The Midlife Self-Care Plan You Need for the Holidays (And Every Tough Season)

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Transcript

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Hey there, and welcome back to Joyful Menopause. I'm Lynda Enright, your guide to Feeling steady, supported, and truly well during perimenopause, menopause and beyond. Today, we are talking about something that comes up every single year in my practice. How do you actually take care of yourself and not lose your mind during the holidays when the world feels chaotic, your to-do list has multiplied, and your hormones are loudly reminding you that life has changed? The holidays can absolutely be wonderful, and they can also be overstimulating overwhelming, sugar filled, emotional and exhausting. And for women in midlife, those changes in stress hormones, insulin response, sleep rhythms, and mood regulation make this season feel bigger and harder, louder, more intense. But I want you to hear this: you can have a holiday season that supports your health, not one that you have to recover from. And today I'm going to show you how, so let's get started. Menopause doesn't have to feel like you are living in someone else's body. Your host, Lynda Enright, has spent the last 25 years helping women to thrive in midlife. Here you'll find science-based practical advice that you can start using today to get real results for your health. Welcome to Joyful Menopause. If you've ever wondered why you could handle the holidays at 35, but you feel completely fried by them now, you are not imagining it. During perimenopause and menopause, estrogen fluctuates and eventually drops. I talk about this all the time, and that of course impacts every system in your body. It makes your stress response louder. It makes your blood sugar more sensitive. It disrupts sleep more easily. It affects mood, irritability, and emotional triggers. It even can make alcohol feel more intense. So now we layer on travel and parties and hosting and expectations and family drama, late nights, and a constant stream of sugar, and your nervous system is done. It can't handle it all. It's waving its little white flag. So today I want to walk you through four self-care strategies that will help you protect your peace, your energy, and your hormones, so you can actually enjoy the season. So let's first start with food, because what you eat during the holidays has a direct impact on your stress, mood, sleep, and cravings. This isn't about restriction: this is about protection. Our first strategy is to nourish your body, to stay steady. Food truly is nervous system care during the holiday season and all the time, but particularly during the holiday season. So what can help keep you steady? Protein, healthy fats, and fiber. So fiber, we want to aim for at least 30 grams of fiber per day. It helps to keep your blood sugar steady and your mind calmer. We want to aim for about half your body weight in grams of protein- also regulates blood sugar, gives you energy, helps you feel more calm, and then nourish with healthy fats. Things like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds. The second one is magnesium rich foods. These help to regulate your brain and your nervous system. It's sort of like a natural break pedal when your stress starts to ramp up. It can support irritability, anxiety, and keep your mood more stable. Some really good magnesium choices might be pumpkin seeds, avocados, or leafy greens. We want to then add a little powerhouse probiotic foods to your day. So things like good quality Greek yogurt with maybe some berries, kombucha, miso soup, pickled veggies, even aged cheeses can be some good probiotic choices. We don't want a lot of those, but they can be incorporated as well. A small serving of these probiotic rich foods helps to support your digestion and steady your blood sugar during a season when there's so much sugar around. Then consistent meals, skipping meals to save up for the holiday spread nearly always leads to overeating later. So we want to eat more consistently. That'll help keep your energy up and again, your blood sugar more stable throughout your day. And of course there is absolutely room for the special holiday foods that you're used to. Choose the things, though, that are important to you. Savor them, taste them, enjoy them. And then return to your normal eating patterns without feeling guilty about it. Here is a quick way. I recommend looking at a meal so you can, again, keep your energy up. Prevent those wild blood sugar ups and downs that make your mood also have wild ups and downs. So first, get 30 grams of protein. Second, have half your plate coming from colorful plant foods, berries, greens, or two powerhouses. Then go for a 10 minute walk after your meal. These three simple things you can do that can be really powerful in your day. Again, 30 grams of protein, half your plate coming from colorful plant foods, a 10 minute walk. But food isn't the only place that we can support our nervous system. So let's talk about movement. What if the best exercise for holiday stress wasn't more cardio, but something completely different? Our second strategy is to move in ways that calm your system. So here's a midlife truth that surprises a lot of women honestly: strength training helps to stabilize your blood sugar, your metabolism, and your mood, and it helps you to handle stress more gracefully. And most importantly, you know, just moving your body whenever you can. So during the holidays, it could just be maybe a 10 minute little weight session using hand weights or exercise bands in your living room, even while watching your favorite show, maybe taking a Pilates class. Some good strength training as well as can be calming. You could take a walk around the neighborhood looking at the holiday lights. Maybe you could add some hills to get a little extra work on those big quad muscles. You could dance, crank up some good music, dance around the house with your kids or your grandkids even make it even more fun. Great movement plus increases your happy hormones, so great for your stress