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Ellen

Relax and Reduce Stress

March 1, 2023 by Ellen

I feel like I’m going crazy!

During menopause, in addition to physical changes to your body, your brain is also affected by surges and dips in your hormone levels. The mental symptoms of menopause can make you feel like you are going crazy. The mood swings and irritability can make you blow things way out of proportion. Little pesky issues seem ginormous, and your brain can fester over the smallest thing until your head wants to explode.

You are not going crazy. It is overwhelming and even when your rational brain knows what is causing it, it is still all-consuming and very hard to shake off.

What causes this?

Blame your ovaries. They won’t mind.

Your ovaries are so busy trying to keep up estrogen production but they aren’t running on all cylinders anymore. At times they can’t make enough, other times too much. It’s these fluctuations of hormones that disrupt your entire system, including your brain and mood-regulating chemicals like serotonin and endorphins.

This can lead to some of the mental menopause and perimenopause symptoms including:

  • sleep issues
  • anxiety
  • mood swings

What can you do about it? Reducing stress can be very helpful in the mitigation of anxiety and mood swings. Giving yourself some me-time to relax and calm your mind, especially when you are obsessing over something. Do yoga, build a puzzle, paint a paint-by-number, go for a walk or just get lost in a good book.

Relaxation and Stress Relief Products

Adult Coloring Books

Relax and find your Zen by coloring. Mandalas symbolize harmony, wholeness, and healing. These spiritual maps guide us in our personal and creative journeys and allow us to find inner peace and calm.

These are amazing colored pencils. Castle Art Supplies 120 Colored Pencils Set | Quality Soft Core Colored Leads in a nice tin box. Intensely pigmented, rich, creamy colors for smooth coverage and effortless layering and blending.

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Find your zen through coloring with Mandalas To Color, Volume IV. This mandalas book inspires creativity and promotes stress relief. 50 Single-Sided designs on thick, smooth paper with a spiral binding. Printed in USA.

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Paint-by-Numbers

Enjoy the calming and almost hypnotic feeling when you work on a paint by number painting. These Opalberry Paint by Numbers kits for Adults each come with a 16×20″ Wrinkle-Free Rolled Canvas, 3 paintbrushes that do not shed, 30 safe, odorless, water-based acrylic paint pots shipped in vacuum-sealed bags and a reference image.

16×20″ Wrinkle-Free Rolled Canvas – Adult Paint-by-Number- Sailing on the Sound.

Buy at Amazon

16×20″ Wrinkle-Free Rolled Canvas – Adult Paint-by-Number – Christmas Fireplace

Buy at Amazon

Do a Puzzle

Relieve Stress. Escaping into the calm of puzzling for as little as 20 minutes can sooth anxieties. It’s the perfect digital detox.

Springbok’s 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle. Each thick puzzle piece is unique and snaps into place. The colors are brilliant and the quality is exceptional. Made in USA

Buy at Amazon

This pleasant puzzle presents a charming autumn scene. A cottage is tucked away in a forest where the fall colors are coming through in the tree leaves. Made in USA

Buy at Amazon

Read a book or 100

With the new waterproof Kindle Paperwhite, you’re free to read and relax in more places, including the beach, pool, or bath. It features a 300 ppi, glare-free Paperwhite display and a single battery charge lasts weeks. Now with Audible, Kindle Paperwhite lets you switch seamlessly between reading and listening via Bluetooth-enabled speakers or headphones.

Buy Kindle Paperwhite at Amazon

Finding new stories has never been easier with Kindle. Unlimited Reading. Unlimited Listening. Any Device. Kindle Unlimited gives you access to over one million titles and thousands of audiobooks.

View Kindle Unlimited at Amazon

Massage Pillows

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Filed Under: Shop for Relief

Mortality issues in menopause

March 1, 2023 by Ellen

That damn hourglass!

“I’ll never be 5 again”, I said crying. Mom thought it was cute. I did not.

Maybe I saw “5” at the bottom of the hourglass getting slowly covered by the sands of time.

Back when I was a kid in summer camp, I spent the night in the infirmary sick with a fever and I had these strange mortality nightmares. I don’t recall the specifics, just a feeling in my gut of an impending something… a shadow lurking just out of sight… waiting. My young mind at the time couldn’t interpret the feeling, but stored it away.

Fast forward to my recent battle with the flu (or COVID). Only this time combine the fever nightmares with menopausal anxiety and I manage to develop a new menopausal symptom (for me) – Oudenophobia – the fear of not existing.

I’m not talking about aging or the process of dying. I’m referring to the nothingness after that. The switch turning off. The little red light going out. POOF! No more me. Nothing. Nada. The End…. even as I type this it’s weirding me out.

I can’t even fathom the thought of not existing anymore. I mentioned it to a friend, who stated so surely, “why does it matter, you won’t even know.” That didn’t make me feel any better, but I was impressed as to how she could just shrug it off. The thought of ceasing to exist didn’t seem to bother her at all. She does have a lot on her plate right now, a very busy life. Maybe I just need some more worries to occupy my mind. Yeah, like I need that. Maybe that’s where some menopausal anxiety comes from. Thinking about getting closer to death can be terrifying, so we come up with all of these other worries to fill our heads so we don’t think about the big one. Nah! I’m not buying it. That fear comes from the pit of my stomach, not my head.

“Death is nothing to fear because as long as we exist, death is not present, and when death comes, we no longer exist.”

– Epicurus

Filed Under: Symptoms

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