres brand, so I hope they don’t disappoint. This is one I may have to order to try (it is pricey though $50 for 1oz.)

I also tried Albertini International’s line. I got their Did You Mist Me mist and the Rough Love exfoliator. Their tag line is: “Beauty solutions for women old enough to know and young enough to care.” Don’t you love all these great ways they advertise to us???!! Um, they were ok, again nothing special that I would make me say “nothing worked in midlife until I found this…”

What products have you tried that has made your middle-aged self jump for joy? I am sure there are ones out there that are fantastic. So far, I have found a lot of bark, not a lot of bite.

photo of fan

Midlife FLASH: All HOT and No DANCE

Hot flashes. WTH? I am getting AARP material in the mail like my high school senior gets marketing from colleges, but where is the brochure that says “welcome to being a woman in midlife, here are a few things you can expect…” We need a “what to expect” book for perimenopause. What to expect when your perimenopausal. Now that’s one worth an Audible credit.

No one tells you what to expect in midlife. This may be partly due to a culture that just doesn’t value middle aged women and still treats menopause and everything related to it as something that should trigger shame and embarrassment (and therefore should be discussed in huddled whispers only with other middle-aged women) and partly because the experience of midlife is so personal and unique.

What even is a hot flash/hot flush (the fancy phrase is vasomotor symptoms)? Generally experienced in the years leading up to menopause, a hot flash is defined as a sudden feeling of heat or warmth not caused by weather. In other words, you feel like it is Georgia in August when you are in your Iowa kitchen in November. But even that definition is limiting.

Statistics tell us that 75-85% of women will experience the during the years leading up to menopause and a lucky few can go on to have them for years (and years) after that. But one no one tells you is that each body will experience them differently. The cliché of the woman wanting to rip off her clothes and jump in a snow pile is only ONE way a woman might experience them. I have spoken with women who experience them as more like a high fever, as a wave of nausea accompanied by heat, profusely sweating or just a blinding headache. And night sweats? Just a hot flash at night. And the really, really fun thing is you have no control over when, where and how often they occur.

Science still has yet to figure out why they happen. The current reigning theory is that when estrogen levels fluctuate, your hippocampus (the gland that regulates your temperature) tells your body you are too hot. This triggers your body to try to cool you off via sweating, elevating your heart rate and giving you a “flush” – an opening of the surface blood vessels in an attempt to cool you off. Average time (everything is an average because we vary so greatly) is 4 minutes, with a span of 30 seconds to 10 minutes. And in one study the average amount of hot flashes experienced in a day was 17. The average time this perimenopausal indicator lasts is two years. A study published this year even linked hot flash frequency with earlier experience of abuse and neglect! And Hot flashes and menopausal symptoms in general are very real and can be debilitating for some women.

The first thing to do is trust the experiences you are having within your body. Tuning into your perimenopausal indicators is the first step in befriending your midlife self and finding ways for better self-care and compassion. I have heard nightmare stories about unsupportive general practitioners and OB-GYNs who have put doubt into women about their own experience, inner wisdom and sanity. While a blood test might tell you perimenopause is indeed the culprit, it might not. Trust YOUR experiences.

Do your own research. A quick google search for hot flash treatment yielded 27 MILLION results. You will find herbs, pharmaceuticals, teas, hypnosis, breath work and several other types of interventions available. Talk to other women, talk to your ob-gyn, but do your homework. Don’t do something just because it worked on your friend Bev. Research first and tune in to your own body for guidance. Chart your hot flashes. Are they so bothersome you need relief? If yes, ok, note this and research options. If no, then ok, note that as well and maybe devise strategies to cope with this new reality. Seek out what will fit you and your lifestyle and help you be your best self now. Embracing this time in life as one of self- discovery and developing patience with the process can help you navigate the low moments (and there will be low moments).

Love yourself through this. This is a tough one for me. I want to crawl out of my skin when I feel a flush and then I get angry when another is right behind it, leaving me feeling out of control and helpless. I sometimes feel that my body is betraying me and there is nothing I can do about it. I then have to talk myself down and realize that I need to tune in, not turn off in order to navigate this all with sanity.