too. Movement doesn't have to be perfect like all of it. None of this has to be perfect. It doesn't always have to look a certain way. It just has to be consistent, so we keep your nervous system from spiraling out of control. Speaking of spiraling, nothing derails hormones more than bad sleep. So let's head there next. If you do one thing this holiday season, this is it. Our third strategy is to protect your sleep no matter what. It could absolutely be the holiday superpower. So sleep is a hormonal reset, stabilizes mood, reduces cravings, balances weight, and for women during midlife- totally understandable- it can be more fragile and it can be difficult, especially during the holidays. So here's some habits that can really make a big difference. Keeping your bedtime and your waking time the same-preferably every day, but at least five nights a week. Dimming the lights a couple hours before bed, helps to get your brain to understand that sleep is coming soon. Avoiding alcohol and heavy meals within three hours of bedtime. Ideally avoiding alcohol period is really helpful'cause I find women in midlife, it really can disrupt sleep. But for sure, three hours before bedtime will definitely improve the quality of your sleep. Then breathing. Look for opportunities throughout your day to take a few intentional deep breaths before meals, maybe when you're washing your hands, when you're sitting at a stoplight, when you end a phone call. And a big one is before you go to bed at night. Um, something called, have you ever heard of 4, 7, 8 breathing can be really great. So you breathe in through your nose for the count of four. You hold it for a count of seven, and then you breathe out with your mouth for a count of eight. It really can just calm your, you can feel your blood pressure come down. Charging your phone in another room- we want to keep the distraction out of your bedroom as well as the blue light. That can help really to, to make your sleep better quality. Um, and we want to do that, you know, at least an hour before bed, so we have some of that time for our brain to, to calm down from that blue light. And then magnesium. I talked about that with nutrition, but magnesium can also be supportive, particularly before bed, to help support relaxation. I talk about food as medicine all the time, but sleep is medicine too. It is not a luxury. It is absolutely medicine for your body. I want to add here as part of this, um, is boundaries. Because when we don't set boundaries, I think sleep is one of the things that often goes first. So some ideas around that: no more yeses in an instant or those out of guilt. Before you say yes to someone, tell them, I'm going to just need to check my schedule and I'll get back to you. When you take a pause, you can see if this new commitment really can fit into your life. And then another, another boundary sort of in pairing with turning off your phone an hour before bed could be emailing or texting is done by eight or 9:00 PM. And lastly, another really powerful strategy is protecting your energy. Your energy is the most valuable thing you have this holiday season. So our last strategy is protect your energy at all costs. So first I want you to think about what saps your energy. Here are some things I hear about all the time from my clients: sugar, alcohol, heavily processed foods, scrolling on your phone, social media, just squeezing in one more thing saps energy of women all the time, like before you go to bed. A lot of times I hear women saying like, I'm just, I just do one more quick thing, one more quick thing. Or when you're running out the door, just one more quick thing. Saps our energy for sure. Trying to do it all and over-committing so your schedule is absolutely packed, not helpful. And now think what would protect your energy. Things we've talked about already, a lot of them. Getting enough sleep, an eight hour sleep window, your phone in another room at night. Also thinking about a hard stop to work. You know, these days, because of our phones and our computers with us all the time, it can, our work can seep into our, our family time and social time and home time. So having a hard line of I'm done work at a certain time can be a good boundary to set as well to, to regain some of that energy. A 10 minute walk, you know, after your meal is great, but even throughout the day, getting some fresh air and moving your body really can be, I mean, it, it, I, getting fresh air is great. Even just a 10 minute walk inside is great too. But add outside and now we've just kind of got a double whammy of benefit. And then pause before saying yes to anything. Protection of your energy and your time. It's not about protect perfection. Protection is a commitment to yourself. So before we close, I want to leave you with a gentle reframe- something maybe you could keep on your fridge or your bathroom mirror, maybe put it in your phone to remind you. So I have a few different mantras for you, so you can maybe pick one of these that resonates. The first one is I do what I can with the energy I have, not what pressure tells me I should do. The second one is I eat in a way that helps me feel clear and steady. Protein first, lots of plants and foods that I choose, not sugar on autopilot. And lastly, I end the day with calm, lowering the lights, slowing my breath, and putting screens aside. So again, just choose one. Not all, not perfectly, just one. Your body will absolutely thank you. You deserve a holiday season that supports your wellness, not one that leaves you feeling depleted or overwhelmed. You deserve steadiness and ease and care. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to have you join my weekly email newsletter, the Weekly Joy Report. Every week I share quick tips to help you feel your best during perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. It's supportive, it's practical, and designed to help you take action not to feel overwhelmed. You can sign up through the link below. I am rooting for you, and as always, I am so glad you're here. Thanks for taking the time for listening today, and until next time, I'm Lynda.