There is some good news for those of you who are in the early stages of menopause and are having wild mood swings. Mood swings do decrease as you progress through menopause.Most women report that there are far fewer mood swings in the later stages of menopause than there are in the early stages. Maybe our bodies are beginning to adapt. In fact, many women don’t even recognize themselves as going through menopause until they start to see frequent signs like mood swings, hot flashes and missed periods. Truthfully, some women can be years into the menopausal process and not realize that is what’s happening. In many cases, menopausal women attribute their mood swings to increased stress.
Of course, not all of a woman’s menopausal mood swings are directly caused by outside stress. In fact, they’re more accurately caused by the internal stress of fluctuating hormones. These mood swings are a problem for us, and they are also an issue for our friends and our families. Mood swings can wreak havoc on relationships, especially if the menopausal woman is unaware of what is happening. She may not realize that her moods may be beyond her control, but her words and actions still are. From her perspective, she may have a perfectly rational reason for lashing out in anger or frustration or for her waves of sadness. To others, the triggers for these emotions don’t seem to make sense. One way to help all parties understand what is happening is to think of hormones as what they are, chemicals that have an effect on the brain. When a person is chemically influenced, they struggle with things that they would otherwise be adept at. They are not “crazy” or “broken”.
For many women, finding a way to decrease mood swings is more of an incentive to seek out ways to help ease menopausal discomfort than hot flashes or night sweats. Hot flashes and night sweats only have an effect on the woman, but mood swing can create tension that has an impact on the very world that she lives in.
Make sure you are getting the proper nutrition, exercise and know that you are not going nuts, menopause is a normal stage of the life cycle.
