What! What happened to my menopause?

ARGH, I thought my periods stopped at least a year and possibly even longer ago. I can't remember the last time I had a real period although looking back there may have been times when I had a very very very light day or two ... does that count? If that counts then it hasn't been a full year! I guess I better call my "groinacologist"! That's what you are supposed to do if you have bleeding post menopause.

The cause of uterine bleeding postmenopause may be harmless; however, it's important to understand that there may be other causes of abnormal bleeding such as:

* uterine fibroid tumors
* a hormonal imbalance
* the use of birth control pills
* non-cancerous growths in the lining of the uterus

I need any of the above like I need another hole in my head! Isn't it bad enough I have another infection and my sugar has been too high for the last 10 days?

However...I have to relax and not think about it because I don't want any more cortisol coursing through my body wreaking more havoc! Time to play mindless online computer games!

Different Types of Meditation

My stress level over the last few days has been so high it's worrisome to me--I can feel the tension and feel my heart racing sometimes. I know what I need to do--I have to learn and practice until I master some stress reducing techniques. I just read an article about meditation. It's not an easy skill to master and I appreciate the fact that more than one method is explained.

Benefits and Different Types of Meditation Techniques
From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.


Techniques for Relaxation

Benefits of Meditation

Meditation is widely recommended as a healthy way to manage stress, and for good reason. It provides many health-enhancing benefits, like slowing your heart rate and breathing, normalizing your blood pressure, actually slowing the rate at which your body ages and more! (Read this article for more information on the health benefits of meditation.) Basics of Meditation:

Meditation can be practiced in many different ways. While there are numerous different meditation techniques, a common thread runs through virtually all meditative techniques:

Quiet Mind: With meditation, your thinking mind becomes quiet. You stop focusing on the stressors of your day, your life’s problems, or solving these problems. You just let that voice in your head be quiet, which is easier said than done. For example, start thinking about nothing now. (It’s okay; I’ll wait.) If you’re not practiced at quieting your mind, it probably didn’t take long before thoughts crept in.

Being In The Now: Rather than focusing on the past or the future, virtually all meditative pracgtices involve focusing on right now. This involves experiencing each moment and letting it go, experiencing the next. This, too, takes practice, as many of us live most of our lives thinking toward the future or relishing and rehashing the past.

Altered State of Consciousness: With the quiet mind and focus on the present comes an altered level of consciousness that isn’t a sleeping state but isn’t quite your average wakeful state, either. Meditation increases brain activity in an area of the brain associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions, and alter brain waves from beta to gamma waves, which have been associated with higher functioning and heightened awareness. Research comparing Tibetan monks, who are practiced in meditation, with typical college students, found that those who practice meditation techniques regularly may actually enjoy permanent positive changes in brain functioning.

Types of Meditative Techniques:

There are many different ways to meditate. Here I’ll mention some basic categories of meditation techniques so you can understand some of the main options and how they differ from one another. This is not an exhaustive list, but it can give you some ideas.

Basic Meditation Techniques: This involves sitting in a comfortable position and just trying to quiet your mind by thinking of nothing. It’s not always easy to do this if you don’t have practice with it, but a good way to begin is to think of yourself as an ‘observer of your thoughts’, just noticing what the narrative voice in your head says, but not engaging it. As thoughts materialize in your mind, you just let them go. That’s the basic idea.

Focused Meditation Techniques: With this technique, you focus on something intently, but don’t engage your thoughts about it. You can focus on something visual, like a statue; something auditory, like a metronome or tape of ocean waves; something constant, like your own breathing; or a simple concept, like ‘unconditional compassion’. Some people find it easier to do this than to focus on nothing, but the idea is the same: staying in the present moment and circumventing the constant stream of commentary from your conscious mind, and allowing yourself to slip into an altered state of consciousness.

Activity-Oriented Meditation Techniques: With this type of meditation, you engage in a repetitive activity, or one where you can get ‘in the zone’ and experience ‘flow’. Again, this quiets the mind, and allows your brain to shift. Activities like gardening, creating artwork, or practicing yoga can all be effective forms of meditation.

Mindfulness Techniques: Mindfulness can be a form of meditation that, like activity-oriented meditation, doesn’t really look like meditation. It simply involved staying in the present moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. (Again, this is more difficult than it seems!) Focusing on sensations you feel in your body is one way to stay ‘in the now’; focusing on emotions and where you feel them in your body (not examining why you feel them, but just experiencing them as sensations) is another.

