The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 045 - Menopause Yoga - Petra Coveney & Dr Louise Newson

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

In this podcast, Dr Louise Newson is joined by Petra Coveney, Founder of Menopause Yoga - the UK’s first specialist style of yoga to support women going through the menopause.  Petra, who is a member of the British Menopause Society (BMS) for health practitioners and a senior yoga teacher and trainer, developed Menopause Yoga to meet the physical and emotional needs of women going through menopause. Last year, due to demand from women and yoga teachers, she launched the world’s first Menopause Yoga Teacher Training course at Newson Health, which is accredited by the UK’s main governing bodies the British Wheel of Yoga and Yoga Alliance Professionals. Her aim is to train a yoga teacher in every town so that women across the country can practice locally where they live. The course has drawn teachers from all over the world, many of whom have trained at Newson Health. In April 2020, she piloted the first online Menopause Yoga classes and in May she is launching the first online Teacher Training course, which includes Dr Louise Newson as a Guest Speaker. Dr Newson’s book on the Menopause is a core course reading text.   In this podcast, Dr Newson and Petra discuss:  Petra’s own menopause journey,   What inspired her to develop Menopause Yoga,  Combining western medical science with eastern Indian Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine,  The Chinese concept of post menopause as a woman’s ‘Second Spring.’  How yoga, breathwork and meditation can support women to transition positively through menopause,  How to reduce stress levels, master your hot flushes and change your perception of menopause.  Why it is important to educate women about the menopause, to feel empowered and embrace post menopause.  Petra Coveney's Three Take Home Tips: Stressful thoughts exacerbate all menopause symptoms. Learn simple breathing exercises to calm your mind and tap into your parasympathetic nervous system that helps you to Rest & Digest.  Writing a daily journal will help you to release negative, stressful thoughts and recognise which foods, drinks, activities, thoughts, etc trigger your menopause symptoms. Every woman is unique. Gaining insights into your triggers will aid your self-growth.  Nourish & Nurture yourself. Eat well, Sleep well. Pamper yourself.   Petra will be returning to Newson Health later in the year to run women’s workshops here at Newson Health. You can find out more on her website: www.menopause-yoga.com    Instagram: @Menopause_Yoga 

Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr Louise Newsom, a GP and menopause specialist, and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon. Today I'm really delighted to introduce to you Petra Kovini, who's come up from London to a clinic today to record a podcast, so thank you very much for coming. You're welcome. We first met, I think a couple of years ago,

Menopause Society Conference and this is quite a key moment for me actually because the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence guidelines had recently come out which is the first menopause guidelines for healthcare professionals in the UK. I had just opened my menopause clinic that I ran on my own in a hospital and I was really keen that women were given the right information to make the right choice for them and really have a very holistic approach to their menopause. And Petra, you were one of the few non-healthcare professionals there. And if any of you've met Petra, you'll see she has the most beautiful posture, a far better posture than most doctors who are always bending over their desks. And then you asked a question. And I thought,

who is this lady? You're so calm and relaxed. And I thought she can't be a doctor. And then you said that you were very interested coming from it as a yoga teacher. So then we connected after, I think I heard your question. And we've stayed in touch. And it's a real privilege because you've run some days here of yoga and now you've developed this yoga and menopause course, which is just wonderful. So before we talk about the yoga and menopause course,

tell me a bit about your background and how you've got to where you are now. Okay, so, and thank you for welcoming me here. It's always such a pleasure to come back to Newsome Health and to see you, it just lives and inspires me every time. Oh, that's kind. So I came from a previous background, working in a profession of communications,

and I'd always practiced yoga for 20 years anyway, and I'd used yoga as a way to manage my own health and mental well-being as well, while I was raising children and working and living a very busy life, like, you know, most women out there. And there came a pivotal time when I was in my mid-40s, when I was going through paramenopause, but back in those days, and this is the dark age. You know, when paramenopause was not the word that, you know, trips off people's tongues as it does now, nobody, no normal average woman knew what paramenopause was.

