Posts by Liz

Wednesday Bubble: Pins and Needles?

Posted by Liz on Mar 23, 2011 in humour | 0 comments

Every now and then a reader sends a link that deserves a lot of attention…like this one.  Because as we all know, humour is essential to health and wellbeing and to getting through particularly challenging situations. And when flashes and sweats and swings (oh my!) start to send you into a tizzy, rather than rating your inner “raging maniac,” you may want to just play it old school: voodoo, and new school: good voodoo.

And so, with great delight and lots of giggles, I bring you this week’s Bubble: The Menopause Voodoo Doll.

Truly, when you’re feeling down and low, tag that sucker with ‘killer abs,’ ‘no night sweats’ or ‘still one hot mama,’ and get the good going again.

We may be menopausal. But we ain’t dead yet.

p.s. My birthday’s coming up…

Thanks Beth for the link!

Solitude, a redux

Posted by Liz on Mar 21, 2011 in Inspiration | 5 comments

[Image: James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne]

Two years ago I wrote a post about the distinction between solitude and being alone. In it, I discussed how important it is to take time for yourself but not to block yourself off from others so much that you become very much alone and the alone time, all consuming.

I am reposting this piece for two reasons:

Emotional pain can cause us to go deeply inside ourselves, pain and worry for a loved one, concern for a friend, fear of loss. A short stint alone to sort out those feelings can be imperative for some. But then, it’s time to face those fears or concerns or pain head-on.

I did that this past weekend. I learned a lot about myself and confirmed that more often than not, your own pain is not always as important as another’s, that the best antidote for the yearn and urge to run is to move towards and not away from your fears.

So, I give you solitude. And I take back mine, if only, for a day or so…

The French novelist Colette once wrote:

“There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.”

I have always been a person who needs and cherishes my alone time. In fact, being alone is often a deliberate choice rather than something that is forced upon me. As we get older, solitude allows a break from the busy-ness of life, from the noise, from the distractions. It rejuvenates the soul and provides an opportunity to look closely within, to take stock, to gain clarity and balance.

However, as Colette so aptly says, it can also be detrimental to our health when our needs or when fears, allow solitude to become all-consuming.

At times, immersing oneself in solitude may be the correct path. Other times, solitude may lead to a burrowing that is so deep, that in the end, not only do you lose those who care for you, but your soul as well.

Poetic license with Lao-Tsu: It takes strength to love someone deeply. It takes courage to allow yourself to be deeply loved.

One more thing. Strength lies in stepping outside the comfort zone. That is the true path to growth, even when it means you have to set aside the comfort of your burrow or cave.

Friday Folly…gone fishing

Posted by Liz on Mar 18, 2011 in humour | 0 comments

This just places an entirely new spin on the term “on ice.”

And the double entendre – gone fishing. Some of my readers will understand.

Happy Friday and may your day be Flash Free.

Wednesday Bubble: Hot flashes? Try a little mindfulness…

Posted by Liz on Mar 16, 2011 in mind-body therapy | 1 comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dael4sb42nI]

No bubble bursting or woo woo. I’m talking the real deal. And if mindfulness doesn’t lead to a wee bit of tenderness, well, I don’t know what will. But enough of me taking poetic license with Otis.

Back in January, I wrote about a piece about the relaxation response and how a daily relaxation practice can actually alter gene structure and induce cellular changes believed to promote health. In the post, I said that “both inner and outer psychological states and environmental factors play a role in how women experience peri and post-menopause, their self-esteem, attitudes and severity of symptoms. If a daily practice of some sort of relaxation strategy can actually alter genes in a way that improves health and well-being, why can’t that daily practice also improve the menopausal/midlife experience?”

Guess what?

It appears that I might have been correct.

Writing in the Advanced Online edition of Menopause, researchers say that women who learn to recognize and more accurately discriminate the components that make up an experience, e.g. thoughts, feelings and sensations, or more specifically, the degree of bother and stress related to hot flashes, may be able to reduce the impact of the flashes on wellbeing.

In this 20 week study, women who were late into the transition into full menopause or in early menopause who reported experiencing, on average, 5 or more moderate to severe hot flashes/night sweats a week were assigned to 8 weekly mindfulness-based stress reduction classes  plus one, all day weekend class or to a waiting list. These classes, which lasted 2.5 hours at a time, involved the following:

• Focused awareness of gradually moving thoughts through one’s body from the feet to head while lying down, paying close attention to bodily sensations
• A sitting meditation focusing on breathing
• Mindful stretching
• Learning materials that discussed how to apply mindful stress reduction practice to everyday life and specifically in response to distressing symptoms and situations.