My strategy is to eat as well as I can, try to reduce stress (again, a tough one in midlife), continue to exercise regularly and try to stay present with myself and compassionate with my body when I have them. Nighttime can be awful as it is a series of sleepless hours tossing and turning with covers on, covers off, but I stay in bed and try to find ways to relax and fall back to sleep. I also try not to get in that space of feeling like I am totally alone in this.

This is why I am committed to talking about my experience and trying to get others to talk about theirs so we can support an empower each other. To me, this is true freedom in midlife. I will not suffer in silence and I don’t want anyone else to as well. We need to accept this time in life with wisdom, compassion and love, not with a sense that we are old mares ready for pasture. We need to resist the cultural expectation to be embarrassed by the physical indications that our hormones are doing just what they are supposed to and embrace the end of our reproductive years as a natural stage in life, not one to be loathed, embarrassed by or feared. Are they “power surges”? Perhaps. Are they enjoyable? No. Are they part of the reality of the midlife transition? For many of us, yes. Are you alone in your experience? Abso-freaking-lutely not.

Stay strong. Stay centered. Stay healthy.

The 12 days of Perimenopause

On the 1st day of perimenopause, my body gave to me one missed period

On the 2nd day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 2 saggy boobs

On the 3rd day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 3 sleepless hours

On the 4th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 4 new chin hairs

On the 5th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 5 distracting hot flashes

On the 6th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 6 memory lapses

On the 7th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 7 leaks of my bladder

On the 8th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 8 newly lost hairs

On the 9th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 9 severe mood swings

On the 10th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 10 new aches and pains

On the 11th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 11 patches of dry skin

On the 12th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 12 extra pounds

All together now…

On the 12th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me…..12 extra pounds

11 patches of dry skin

10 new aches and pains

9 severe mood swings

8 new lost hair

7 leaks of my bladder

6 memory lapses 

5….distracting hot flashes….

4 new chin hairs

3 sleepless hours

2 saggy boobs  

And one missed period….

Happy holidays!!

Puberty and Perimenopause: Welcome to my house.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average age for a first time mom in the US is 28. From 2000 to 2014, the proportion of first births to women aged 30 to 34 increased 28 percent, and those among women over age 35 went up 23 percent. I had my first child when I was 31 and my second when I was 35 – this puts us smack dab in the puberty/perimenopause swirling vortex of emotional and physical upheaval.

As Erma Bombeck so aptly put it: “I’m trying very hard to understand this generation. They have adjusted the timetable for childbearing so that menopause and teaching a sixteen-year-old how to drive a car will occur in the same week.”

My mom was in her early 20s when she had me – I was across the globe in the Peace Corps then off on my own when she was in midlife. I am still chauffer and cook to one and professional organizer and full time accountant to the other,

all while falling apart emotionally and physically (and most days, mentally.) I have been at home sobbing because I saw a dog that looked lost on the side of the road earlier while my two girls screamed at each other in the other room over a bottle of shampoo that one bought and the other used.

Sound like your house?

Dear God, please tell me I am not alone in this one.

While I have accepted the fact that there are no magic beans that can make it better, there are a few things that can help:

  1. Pick your battles.  This one involves you turning inward to know when you have the emotional strength to be present and when it is better for you to give some space to the situation and either revisit it or just let it go.  Take a walk, journal, breathe.  It is hard to be our best when we are exhausted, hangry or in our own swamp of emotions.  Especially with older teens, transitioning to a spectator role is so hard.  Our instinct are to parent 24/7 but this time gives us a unique opportunity to nurture ourselves through these transitions and by doing so, love our way through this time.  Remember, both of you are probably experiencing similar feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood. Being there for yourself and tuned in to your experience can offer you compassion and empathy for theirs. 
  2. Normalize transitions in life.  We often feel vulnerable and full of shame through these tender moments of transition.  Talking about transitions in life as part of the full life experience can help all of you put words and emotions to the experience.  While my girls have no interest in hearing about my transition, the fact that I talk about it and try to make parallels to theirs at least gives the opportunity for them to have a space to ask questions and feel like they can share if they ever feel compelled.
  3. Be willing to try something new. Ok, so your child no longer wants to be seen with you in public.  My younger child critiques all my fashion choices – she’s harsher than Joan Rivers on a red carpet.  She tells me when my grey roots are showing.  She reminds me that I look old and tired (oh, the joy of unconditional love).  She doesn’t want to talk in the car, she wants to be dropped off a mile away and walk to the event.  It is hard not to take it all so personally.  I was so magical to her a few years ago! Just as I feel alone and ugly, I find myself alone and ugly.  Time to try some new things.  In being compassionate with myself, I can be more compassionate with her.  I learned that right after school she is willing to talk.  If I show up with chick-fil-a I can get a whole rundown of her day.  If I let her fly, she seems to return.  I have started enjoying the quiet morning in the car, seeing her face when she sees that white and red bag on the front seat and having her pick out a few outfits for me or teach me a few makeup tricks.  It is a new way of doing things, but I am willing to redefine our relationship.  I am redefining my own. 
  4. Know that this too shall pass.  It will. In the blink of an eye and there will be more transitions and more new things to try and more love, more sadness, more gains and more losses.  And you will laugh and cry and sing.  And life will go on until it doesn’t.  And you will live and love and be ok. 

Midlife to do: Update your documents

As we are experiencing midlife at the end of this decade (my God, wasn’t it just 1986?!), many of us are in full stride: settled into our lives, watching our kids grow and perhaps move on, maybe caring for parents whose health may be declining and feeling very, well, adult.

In the midst of all this midlife activity, we often overlook taking care of and looking out for ourselves not only daily but overall.

While a good night’s sleep and a meal not gotten from a window and eaten out of a bag may be great steps in the right direction for being a more productive human being tomorrow, there are also a few things that you can do to invest in tomorrow’s tomorrow.

Before the full holiday season starts, take a few moments to consider these things that will give you the gift of some peace of mind.

Although this stuff is not fun to think of, it is very much an act of kindness to yourself. And that is what we need more of in midlife.

To start the new year off:

Get your documents in order:

1. Create/Update a Will:

Do you have a will or living trust?
If you don’t, neither do 60% of American adults. A will is a critical legal document that outlines how you want your finances and assets to be handled in the event you should die—and you will one day, we all will, so let’s just acknowledge that elephant in the room and move right along. A living trust is similar but allows you to transfer assets while living, which may be a better choice if your family or financial situation is complex.

If you do have a will, do you know where it is right now? Does someone other than you and your spouse/partner/significant know where it is and could access it quickly if needed? If not, locate it and add another person into the loop on where these documents are located and how to get to them.

Should you die without a will, generally, the law of the state you lived in will dictate who gets your assets and how they will be divided. This math problem can become a nightmare on who gets what, especially if you have a second or third spouse, children from previous marriages, or a committed
partner to whom you are not married (in which case a living trust may be a better way to go – finding a good estate attorney may be helpful.) If you have children under the age of eighteen, it is important that to assign guardianship (if the other parent is not able to or passes away with you).

By midlife, we have also generally acquired some type of assets. Assets might include a house, retirement account, and/or some money in the bank. If you created a will in your twenties or thirties, go back and review it. So much changes between our twenties and our forties, you want to ensure that your current livinshould something happen to you.

It is also important for you and your partner to express your individual wishes for what will happen with your assets and possessions in separate documents even though you and your partner’s will may look the same.

And remember, a will is not a set-it-and-forget-it item. Revisit it every few years.

2. Have a living will:

Don’t put the burden of making decisions, often end-of-life ones, on your loved ones. Make a living will. This is a document that provides your wants and directions for end-of-life care. Also called an advance directive, it will allow you to state your wishes for resuscitation, life support and the type of care you do and do not want in the event you cannot speak for yourself.

You can find templates online for your living will that are fairly simple and easy to complete. If you do not have a living will, put it on your calendar to make one before the new year.

3. Review your life-insurance policies:

This is especially important if you have had any major life events in the last few years. Divorce, job changes, having children, grandchildren or a new marriage can all change the way you want your money to be distributed if something should happen to you.

Make sure your beneficiaries are up-to-date. Certain accounts and life-insurance policies generally take precedence over your will. If your beneficiaries don’t match your will, your assets can still go to the or persons listed last on that life-insurance policy you took out fifteen years ago!!

