Verwandte Artikel zu The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional...

The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change - Hardcover

Northrup, Christiane

 
9780553801217: The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 055380121X ISBN 13: 9780553801217
Verlag: Bantam, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Dr. Christiane Northrup has become one of American women's most trusted medical advisers. In Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, she broke entirely new ground by demonstrating that women's most common medical problems are often rooted in the basic conditions of their lives -- and that they can return to health by learning to listen to their bodies. She also integrated advanced medical techniques with the best natural remedies, offering readers specific guidance on choosing the right approach for themselves.

Now, in The Wisdom of Menopause, Dr. Northrup once again challenges convention. "The change" is not simply a collection of physical problems to be "fixed" -- whether with hormones or herbs -- but a mind-body revolution that brings the greatest opportunity for growth since adolescence. This vitally important new book examines the connection between menopause and a woman's emotional and spiritual life. And it stresses how the choices a woman makes now -- from the quality of her relationships to the quality of her diet--either secure her health and well-being for the rest of her life, or put her future at risk.

Dr. Northrup draws on her own life-changing experiences -- as well as on many intimate case histories--to explore the transformative power of these years. Readers will learn:
* how menopause literally rewires the brain, triggering a shift of priorities from nesting and caretaking to personal growth and equality
* how to listen for the wake-up calls inherent in women's cyclic nature, from PMS to SAD to menopausal symptoms
* how the body adjusts naturally to changing hormones, and how to make personalized decisions about HRT and alternative supplements
* how to rebalance metabolism shifts and prevent middle-age spread
* how to deal with the myths and realities of sexual changes and appearance issues
* how to prevent long-term health problems such as heart disease, hormone-related cancers, and memory loss

Candid and reassuring, The Wisdom of Menopause elucidates the changes women should expect from ages 40 to 55, and shows how these changes can be wonderfully life-affirming. Instead of dreading menopause as a time of loss, women will hear the real message their bodies are sending -- that this is a time of personal empowerment and positive energy ... and a time for women to break free and thrive.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christiane Northrup, M.D., trained at Dartmouth Medical School and Tufts New England Medical Center before cofounding the Women to Women health care center in Yarmouth, Maine, which became a model for women's clinics nationwide. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, she is past president of the American Holistic Medical Association and an internationally recognized authority on women's health and healing.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

In the year or two before I actually started to skip periods, I began to experience an increasingly common feeling of irritability whenever my work was interrupted or I had to contend with a co-worker or an employee who was not as committed to accomplishing the job as I was. Looking back, I recall that when I was in my thirties and my children were younger, their interruptions when I was in the middle of writing an article or talking on the phone were only mildly irritating to me. My love and concern for their welfare usually overrode any anger or frustration I might have felt.

But as I approached menopause, I found myself unable to tolerate distractions like my eighteen year old daughter asking me, "When is dinner?" when she could clearly see I was busy. Why, I wondered, was it always my responsibility to turn on the stove and begin to think about my family's food needs, even when I wasn't hungry and was deeply engrossed in a project? Why couldn't my husband get the dinner preparations started? Why did my family seem to be almost totally paralyzed when it came to preparing a meal? Why did they all wait in the kitchen, as though unable to set the table or pour a glass of water, until I came into the room and my mere presence announced, "Mom's here. Now we get to eat"?... Still, during my childbearing years I accepted this, mostly good-naturedly, as part and parcel of my role as wife and mother. And in so doing, I unwittingly perpetrated it, partly because it felt so good to be indispensable.

During perimenopause, I lost patience with this behavior on all levels, whether at home or at work. I could feel a fiery volcano within me, ready to burst, and a voice within me roaring, "Enough! You're all able-bodied, capable individuals. Everyone here knows how to drive a car and boil water. Why is my energy still the organizing principle around here?"

Little did I know that these little bursts of irritability over petty family dynamics were the first faint knocks on the door marked Menopausal Wisdom signaling that I needed to renegotiate some of my habitual relationship patterns. Nor did I know that by the time I began to actually skip periods and experience hot flashes, my life as I had known it for the previous quarter century would be on the threshold of total transformation. As my cyclic nature rewired itself, I put all of my significant relationships under the microscope, began to heal the unfinished business from my past, experienced the first pangs of empty nest, and established an entirely new and exciting relationship with my creativity and vocation.

All of the changes I was about to undergo were spurred, supported and encouraged by the complex and intricate brain and body changes that are an unheralded -- but inevitable and often overwhelming -- part of the menopausal transition. There is much, much more to this midlife transformation than "raging hormones." Research into the physiological changes taking place in the perimenopausal woman is revealing that, in addition to the hormonal shift that means an end to childbearing, our bodies -- and, specifically, our nervous systems -- are being, quite literally, rewired. It's as simple as this: Our brains are changing. A woman's thoughts, her ability to focus, and the amount of fuel going to the intuitive centers in the temporal lobes of her brain are all plugged into, and affected by, the circuits being rewired. After working with thousands of women who have gone through this process, as well as experiencing it myself, I can say with a great assurance that menopause is an exciting developmental stage -- one that, when participated in consciously, holds enormous promise for transforming and healing our bodies, minds, and spirits at the deepest levels.

As a woman in midlife today, I am part of a growing population that is an unprecedented forty million strong. This group is no longer invisible and silent, but a force to be reckoned with: educated, vocal, sophisticated in our knowledge of medical science, and determined to take control of our own health. Think about it: forty million women, all undergoing the same sort of circuitry update at the same time. By virtue of our sheer numbers, as well as our social and economic influence, we are powerful -- and potentially dangerous to any institution build upon the status quo. It's a safe bet the world is going to change for the better.

It's no accident that the current movement of psychospiritual healing is composed largely of women in their thirties, forties, and fifties. We are awakening en masse and beginning to deliver a much-needed message of health, hope, and healing to the world.

My personal experience tells me that the perimenopausal lifting of the hormonal veil -- the monthly cycle of reproductive hormones that tends to keep us focused on the needs and feelings of others -- can be both liberating and unsettling. The midlife rate of marital separation, divorce, and vocational change confirms this. I, for one, had always envisioned myself married to the same man for life, the two of us growing old together. This ideal had always been one of my most cherished dreams. At midlife, I, like thousands of others, have had to give up my fantasies of how I thought my life would be. I had to face, head on, the old adage about how hard it is to lose what you never really had. It means giving up all your illusions, and it is very difficult. But for me the issue was larger than where, and with whom, I would grow old. It was a warning, coming from deep within my spirit, that said, "Grow ... or die." Those were my choices. I chose to grow.

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Bantam
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
055380121X
ISBN 13 
9780553801217
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
589
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar