There are many stress resilience tips on the google machine. My top tip is:

DEVELOPING A BETTER MINDSET.

What does stress resilience & your mindset have to do with Menopause?
STRESS AFFECTS MENOPAUSE SYMPTOMS!

I had a hard time choosing between “stress resilience and mindset” and “stress resilience and meditation” as topics for this episode and post.

Stress resilience and mindset won.

This is the Number One Focus to Relieve Stress in Menopause.

This episode and post will cover:

The definition of stress resilience.
The IMPORTANCE of adaptation to stress → it’s a link to stress and health.
What Mindset is.
A little twist on that STUPID suggestion “just take time for you.”

Let's start by defining the term Stress Resilience.

It’s how well you adapt to stressors. (I touched on 5 Types of Stress in the previous episode).

The term “resilience” refers to the ability to adapt successfully to stress, trauma and adversity, enabling individuals to avoid stress-induced mental disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and burn out.

Don’t you think BURN OUT is a common Menopause symptom?

Another definition is “the ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions”.

Don’t we all know that one person who seems to be able to brush things off, put them into perspective and “handle” things well?

Do you wonder how that person adapts to the chronic stress in their lives?

How does one person go through so much trauma, and come out the other side with a positive attitude, while another develops mental health issues?

It is trait in this person? Did the person who thrived in the face of adversity, have certain personal characteristics that enabled them to withstand stress, and thrive?

OR did this adaptation happen gradually, as a process, while undergoing significant trauma.

For those of you who faced adversity, were you able to develop more tools in your toolkit to reframe what happened to you?

Did this depend upon:

The people in your lives?
Life experiences?
Your self talk messages?
Your access to positive influences?

There are SO many factors in developing strength and adversity in times of stress, no?

Evidence from animal and human studies shows the brain and body connect when there is stress placed upon a being. This means that the brain, and your psychology, your mind mechanisms, are behind your susceptibility to stress. Not just your physiology, or your body chemistry.

There is a growing understanding of why some animals or people are more resilient to stress than others, with the idea that understanding how a person adapts, can pave the way for more interventions to increase resiliency when confronted with life stressors. (1)

Have you ever heard of Adverse Childhood Events? ACE’s, or adverse childhood events, are a determinant of our health outcomes. Someone who has sustained terrible traumas as children may have lasting effects in brain development, and even their methylation process according to this research article. (1)

Methylation is DNA expression and relation to disease. PHYSICAL expression of trauma may show itself as disease.

There is a lot of talk between disease and unexpressed emotions.

When you face adversity, and developed positive adaptations, not negative ones, you are becoming more resilient to stress.

Adversity is broad term. It can mean:

Failing an exam
Social exclusion
School bullying
Workplace harassment
Depression
Grief and loss

Ultimately, this growing understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms (mind and body) of resilience should result in the development of novel interventions that specifically target neural circuitry and brain areas that enhance resilience and lead to more effective treatments for stress-induced disorders.

How susceptible are YOU to stress?

This will vary from person to person and can depend on genetic vulnerability, coping style, type of personality and social support. (1)

Not all stress has a negative effect. That’s the EUSTRESS we talked about in the last episode. I also described the Stress Response, briefly.

The HPA axis is also called the Stress Response.

Hypothalamus: This gland sits at the base of the brain and is really like our relay/response centre for messages that the body is giving.

Messages like: hunger, temperature changes, illness, and thoughts about threats or stressors. It is affected by your CNS (Central Nervous System) and your Immune System.

Pituitary gland: This is called our master gland, because it makes hormones that control the body. This is affected by the CNS , the Immune System, and our endocrine system too. That is our hormones.

Adrenal: These glands make our stress hormones. They sit on top the kidneys and secrete chemical messengers. The one we hear about a lot is cortisol. They do secrete other things, like DHEA, which is sometimes called a youth hormone! These are affected by the Nervous system and the Endocrine system. These are also tied to the gut.

But what about handling that stress? That's the resilience part.

Why do you want to improve stress resilience? Chronic stress affects the immune system. The immune system is susceptible to stress!

Over time daily hassles, your toxic job, and relationship troubles, cause emotions that may stay unresolved inside.

All of these things, including anger, guilt, and resentment, have the same effect on the hypothalamus, as that tiger chasing you! (2)

This affects your nervous system. Your nervous system plays a role in those hot flashes!

Stress also affects the gut, the digestive tract. It increases stomach acid, and changes the gut environment. This may contribute to stomach ulcers. H pylori are a bacteria that can be in the stomach, and they are connected to ulcers. When the stomach ph is off, this bacteria can flourish. It may invade the stomach lining and also increase acid production.

Stress may affect your cardiovascular health. Stress can affect your neurological health. Stress can affect so many systems, one blog post and podcast episode is not enough.

Suffice to say, if you are experiencing brain fog, one reason may be stress.

There are many links to stress and health. Let’s face it, if you are experiencing chronic stress, you may feel awful physically and mentally.

It seems that building your stress resilience will help your long term health.

How do we build stress resilience?

Some stressors are just out of your control. Can you recognize these?

You can build resilience in areas of the physical body. Using herbs, homeopathy, and nutrition are some ways to target the stress response, as is managing your blood sugar, and getting sleep.

Emotional stress can be supported with meditation, social connections, mindfulness and MINDSET.

There is also spiritual support. A belief in something greater than yourself, whatever you chose to name it. God, source, or the universe.

The number one thing to focus on for stress resilience ins MINDSET.

Mindset is the set of beliefs that shape your reality and may have an impact on long term happiness and health. Kelly McGonigal, in her book, The Upside of Stress, talks about mindset right in her first chapter.

How you think will affect how you deal with stress.

She outlines an interesting study about women who were hotel cleaners, and how they perceived their job as inactive.

You’ll have to listen to the episode or read the book to find out the rest.

One thing to ask yourself is:

Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?

Kelly McGonigal also talks about your perception of aging.

She states that people with a positive attitude about aging, live longer than those with a negative attitude about aging. She also talked about trust. Those who believed that most people can be trusted, live longer as well.

When I think about all the baggage we accumulate through the years, the junk we bring into this stage of life, I think how heavy it is to carry. It’s even harder to unpack. Unpack it we must, if we want to change our mindset in midlife.

And part of changing your mindset is switching from a fixed mindset, to a growth mindset.

This is your chance to rewrite your story. Isn’t that empowering?

Resources:

Stress Resilience: The Number One Focus to Relieve Stress in Menopause