4. Think about your legacy.
What is the legacy that you want to leave? Is there something that you want your money to go to towards? It doesn’t have to be big, think legacy. I have some money dedicated to a trail that I walk on as a way of ensuring it is there for others when I am gone. Morbid? Maybe, but it gives me another way of giving back.

As we come to the end of the decade, take some time to celebrate how far you have come. Take some time as well to celebrate life and how short it is and doing these few things can assist those around us when the time comes to drop the mic and peace out.

Stay Strong. Stay Centered. Stay Healthy.

4 Maintenance Musts in Midlife

  1.  Choose a Healthy Diet

Ok, I know you know and you know I know you know, but it’s bears repeating because it’s just so important.  Eating well helps with all our aging parts. Midlife is the time to take stock of your diet and pinpoint any deficiencies, this is also the time to do a scan of your daily diet.  Is there an abundance of sugar or fried foods, or maybe just a lack of a variety of vegetables?  If so, now is the time to try and incorporate more produce diversity, healthy protein and whole foods into your diet. 

According to current dietary guidelines, our caloric intake needs peak for both men and women from the ages of 19-25 and then are reduced by about 200 calories a day from then until the age of 50.  Starting around the age of 50, we once again require another 200 fewer calories a day, unless we are maintaining a higher level of vigorous activity, are pregnant or have other reasons for needing more calories.  So, hone in on the dietary areas that you can improve upon and how often you are moving in a day, and don’t forget that even though we may need fewer calories overall, we still need adequate amounts of protein, vitamin D and calcium to ensure bone strength. 

Maintaining a healthy diet in midlife may protect against mental illness and cognitive decline in later years.  A study published in the American Journal of Medicine showed a correlation between a healthy diet in midlife and a larger hippocampus, maintaining cognitive function and brain health longer.  For women, a well-balanced diet in midlife can also assist in managing peri-menopausal indicators by regulating blood sugar, helping keep extra weight off and even hot flashes at bay.

To get you excited and interested, try rounding up a few friends and take a healthy cooking class together. If your time is limited or you are overwhelmed with daily tasks and to-dos, and have the means, try a subscription meal service which can provide you with portioned ingredients and a step-by-step recipe for creating healthy, flavorful dishes.  Meal subscription services can take over the task of shopping and having to come up with something tasty and creative at the end of a long day – all you have to do is cook and enjoy.  If this is not in your scope, more basic home cooked healthy meal preparation done and frozen for the week ahead might be a good option and it can save the temptation to run through a drive-thru for a quick meal solution. 

2.  Maintain Your Flexibility

Do your toes seem to be getting further and further out of reach? Do you dread sitting down on the floor for fear that you won’t be able to make it back up? Loss of flexibility is probably to blame. Flexibility is the ability to move your joints through a wide range of motion. Aging does not necessarily make us less flexible, although the changes the levels collagen in the tissues may cause stiffness and even aches in our joints, it is often our midlife lifestyle to blame for tightness and limited range of motion.  Flexibility is one of those things that unless we are actively using it today, we are probably actively losing it and often we don’t realize this until we try to bend over to tie our shoes one day and ask ourselves ‘what happened?’.  Joseph Pilates, founder of the Pilates exercise system, said “you are as old as your spine is flexible” and “if your spine is inflexible and stiff at 30 you are old. If it is completely flexible at 60, you are young.” 

Keeping joints supple and flexible in midlife is crucial.  Joints like those in the neck, shoulder, wrist, hip, ankle and spine are ones that most risk becoming inflexible as a result of patterns formed over years of often dysfunctional movement and poor postural habits formed by our modern workspaces: looking down at cell phones, craning the neck forward to stare at the computer screen, slouching, sitting long periods of time, etc.  All of which can lead to limited mobility, stiffness and feeling, well, old.

Make and take time to stretch each day; it is much easier to retain flexibility than to gain it. While stretching cannot combat inflammation or reverse structural damage, it can reduce the chance of injuries while moving; especially in quick movements while being active like playing tennis and running or in movements that catch us off guard like tripping and falling but even in day to day movement as well.  Before I was an avid stretcher, I once pulled my lower back muscle bending over to pick up a packet of sugar that I dropped on the floor of my car.  Not fun. 