I think a lot of people still don't. So just for those of you who are listening, who might not know, Perry, is a medical term for around the time of menopause, menomensal cycle, pause. So we know most women know, and men hopefully know, that the menopause is actually, actually a retrospective look back in time diagnosis when it's a year since the last period. Perry is around the time, so it's when menopausal symptoms start, but a woman still has periods, and periods often change in nature or frequency. And it can last several years, sometimes a decade, before periods stop. So we are talking about it more now because it's really important

to know what's happening to your body, but also to consider having the right treatment as well. So sorry to interrupt. So carry on. So you were experiencing some peri menopoles. symptoms. But I didn't know what I was going through and this is actually as you said still common that women won't know what's happening to them and some of the phrases you'll hear women say I feel like I'm going mad I feel like I'm going insane so it's not just oh what's happening to my periods they're irregular it's not just am I having the occasional hot flush which I didn't at first it's why am I having a sudden surge of rage from zero to a hundred why am I feeling overwhelmed by the smallest things. Why is my digestive system completely conged out? I was sent by the way

by my GP to have an internal investigation for cancer and I said I haven't got cancer. I know I haven't. Something is going on. I think it's to do with my hormones. But back then nobody had made that connection with your hormones. All these things were happening in my body and I had no idea what was going on. And I went to my GP and I had the blood test because back in in those days, that was kind of all that was available to you. And the GP confirmed, yes, you're going into perimenopause. You're not quite there. Come back when you're in menopause.

And I said, well, what can I actually do or how can you help me? Well, there's nothing because back in again in those days, doctors were very reluctant to offer women HRT, hormone replacement therapy, as you've well documented. And I said, well, I'm feeling really lost. I'm feeling really afraid. I don't know what's happening to my body, my mind, my emotions. It's affecting my relationships with my partner, my relationships with my colleagues at work,

my relationship with myself. And I said, is there any support group? Anything out there? Nothing. And I said, well, could I set one up? And, you know, I practice yoga. Could I set up a women's support group so that not only would I feel supported

by other women going through menopause, but that we could learn from each other and I could support them too and maybe practice in yoga breathing or techniques, that kind of thing, meditation. And unfortunately, that wasn't available at that time. And my GP was very kind of skeptical about, well, how is yoga going to help with something which is a hormone deficiency? So I felt very isolated and was unable to reach out to my sister, my friends, my mother. My mother had passed away.

nobody else around me had gone through menopause. I was in complete ignorance. So instead, being the practical kind of person I am, I decided to do my own research. And so I sought books out from all over the world. I reached out to teachers in Brazil and Germany and all over the world to try and gain their knowledge of how to manage these symptoms. I knew instinctively that there were issues around nutrition

and I saw I changed my diet. because I had practiced yoga, I looked to the yoga community to give me support. So I sought out books and teachers going right through hundreds of years who were providing information that could be helpful. And also, I don't know if you can tell, but I am part Chinese. It's not necessarily evident. But my mother was quite distinctively Chinese. And I think also I've sort of drawn that Chinese aspect into my life. as well. And so when I was pooling together this knowledge and information out there through the

decades of wise women and other teachers, I wanted to draw together medical knowledge so I knew what is happening factually to my body. But I also drew on yoga from India and I also drew on traditional Chinese medicine and chigong from the Chinese side. And so what I've done is I've pooled this all together to create a practice that supported me through my own menopause, but that I also then broadened out so it was more applicable to a wider range of women. And that's what I've been teaching since 2016. I've been teaching one-to-ones, classes, workshops, and I came to the British Menopause Society as a member in 2018 when I met you. but I'd actually previously been attending various meetings where I wasn't a member

and hearing about menopause and different studies across the world and I knew this was what I wanted to learn more about. I also knew that this is where I wanted my work to be. So when I qualified as a yoga teacher full time, I decided this was going to be a kind of new direction for me. to help support other women going through menopause by drawing together the best of the West in terms of medical science

and the best of the East in terms of well-being and to combine it. So that's a very long answer to say that when we met at the British Menopause Society Conference, it was this beautiful confluence of coming together where I could not believe my luck that I'd finally found a doctor, an expert in her field who hadn't shun or didn't shun yoga and well-being.

You saw the value and you brought it together and that was a light bulb moment for me. Yeah, well I think it's so important and I think what's very interesting is that there is so much now about wellness, well-being, whatever you call it, and it is a bit of a trendy term. Yoga, as you know, one of my teachers, James Critchlow has taught for decades before it became. trendy. Now yoga's quite trendy as well. So we've got these trendy things going on and it's very easy to get caught up feeling that we're not doing the right thing or we should be doing something or it's got to have the right label or you've got to dress the right way so you can do a certain yoga class. Whereas actually it's about what's right for each individual, isn't it? Which is so important.