All participants also completed daily hot flash diaries to rate how bothersome their hot flashes were throughout the study period. Additionally, the researchers analyzed the intensity of hot flashes, quality of life, sleep quality, anxiety and perceived stress, as well as medical history, smoking, previous experience with mindfulness practices, and factors directly related to flashes such as smoking, body mass index, alcohol use and physical activity.

Granted, this study is a small one. But the researchers found that mindful stress reduction practice significantly reduced hot flash bother over time by almost as much as 15% after nine weeks and by almost 22% by 20 weeks, compared to at least half as much in women who were on the wait list. Moreover, sleep quality improved considerably!

Overall, the researchers say that their findings truly highlight the role that stress in general, and mental stress in particular, play in how we perceive hot flashes, how much we are bothered by them, and even their severity and frequency. However, they also say that the fact that mindfulness practice did not affect the intensity of hot flashes shows that it might simply help women cope better with them. Less clear is how the degree to which the placebo effect played a role; studies of pharmaceutical treatments report a subjective placebo effect of up to 30% so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Still, they believe that their data show that mindfulness stress reduction may be a significant resource for reducing the bother of hot flashes. Overall, it’s a win-win. Calm the mind; calm the body. Why not try a little tenderness with yourself?

Up in smoke…smoking and breast cancer in the postmenopausal years

Posted by Liz on Mar 14, 2011 in breast cancer | 5 comments

Cigarette smoking is something that appears to keep on giving. And giving. Not only do former smokers find that their habits, even once discarded, might come back to bite them in the hot flash ass and even lead to early menopause, but both active and passive smoking habits are being linked to a increased risk of breast cancer, even 20 years past the expiration date. So, when I was hanging with my bestie behind the fence of my childhood home sucking away at those Kool cigarettes, I guess was I truly making an unconscious choice that is starting to rear its ugly head.

Listen up: don’t smoke.

Okay, enough of the lecture; here are the facts.

Researchers have recently taken a look at the association between smoking and breast cancer risk in almost 80,000 women enrolled in a larger trial (the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study) that took place in the ’90s. Granted, the study relied upon self-reports, which of course, are subject to some degree of what scientists call “recall bias,” meaning that the findings can be subject to some discrepancies. Nevertheless, after collecting information on smoking (never, former or current), age when started smoking, number of cigarettes smoked daily and number of years that cigarettes were smoked, along with age when quitting, as well as potential exposures to passive smoking (as a child, in the home or at work both formerly and currently), they discovered the following:

• Former smokers had a 9% increased risk of breast cancer and current smokers, a 16% increased risk. These figures were related to smoking intensity and years of smoking.
• If a woman had started smoking before their first full time pregnancy, she had a 21% increased breast cancer risk.
• Among former smokers, time since quitting was relevant, and it took as long as 20 years for a former smoker to return to a risk level that would be considered equal to someone who had never smoked.
• Passive smoking was also a huge factor; in fact women who’s exposure to passive smoke in childhood, at home and at work for 10 years or more had a 32% excess risk of developing breast cancer compared to women who had never been exposed to passive smoke. Note that that the researchers emphasize that this particular association is only suggestive and since this is the first study to so closely examine the link between passive smoking and cancer in postmenopausal women, more data are needed.

So, what about the factors that might have influenced or skewed these findings? Well, the researchers did account for age ethnicity, education, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol use, whether or not women had ever been pregnant or brought a child to term, and history of hormone therapy use. And still, the results remained solid.

The upshot of this is that many of us grew up during a time when smoking was a rite of passage, “cool,” or simply habitual. Many of us quit during our 20s or 30s. Some of us still smoke. However, not only does smoking make those menopausal symptoms ever so much worse, but it’s also risky as hell when it comes to breast cancer.

It’s time to do due diligence. Conduct monthly breast checks. Despite controversy as to their value or lack thereof, make a conscious decision about mammography. Instill healthy habits now, including physical activity, a healthy diet and moderate alcohol intake. We might not be able to take back past habits but we can certainly do all we can to alter current habits.

If I knew then what I know now, I might not have picked up those Marlboro Lights so frequently. Oh well. Payback is certainly a bitch.