Simple stretches for the joints listed above are great additions to your daily routine.  Think of it as midlife movement maintenance.  Find stretches that work for your body and can combat habitual movement patterns.  Remember, our bodies were meant to flex, extend and rotate.  Stretching is a way to bring back or maintain a natural suppleness to our bodies and be able to move through space with ease, grace and joy.  Plus, it just feels so dang good.

3. Retain Your Balance

Balance in life is always a goal, but balancing our bodies is essential to midlife health.  Balance involves the complex functioning of many systems in cooperation: the inner ear, vision, how we experience where we are in time and space and muscle mass and strength.  When one, or several, of these systems is off, we may experience a loss of balance, or worse, a fall.  And as our systems experience aging, they may start to have some decline in the effectiveness of even simple activities that require balance such as standing on one foot, moving from sitting to standing freely or moving securely on unstable surfaces such as ice, high curbs or uneven pavement.  

While falls may still be the leading cause of injuries for Americans ages 65 and older (according to the National Council on Aging), for those of us in midlife we may not even know our balance is slipping until we suddenly lose our footing. In fact, according to research done by BMC Public Health, the rate of reporting falls increased with age from 18.5% in young adults or 21% in those middle-aged, with women in the majority.  The young participants fell more outdoors while the middle and older aged group saw an increase in indoor falls with a higher reporting of balance/gain impairment as the cause. A 2016 survey in The Journals of Gerontology found that when standing on one leg, the average person in their 50s were able to maintain balance 15 seconds less than their thirty-or forty-year old counterparts; the time frame declined with each decade thereafter. 

Loss of balance seems to just sneak up on us midlifers.  Retaining balance involves maintaining activities that keep us moving and agile such as walking, running, tai-chi and yoga as well as incorporating balance work into our everyday lives. 

Find ways to incorporate balance into your day.  Balance on one leg while waiting in line, blow drying your hair or brushing your teeth. Walk heel-to-toe across a room and back a few times, step side to side across a room or practice rising from a seated position in a firm chair without using your arms for balance.

Please note: Medications, certain neurological conditions, vertigo and even a vitamin D deficiency can also alter your sense of balance at any age, so talk to a health care provider if you notice that your balance is way off. 

4. Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is critical for memory and acquisition of new information.  It also may make some of us less cranky (you know who you are), gives us more energy, keeps our immune system in good fighting shape, repairs muscles and may even stave off depression and even anxiety. 

A recent study published in the journal Sleep Medicine states that one third to one half of women 40-64 report sleep problems, with poor sleep (insomnia, restless sleep and sleep disturbances) being one of the biggest complaints for menopausal women; yet our need for good, quality sleep does not diminish as we age.  According to Dr. Caroline Apovian, director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University, next to right nutrition and proper exercise, sleep is the third critical component of wellness (limiting alcohol consumption rounds out this health and wellness dream team). And while smoking is still the leading cause of mortality, sleep deprivation comes in at number 3, behind a poor diet with a lack of exercise. Most of us just aren’t getting enough sleep and we are paying for it, literally, with our lives. 

When we keep running on venti Blonde Roasts and 5-hour energy hits, we over-spend our system and run into debt – sleep debt.  In our 24-hour world, taking one third of it away and indulging in an 8-hour night may feel like a luxury, but we need to look at sleep as a form of non-negotiable self-care.  Lack of quality sleep over time catches up with us and can negatively affect our skin, heart, weight and overall well-being.  One study of middle-aged women showed that getting less than 7 hours of sleep on a regular basis consistently predicted an increase in future weight gain. Even just a few nights of poor sleep can trigger more calorie consumption during the day, leading quickly to unwanted pounds.  While consistent good sleep may not help you lose weight, giving serious attention to improving the quality and quantity of sleep in midlife may help manage weight.

The journal Science, revealed that the brain uses it’s glymphatic system to clean away toxins as we sleep, toxins that can lead to neurological disorders and even Alzheimer’s disease.  Maiken Nederfaardm M.D., D.M. Sc, co-director of the University of Rochester Medical Center for Translational Neuro-medicine uses the analogy of a having a house party to describe the brains limited energy and “choice between two functional states – awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up” He says, “You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but your really can’t do both at the same time.”