And yoga is of quite a personal thing really because there's so many different types and wellness is very personal. How do you define well? And as a doctor, for me, it's not so much treating illness. It's preventing illness. And if we can change that mindset, which is something I never learned as a medical student, isn't that good. And medicine is great, but you can't just give someone a medicine and tell them to carry on smoking 20 a day, go to McDonald's, sit on the couch every evening and don't do any exercise, because that's only half of it. But at the same time, you can't tell someone to exercise all the time, eat beautifully, but ignore the fact you've got diabetes so don't have insulin. So it's a big bend diagram, isn't it? So I think it's very unique in what you've done

because you are embracing all the information, which some people don't. They go on one tunnel, don't they? And there's certainly a lot of variation between yoga teachers as well, like there is with doctors. So I know the response that you've had has been very positive, isn't it? The feedback you've had from your work so far. It's been. It's been very good. It's been. wonderful and just to say you represent the modern western medical science but you've embraced well-being and yoga and all those aspects and i'm just on the other side and i think it's about saying they don't have to be mutually exclusive they can come together in a holistic way and again that's one of those words that maybe overused these days but holistic just simply means the whole

bringing it all together why should you have to just have one aspect and not the other and the benefits of hormone replacement therapy are enormous. They're tremendous in so many different ways. So why would I say just do yoga, just do meditation, when that could be depriving women of various health benefits from taking various hormones that they need? One of the wonderful pieces of information that I received as a member of the British Menopause Society are the guidelines. And the guidelines state that GPs should treat. every woman as an individual because their experience of menopause and their hormonal needs are going to be completely different. And this for me is a very exciting thing to hear because it actually taps into what we try to achieve in the yoga practice, which is a deeper self-awareness.

You know, what do you need physically, mentally, emotionally, yourself as this unique human being that you are? and we can talk a little bit more about what menopause yoga is as compared to other forms of yoga. But it was just to mention that. And also, Louise, I know with your yoga practice, how long have you been practicing yoga? Since my oldest daughter was a baby, so 17 years,

but I did take time off, obviously, because I've got three children, so I couldn't do it. The same intensity, certainly when I was pregnant, and I had to stay in sections, so I had to be careful after. But I have done it for a long time. But it's something that if you told me I had to go for a run twice a week, I would just find an excuse not to do it. But it's something that I actually really enjoy to do. And the more you do, the better you become, but also the more you can get out of your practice.

And now, as you know, I am incredibly busy. I've never worked this hard, but I still have time for yoga. Because if I don't, my mind goes, my body will soon go and my brain. You know, so it's very important for me, even more important, which sounds a bit weird than it was when I was less busy. And that's coming from a person who I know eats very healthily, it's really good food and has a wonderful home life balance and feels fulfilled in their life. And yet you still need the yoga. And that's where I come from as well. What I think is really interesting, though, is how we change over the course of our lives.

Yes. You were mentioning earlier that there are different types of yoga. are and there are different types of yoga and teachers for different times in your life. I'm just going to, well, I'm going to ask you what kind of yoga did you start off doing? Yeah, well, I've always done stanga yoga, as you know, but actually the first class I went to, it was only because I could fit in with the timing of childcare when my husband was home from work, so it was just at the gym and this teacher when I went and I said, I'm new to the class. He said, well, you do know estanga's the most physical, most powerful, most strength.

form of yoga. I went, oh, no, I knew nothing about it. So we were doing the primary series, and if some of you know the primary series, it's very hard. Every breath is a different movement, and then you end with some finishing sequences, including a headstand. And I was just looking around the room thinking, what on earth? What are these people doing? And I remember coming home and saying to my husband, what, they're bending and twisting, I've got no idea, I'll never do this. But there was something about it I quite liked. So I did this class for a little bit, but the yoga teacher was very dynamic, very quick. He could do all these positions and I ended up feeling a bit inadequate because I couldn't do all these positions. So then I actually went to a different

class and then met James Critchlow and he said, Louise, you seem to be quite good but you're racing. Take it back. It doesn't matter what you do or how you look. It's how you feel. And so he took my practice right back and I've stayed with him and I've seen him most weeks for the last 16 years. but he has been incredible and actually every time I've had an operation because I've had sections but I've also had other operations it's been a great time to regroup and like I'm sure you know recently I had a hysterectomy and I went back very very slowly and now I'm feeling loads better and I could do a proper full practice but I'm still taking it slowly and sometimes as you know when your practice changes you think about different things so I'd

like being able to play with my practice a little bit as well because a lot of people will say, oh, well, yoga's fine, but I want to do exercise where my heart races or I get sweaty. It's like, sorry, have you not done, you know, at yoga? And every practice is a different feeling, isn't it? So it's great to experience different ways and different feelings. So I've stuck with a stangir yoga, but sometimes we do a bit of secondary series as well as primary series. But it just, I think it works for me and I'm very regimented. my way that I live so I'm sort of scared of change but I have dipped in and out of doing other