Spiritual Meditating: Meditation can also be a spiritual practice. Many people experience meditation as a form of prayer—the form where God speaks, rather than just listening. That’s right, many people experience ‘guidance’ or inner wisdom once the mind is quiet, and meditate for this purpose. You can meditate on a singular question until an answer comes (though some would say this is engaging your thinking mind too much), or meditate to clear their mind and accept whatever comes that day.

Whichever meditative techniques you use, the potential benefits are clear and numerous, making it one of the more commonly recommended stress management practices.

The importance of sleeping

I'm learning that sleep is tied to good health and that tie can't be broken. I've learned that with broken sleep, my fibromyalgia bothers me more. I'm more stressed (no surprise there) and I even begin to gain weight when I don't get enough sleep! I've had a tendency for a long time to nap in the afternoon. Napping, I see from the article I just read, is actually a good thing--if it's the right length. If I sleep too long, I enter a deeper cycle which makes it harder for me to wake up and makes it harder for me to fall asleep. So now I've got to train myself to set my alarm clock to go off a lot sooner than I have been!

Sleep Benefits: Power Napping for Increased Productivity, Stress Relief & Health
From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.
Stay up to date!
The Benefits of Sleep and The Power Nap
Why A Power Nap? Facts on Sleep:
While small children typically take naps in the afternoon, our culture generally frowns upon mid-day sleep; however, even in those who get enough sleep (but particularly in those who don’t), many people experience a natural decrease in drowsiness in the afternoon, about 8 hours after waking. And research shows that you can make yourself more alert reduce stress and improve cognitive functioning with a nap. Mid-day sleep, or a ‘power nap’, means more patience, less stress, better reaction time, increased learning, more efficiency and better health. Here’s what you need to know about the benefits of sleep and how a power nap can help you!
How Much Sleep Do You Need? The body needs 7-8 hours of sleep per day; 6 hours or less triples your risk of a car accident. (Interestingly, too much sleep--more than 9 hours--can actuallybe harmful for your health; recent studies show that those who sleep more than 9 hours per day don’t live as long as their 8-hour-sleep counterparts!)

The Effects of Missed Sleep: Sleep is cumulative; if you lose sleep one day, you feel it the next. If you miss adequate sleep several days in a row, you build up a ‘sleep deficit’, which impairs the following:


Reaction time
Judgment
Vision
Information processing
Short-term memory
Performance
Motivation
Vigilance
Patience
Fatigued people also experience more moodiness, aggressive behaviors, burnout and more stress.
The Benefit of a Power Nap: Studies show that 20 minutes of sleep in the afternoon provides more rest than 20 minutes more sleep in the morning (though the last two hours of morning sleep have special benefits of their own). The body seems to be designed for this, as most people’s bodies naturally become more tired in the afternoon, about 8 hours after we wake up.

How Long Should I Sleep? When you sleep you pass through different stages of sleep, known together as a sleep cycle. These stages include light sleep, deep sleep (which is believed to be the stage in which the body repairs itself), and rapid-eye movement sleep, or REM sleep (during which the mind is repaired).

Many experts advise to keep the nap between 15 and 30 minutes, as sleeping longer gets you into deeper stages of sleep, from which it’s more difficult to awaken. Also, longer naps can make it more difficult to fall asleep at night, especially if your sleep defecit is relatively small. However, research has shown that a 1-hour nap has many more restorative effects than a 30-minute nap, including a much greater improvement in cognitive functioning. The key to taking a longer nap is to get a sense of how long your sleep cycles are, and try to awaken at the end of a sleep cycle. (It’s actually more the interruption of the sleep cycle that makes you groggy, rather than the deeper states of sleep.)

As there are pros and cons to each length of sleep, you may want to let your schedule decide: if you only have 15 minutes to spare, take them! But if you could work in an hour nap, you may do well to complete a whole sleep cycle, even if it means less sleep at night. If you only have 5 minutes to spare, just close your eyes; even a brief rest has the benefit of reducing stress and helping you relax a little, which can give you more energy to complete the tasks of your day.

Tips For a More Effective Nap If you want to obtain more sleep, and the health benefits that go with getting enough sleep, here are some tips for more effective napping and sleep at night:


Avoid caffeine after 3pm. It’s a stimulant that can disrupt your sleep and stay in your system longer than you think; its half-life is four to six hours!
If you don’t want to nap a long time, set an alarm.
If you don’t have time for a power nap, or don’t feel comfortable napping during the day, try meditation; it gives your body a rest and produces slower brain waves similar to sleep.