Chronic lack of sleep also raises our chances of developing Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and puts us at higher risk for depression and accidents and it really just makes us cranky.  In midlife, one of the best things you can do is try to improve the quality and quantity that you get of good, deep sleep.  It is so critically important for overall well-being and health and can give you the strength and energy needed to manage this crucial time in your life. 

So how can you sleep better in midlife?  Make it a priority.  Go to bed the same time each night, our bodies do much better with regular sleep patterns.  Make your bedroom the place to sleep, not watch TV, craft or snack.  Sleep in as dark a room as possible and as cool as you can tolerate it and try to establish a relaxing night time routine.

Each of these four ‘Musts’ work with and support the other to create a holistic picture of health. Maintenance in midlife is a commitment to self-care and paying attention to what you need to be your best not only today but for years to come. 

References:

15 Simple And Quick Office Stretches To Boost Work Efficiency.  Life Hack Online. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/15-simple-and-quick-office-stretches-boost-work-efficiency.html

Akdeniz S, Hepguler S, Öztürk C, Atamaz FC. The relation between vitamin D and postural balance according to clinical tests and tetrax posturography. J Phys Ther Sci. 2016;28(4):1272–1277. doi:10.1589/jpts.28.1272

Akbaraly, Tasnime et al. Association of Long-Term Diet Quality with Hippocampal Volume: Longitudinal Cohort Study. The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 131, Issue 11, 1372 – 1381.e4

Apovian, Caroline, MD.  The Age-Defying Diet, Grand Central & Style, New York 2015 pp. 95-101

Balance Exercises, The Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/multimedia/balance-exercises/sls-20076853?s=1

Fall Prevention: https://www.ncoa.org/healthy-aging/falls-prevention/

Harrison, Nicholle.  Falling Apart and Finding Yourself: A Guide for Women in Midlife.  Book Logix. 2019.

Study Published in Annals of Internal Medicine Finds That Sleep Deprivation — Even for a Short Time — Has a Direct and Harmful Effect on Fat Cells, an Effect That Could Lead to Major Health Issues Such as Obesity or Type 2 Diabetes.” Obesity & Diabetes Week, 29 Oct. 2012, p. 26.

Talbot, L.A., Musiol, R.J., Witham, E.K. et al. Falls in young, middle-aged and older community dwelling adults: perceived cause, environmental factors and injury. BMC Public Health 5, 86 (2005) doi:10.1186/1471-2458-5-86

The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Volume 72, Issue 4, 1 April 2017, Pages 572–578, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glw120

Here comes the…. mother of the…bride

Recently, I went to a wedding. It was the first time that I celebrated one of my friend’s own children getting married. Up until this point I had only been to weddings because I knew the bride or the groom. This time, while I knew the bride, I was there for her mother. We had been close in high school, but she met her husband shortly after graduation and we both went to different colleges. I then went in the Peace Corps shortly after she married and was not there for the birth of her daughter, the now beautiful bride. However, we always stayed close; while I moved around she chose to stay in the town we grew up in and raise her family there. I continued on to graduate school and had a few marriages, and eventually, kids of my own.

We checked in with each other often: birthdays and Christmas were always a given. Her children were older than mine but we could still bemoan teens together and the ups and downs of raising kids while laughing about our own high school antics.

When I got the wedding invitation, it struck me that this would be the first time I would celebrate the wedding of a friend’s child. My older daughter and I flew home for the wedding and got in a college interview for her while there. When we got to the church, I anxiously awaited seeing for the first time not the bride, but my friend. It was surreal. For the first time, I realized that we were now the MOBs and her parents, the ones we would wait for to go out so we could sneak in some fun, were going to be great-grandparents. Where did time go? It was just yesterday that my friend and I were driving around out boring small town laughing and looking for something to do. Now, I watched as my gorgeous friend pulled out her reading glasses for the hymnal. Who were we?

In midlife, we can’t deny the realities of the reflection in the mirror any longer. The lines are there, the grey hairs don’t stop coming and the change in our body chemistry becomes undeniable. Yet, on the inside we are still 18, free and full of life. How do we even begin to reconcile this? While I was full of joy for her and for her family, I was sad that time had insisted on dragging us along. Our parents were now the older generation and we were stepping up as caretakers. As a good friend said, we start to notice that at each wake, we take one more step to the right in the receiving line and pretty soon we will be the ones standing next to the casket.