you know if I'm away on holiday I'll try something different as well and it's so interesting to hear you talk because the Indian holistic healthcare system is called Ayurveda yes and in Ayurveda there are three body and mental types of being one is kaffa the other is pitter and the last one is vata and during the the course of your life, generally you associate CAFA with youth, you associate Pitta with adulthood and productivity and reproductivity, and you associate VATA with older age. That isn't to say that that's exclusive, but that tends to be the journey we go on. However, each and every one of us is unique and we have a different balance of those kind of elements within us. So CAFA is

associated with water and earth. Pitta is associated with fire, dynamism, action. VATA is associated with air and creativity and imagination. So interesting. And in actual fact we need all of those within our body but we need

to find a little bit of balance. So the CAFA is very grounding and nurturing and supportive. But when it's out of balance it can become sluggish, heavyweight, slightly depressed, low mood, low energy. Pitta can be dynamic,

leadership, so full of action and energy. But if it's out of balance, it can become full of rage and anger and overheating, which is an irritability, which is interesting. And VATA, when it's in its balance,

it's creative and imaginative, which we all need that inspiration in our lives. But when it's out of balance, it can become that sense of being. blown away like a leaf blowing in the wind, feeling overwhelmed and lost and confused. So what I find really interesting about looking at you, you're physically, you are pitter, but you are pitter bordering on vata. And I know you, Louise, I've been working with you for several years and I know that you have this amazing dynamism. You have this fantastic

leadership which draws people in around you to work in these wonderfully supportive team. to deliver the inspirational things that you want to achieve. But that inspiration comes from the VATA imaginative side. When I'm working with women going through menopause, they have all these different elements or constituents within themselves, but we are all moving towards VATA. And so I help them to use yoga, breathing techniques, meditation, mindfulness,

cognitive behaviour exercises, to help them to find that balance. And so we have different yoga practices for each woman's need. And again, that taps into that medical aspect, which is every body is unique. And I think that's, it's just so important because we do change and there are some days where we feel we're going to conquer the world.

And other days we think, oh my gosh, it's an uphill struggle. And actually around the time I met you, I was experiencing some perimenopals or symptoms, which I had not diagnosed in myself. I thought it was because I was working too hard. And I found my yoga practice really stiff, really hard. My joints were sore, my muscles were stiff. It wasn't fluid. As any of you who do yoga know, if you have a lovely practice, it becomes quite fluid.

And there's something quite beautiful about being on your mat, just focusing on what you're doing rather than everything else that's going on in your mind. And I just thought, oh, this is hot. I'm not enjoying it at all. I feel very brittle, I feel stiff, my brain is just not working properly. And I thought, what a shame. I'm 46 and I'm going to have to stop doing yoga because it's not doing anything for me. How little did I know that it was because my low hormone levels were affecting me in this way. And my sleep wasn't good again because of my hormones. And my diet was still good and I thought, I don't know what else I can do.

It was really, really frustrating. And I can see and hear more and more, the women that I speak to, experience similar frustrations. And then if someone has never done exercise or certainly never tried yoga, and then we're sitting here saying menopause and yoga is great, it's really hard to start something when you're perimenopausal or menopausal, because often your motivation is low, physically your body's changing. So it can be really hard, can't it? And I think sometimes even just learning how to breathe properly or how to switch up. off, you can get from seeing certain yoga teachers like yourself. And that's a step in the right direction, isn't it?

Absolutely. So we know medically, factually, that stress exacerbates all of the main menopause symptoms. So if you can learn how to calm your nervous system by using really simple, easy to learn, breathing techniques, very simple mindfulness, practice. that just make you more present, then you don't even have to worry or think about, am I doing this yoga pose? By calming your nervous system, by focusing your mind, you are then able to make healthier, more focused decisions. Yes.

And I think it's very important. I mean, as women, we love to be able to multitask, don't we? And I have so many things going on in my brain. But actually, yoga's helped me focus on here and now. So, you know, at the moment, I'm doing the podcast with you, and that is all that matters. So whatever my children are doing, or whatever the emails are, or the Instagram stories or whatever, irrelevant because I'm here with you. And yoga is very good at focusing the mind.