Yet, I could see in my friend a level of joy that I had not seen before. Perhaps it was the culmination of pride and love and fulfilment that comes with watching your child grow fully and finally experience that love that only newlyweds can feel. Perhaps there is a mature joy that comes with knowing you did a good job raising another human being and lived a great life yet still have time, and now freedom, to explore life again in a new way.

Whatever it was, it was new for me. It was a new venture. It was a midlife moment. I don’t know where this takes us, but watching my friend and her husband hold each other a little tighter and wipe tears from each other’s eyes made me realize that love doesn’t age and doesn’t contract, it expands. I kicked of my shoes that had been killing my feet and got on the dance floor to celebrate the bride, her family, my family and life. And to feel like I was 18 again for just a few hours.

woman mystic

The Letdown of Happily Ever After

As kids we are told and sold stories of adventure, love and romance with the same ending: they lived happily ever after. So we rush through our own stories with no doubt in our minds that we too will live happily ever after. Then we don’t and we are crushed. Or we do actually get it but our expectation of it was so high that the real happy ever after is dull and matte in comparison to the constant joy and songbird serenade we were promised. We feel like we were cheated and sold some knockoff version of the real deal.

In midlife, many of us find ourselves smack dab in the middle of happily and ever. Life has tossed us around like a county fair carnival ride and we find ourselves standing next to the fried butter stand feeling queasy.

Happily Ever After has, for many of us, included divorce, financial worries, sullen teenagers, chronic illnesses, sudden illnesses and deaths. For sure it has thrown in weddings, births, graduations and celebrations along the way, but we seem to always still be anxiously waiting and hoping for that childhood promise to still be possible between the ever and after. We are sure it is still coming; it told us so, it promised it would be back to get us. It becomes so tempting to stay sitting on the curb of life waiting.

After a while, however, when our yesterdays start to outnumber our tomorrows, we start to realize that perhaps ever and after are not coming for us after all. Perhaps it was all something invented by the grown-ups who knew what was coming and just decided it was best not to scare us kids. It is here we have a few choices: we can stay on that curb stubbornly and stare at the corner, willing ever after happiness to whip around any moment now or we can get up, dust ourselves off, grab our suitcase and head back inside.

The letdown of happily ever after is one that we will all touch in our own unique way but the beauty of it is that the experience comes with a wonderful piece of wisdom like the toy in the cracker jack box. It can help us shift from seeking our needs being met from the external world to finding that both happily and ever after have always held residence in our internal world, we just had to turn inwards and look for it. Through the heartache and disappointment we can find that we were the ones we have been waiting for and we can learn that happiness has always been an inside job. We are the ones that have our own formula for it and like a chemist know how to create it again and again. In Stages of Life, Carl Jung states that while being too pre-occupied by our own selves is dangerous in our youth, this type of focused attention becomes a “duty and necessity” as we age  in order to “illuminate” the transformation – the happily ever after – occurring in our inner world.

Today, where are you finding your happily ever after? Is it daily meditation or yoga practice? Is it clean eating or practicing gratitude? Is it in setting healthy boundaries or expressing your needs, even when it might risk rejection or conflict? Within each one of these are threads of the real Happily Ever After. When we can realize that our choices, our energetical focus, our capacity for empathy and for giving love and compassion are all within our own power to create, recreate and sustain happiness, we see we are more than a helpless kid on the side of the road, desperately waiting to be given what we were promised, we are powerful alchemist with the power to transform, regardless of what is happening around us.

How’s that for a magical story?

3 Shocking Things about Women Falling Apart in Midlife (and what we can do about it).

The more I learn and research about midlife, the more surprised I am that we still keep think we are the only ones going through this.

While what we go through is very personal, we are not the first ones, and won’t be the last, to experience the absolute panic, anxiety and even depression that midlife can bring not to mention the physical symptoms that can take us hostage and turn us into someone we ourselves don’t understand.

Here are 3 things that are shocking about falling apart in midlife:

  1. The oldest members of the Millennials (of Gen Y) generational group are now 38. This means they will be experiencing perimenopausal symptoms themselves within the next 5 years. Weren’t we just talking about how these gals were invading our workplace and how we didn’t understand them? Now, in a few years we will finally be on the upside of the bottom of the U-curve of life as they are blissfully sliding down into it. They will soon be blogging about how they don’t know what’s hitting them and will be looking for all the advice and answers that we are seeking now, all while spending a majority of their time in the workplace. And with women working longer, chances are many of us, if we are working women, will still be here too. In fact, by 2024 the Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that the women over 45 will make up 45.4% of the US labor force (it was 43.82% in 2016) compared to 43.2% of men over 45. One study in Scotland showed that out of 3,649 working women, 63% said menopause was treated as a joke at work. And yet, 8 out of 10 women will have some menopausal indicators, which don’t just happen at home. So, we need to prepare the workforce to be better for this next generation, and for those of us sticking around, than we found it. We need to be making sure that our employers know we are here (and we are because every year 1,300,000 women in the US enter menopause) and that we are just as dedicated and talented as we ever were and with support, we will continue to thrive in our careers. For example, better access temperature controls, options to adjust or have flexible schedules to address fatigue and other disruptive symptoms, better access to alternative treatments through healthcare (acupuncture, wellness programs, etc.), more workplace support networks for women of all ages and workplace education to remove stigma with policies that reinforce it all could go a long way to ensure a woman can remain self-confident and connected during what, for many, is the height of their careers.
  2. In nineteenth century asylums, the ‘cause of admittance’ for most women over forty was listed as ‘change of life’ or ‘suppressed menstruation’.  Yeah, middle aged women have been thought of as ‘crazy’ for a long time. Does midlife make us crazy? Probably not totally crazy, but our hormones do act like they have an all access pass to Six Flags, are all over the place on wild rides, leaving us to sometimes feel out of control looking for the nearest trash can. In midlife, we also get sick of putting up with a lot of crap. We get tired of holding things in, being polite and going along to get along. We realize we have spent a whole lot of time taking care of and nurturing others and while this may have filled our hearts with joy while doing it, for a lot of us we realize that we ourselves are in need of some nurturing and we have some serious catching up to do. This sense of urgency coupled with a body that seems to have betrayed even the best of us and left us invisible in a culture obsessed with youth and perfection has also left us pissed off. Armed with an attitude and a hot flash, we can be dangerous. What can we do about being still labeled today as ‘crazy’? Ignore it and don’t hold back, be who you are and embrace the new found psychic energy that is emerging. We have a power surge like no other time in our lives. It’s time to tell the world to get the hell out of our way and let us do our thing.
  3. Human middle aged females are evolutionary outliers. Only a few species enjoy long post-menopausal lives and we are one of them. Killer whales, Beluga whales and Narwals share the same fate. We are truly in magical company at this point in our lives. In her book, Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life, Darcey Steinke talks about how inspired she was to learn this and discusses the theory that this:

“probably evolved in human communities for the same reason as in whale communities: because around 50, women get so smart and knowledgeable that they’re more valuable to their communities as leaders than as breeders.”

https://crosscut.com/2019/07/what-orcas-can-teach-humans-about-menopause-and-matriarchs?fbclid=IwAR2B8BHPE5XMOYScK6W8KnY1kOANt8GtL-2ZZaPvAJ3cJcvOr3ibOS4H0V0

Knowing that there may just be a divine evolutionary plan for women in midlife can offer us a life raft in the sea of chaos. If leadership is the byproduct being created in all of this, then we really do have stuff to do – it’s in our DNA. With so many of us entering arguably the most powerful time in our life, this can create a great sense of community, hope and focus to the generalized, unspecified urgency we may be feeling. So what can you do about it? Think about the type of leader you are meant to be. Leadership requires authenticity, midlife is here to take us down our own, unique path in which to find the skills and perspective that only we have. What is yours and what can you do with it from here on out?

As we experience midlife, it is easy to think we are the first to feel out of control, cast off and not taken seriously. Yet each generation has experienced midlife in it’s own way with it’s own reactions, narrative and solutions. This just happens to be ours. We are in a most amazing time for women right now and for middle aged women, our time has come.

Take some time today to appreciate just where you are in life and what you can do with this new space you stand in. You are the hero you have been waiting for.

image: unsplash.com Matthieu Stern