And not just yoga, but I think, like you say, meditation, which scares a lot of people, or mindfulness, which, again, a lot of people don't know what it means. And some of these things, it doesn't matter what they're called. It is about switching off, focusing your mind, sometimes just concentrating on yourself is really important, and your breathing. You know, just sometimes having 10 seconds out of a busy day can really make a difference, can't it? And this is very much the message that I encourage in menopause yoga. So without sounding cliched, I encourage women to take a pause. Yes.

take a pause in their lives to take a breath. And even if all they do is take one breath at a time, they are then calming the nervous system and focusing the mind. I encourage women to take a pause out of their lives because we have reached the middle of our lives. We are living longer. And to step back and reflect on where they've been living their life, how they've been living their life.

What is no longer serving them? What is no longer supporting them? Nutritionally, physically, emotionally, mentally, relationship-wise. So take a pause and reconnect with yourself. So a lot of the time, especially in the modern world, we are focused externally on all the stimulation around us, the phones, the computers, the noise of the traffic, the jobs, the people.

But actually we need to come back into ourselves, refocus into ourselves, reconnect with that stillness that we all have within us. And listen to that very intuitive voice that all of us have within us that will help us to nurture and nourish ourselves. So just simply taking time out to breathe, focus the mind can help you to reconnect with yourself. And in the menopause yoga teacher training, we also encourage a woman to come together. So we create these women's circles,

something which I didn't have when I was going through my paramenopause. And in those women's circles, we share our experiences so that we don't feel isolated and alone. And in those women's circles, we share knowledge because we don't realize how much we do actually know. We know things about ourselves, but we know things about nutrition. or other aspects of our lifestyles that we can change.

And by sharing that information, we realise that we have this inner wisdom. You know, people look in Western society at women in their middle years and older as in some ways kind of past it, losing their sense of value, and you're losing your sense of what your identity is in society, in your relationships, in your families.

But we can change. that view, that perspective of ourselves and actually honour this wisdom, this wise woman within us, and look to how we can support other people as well. In the yoga practice, we call a self-study where you write a journal and start making connections between your habits and behaviours and how you feel. We call that Swadhaaya. And I've created a journal to help you help. people to write down what they've eaten, what they've done today, what exercises they've done, how they feel, and make links between those things and their symptoms. Also through Swadhaaya, which is the self-study, we look at how you can develop your life

in a way that's going to sustain you and support you in that later stage of your life. So one of the ways I like to describe it, Louise, is imagine that you were moving into a little bijou apartment, all of your own. And that might be a little apartment with a view of a garden or a field or the mountains, or maybe it's looking out onto the sea. It's your favourite bijou little apartment. Would you want to take into that lovely new apartment all of the luggage, baggage, baggage, the wardrobe, the kitchen sink. Would you want to drag that into this new small space or would you want to leave some of that behind

so that you had a lovely open space for you to relax and enjoy and be happy? And that's really what I'm saying is leave behind any negative behaviours, habits, ways of being, relationships, which are no longer supporting you and serving you. Which is really important, isn't it? because having positive energy is good for ourselves, but actually when we're with positive people, you feel happier, you feel more positive.

So it has a big effect on everyone. So just before we finish, just briefly, the menopause yoga course that you're doing, this is for yoga instructors, isn't it, to develop and learn? So just tell me briefly about what that is, because it's the first in the UK, isn't it? Well, this is what's been really exciting. So I've been teaching menopause workshops and classes,

and other places. It took me a very long time to be able to do this because back in the dark ages, menopause was a dirty word that people didn't even like to talk about, even in yoga studios. So they didn't allow me to run these workshops. Then there was a turning point around the Me Too movement where women started to come out onto social media and say, actually I'm going to talk about this, this and this, and no one is going to shut me up. That was an extraordinary period of time and that led to some yoga studios then deciding okay we're going to allow you to come in and teach something called menopause yoga but the tudding point for me was coming up here just when you were opening this beautiful news and the house building and you invited me in to teach just a short

little workshop which was well received and so then I came up and began teaching workshops and classes up here and as a result of that the women not just here but in other years yoga studios, they were saying to me, well, I really enjoyed that. That was great. But where is the local teacher that I can now practice with when I'm back at home? There aren't any. It's just me. And then the teachers, the yoga teachers who are coming to my workshops were saying, well, I love this. I want to teach this. Have you got a training course? And I said, no, it's just me. And so I got badgered and badgered by various teachers and women and I said, okay, let's just do this. So I went away and I refocused, re-researched and using the medical information from the British Menopause Society and yourself and everything I knew from the yoga and well-being world.

I pulled together a unique course and it is now accredited by the British Wheel of Yoga and Yoga Alliance professionals, which are the two May. It is. It's brilliant. It's never been done before. And what's wonderful is that both of these organisations have fully supported me in bringing this to women. It has run two courses so far, which were fully booked. They had a 100% positive feedback response. And the British Will of Yoga sent a quality assurance inspector to just check the quality of the teaching and the content. And he passed it with flying colours. I mean, it was just such a lovely moment. And the first ever menopause yoga teacher training took place here at Newson Health. It was a wonderful moment and it couldn't have been launched anywhere else, Louise, because you are the embodiment of everything that I've ever wished to

be part of, which is that bringing together of west and the east. Newsome Health here in Stratford and Aven is this beautiful sanctuary which doesn't feel like a medical clinic. It just feels like the most luxurious spa that you'd want to enter into. And the fact that you have a room where we can practice yoga with a heated floor and lovely bright sunlight coming through, it absolutely could not have been launched anywhere else in the country. And what I just wanted to say is such a huge amount of gratitude towards you. Because you have, it's a huge amount of gratitude towards you. Because you have, inspired not just me, but so many other women out there. And it's not just that you're trying to raise awareness of menopause and doing it very successfully. It's that who you are, your energy,

your activism and the way that you bring other women up with you. Yes. It's not... It's so important. You know, I couldn't do any of this work on my own. I have the most amazingly supportive husband, as you know, are a family. But actually, I do it for work. women. And women, there's something very powerful. I'm not feminist, but there's something very powerful about women working together. And also, there's so much negativity about the menopause. There's the stories that I read, you must have seen on some of my Instagram posts really make me cry. But then it drives me to work harder. And then when people do say thank you because I've read something or I've done something that you've recommended, I now feel better. It's a really

wonderful feeling and the more we work together and complement each other is just wonderful so it's great having people like you to work together and as a doctor it's very easy for people to think it's only about medicine and it's clearly not you know menopause is to try and find the best for our next phase like you say in our life we don't know how long will we here but if it is decades they've got to be positive life's too short to not make the most of it exactly and just just wanted to say that I've been so inspired by working with you and being here that it is my dream and we all need dreams don't we we need it some inspiration in my dreams I would hope that I will be able to train enough women so that there will be a menopause yoga teacher in

every town in the UK to have one in every town or every city at least and that I hope that at some point other doctors, other GPs will invite yoga teachers into their health centres or their surgeries and offer this up just as I had hoped would be available when I was going through menopause. So that's kind of where my drive comes from is to not have other women go through what I went through. And so thank you so much. Oh, well, thank you so much for staying your time. So before we end, I just want your three take-home tips in a very traditional way that I've seemed to have evolved with the podcasts.

So three tips, maybe for women who were like yourself in the past, perimenopausal, feeling alone. What would you say? Number one, pause, take a deep breath. All you have to do is take life one breath at a time. Make it a slow and steady one. Everything is going to be okay. Secondly, take a pause to,

nurture and nourish yourself. As a woman, we tend to support and nurture and nourish all the other people around us, whether it be families, relationships, colleagues. Take time now to look after yourself and nourish yourself because if your pot is empty, you have nothing left to give to others. So give yourself that permission. And the third one is to take that pause to write your journal. reconnect with yourself reconnect with those dreams that maybe you had when you were younger who says you can't still achieve those things

and like a phoenix rising out of the ashes or like a menopausal woman rising out of a hot flush you can not be reborn but you can redirect your life in a positive way it's not over one final thing to say on that in Chinese traditional medicine, women who are our age and older are respected and revered as the wise woman. And women in places like Japan, they look forward to their menopause because they are respected in society and they don't have to do all other stuff they used to have to do when they were younger.

And so changing your perspective on menopause can make you happier. They don't even have a word in Japanese linguistics for menopause because it doesn't have those negative connotations. And in Chinese traditional medicine, we go through these cycles where youth is spring, adulthood is summer, autumn is perimenopause, winter the cessation of your periods is menopause. But if you change the way you live,

change your relationship with yourself, you can then go into what they call the second spring. Brilliant. And that is a wonderful place to be. That's where I want all of us to be able to go into, which is where I think you already are, which is into your second spring. Brilliant. What a lovely way to end.

So thank you so much. It's just been so informative and such beautiful language that you use. So thank you, Petya for coming. You're very welcome, Louise. It's always a pleasure to be here. Thank you. For more information about the menopause,

please visit our website www. www.menopausedoctor.com. UK.