Rewiring your Brain for Happiness

“Remember happiness does not depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.
- Dale Carnegie -

As we raise a glass and pass through another New Years Eve and into our second year in a global pandemic there has been a dramatic change in the way we talk about our mental health and happiness.

We used to be all about aiming high, hustling and pushing through and now we talk about the importance of rest, self-care and connection for our mental health.

Positive mental health has a huge impact on our physical health. Our heart health, body weight and sleep all improve when our mental health is optimal. There are repeated studies that demonstrate that a womans experience of her own menopause depends on her attitude towards this natural hormonal change with women who view peri-menopause as a negative process experiencing more and stronger negative symptoms in the process.
Yanikkerem E, Koltan SO, Tamay AG, Dikayak Ş. Relationship between women's attitude towards menopause and quality of life. Climacteric. 2012 Dec;15(6):552-62. doi: 10.3109/13697137.2011.637651. Epub 2012 Feb 15. PMID: 22335298.

The truth is that neurons that fire together wire together. This means that thought pathways that we travel along daily become our outlook on life and our worldview or as neuropsychologist Rick Hanson states “lasting mental states become lasting mental traits.”

The care and curation of our personal mental health needs to be a daily priority for all of us BUT especially for empowered midlife women who are family matriarchs, cross generational carers and mothers.

We can begin the journey of caring for our mental health with baby steps starting with only only minutes each day and building into.

Here is my three step starter plan for bringing more joy and calm to your life.

1. Turn off the news. News media is in the business of click bait and managing your reality. Human brains are wired to respond when they sense danger or threat and so news media gravitates towards violence and negative bias in it’s reporting. All of the good news stories go under the radar. Screening this constant low of negative information out of your life will bring you peace on a daily basis.

2. Begin a Gratitude Practice. Spend five minutes each evening thinking about your day and everything you are grateful for from the last 24 hours. When we make a practice of focussing our appreciation on the good stuff in our lives we wire in the pathways for more appreciation and gratefulness. A regular gratitude practice helps to relieve stress and eases pain. Taking five minutes each day to feel grateful improves your physical health over time and can positively change the brain function of people experiencing depression.

3. Get outside and walk in the fresh air. Taking time everyday to walk outside even for just 15 minutes reduces stress in the body especially of we can get near nature and greenery, even if we live in a city. Walking boosts circulation and promotes oxygen supply to the brain, it reduces stress in the body and has a positive impact on the microbiome of our gut. Repeatedly studies have shown us that our microbiome loves for us to take a walk during the day. We now know that the majority of the serotonin, our happy hormone is found in our gut and that the health of our microbiome directly impact our happiness and mental health. Getting up and walking your microbiome daily is a fabulous way to build happiness and health in your body.

Taking a few minutes each day in a consistent routine that supports mental wellbeing during a time in life when you experience significant hormonal change or during periods of hardship, keeps you grounded and free of anxiety. Mental self-care will support you to build an empowered matriarchal mindset that will help you to prioritize yourself at midlife and make positive choices for yourself.

The Power of Phytoestrogens In Peri-menopause

The more I talk to women who are struggling daily with weight gain and debilitating symptoms of peri-menopause, the more deeply I feel that it is imperative midlife women to find a trusted resource to empower themselves with nutritional knowledge and place their personal health and wellbeing as a priority in their life.

Did you know that there are foods, seeds and fruits, packed full of gentle-on-the-body phytoestrogens which help you to reduce your symptoms of peri-menopause?

That’s right.

The food you put in your mouth can drastically reduce your experience of the 34 symptoms of peri-menopause putting you back in control of how you feel daily.

Phytoestrogens are found in plants and are fibres called polyphenols that mimic estrogen in the body in a very gentle way. If you load your diet with these beneficial fibres, you get a gentle top up of the estrogen you are missing in your body in hormonal change.

Conversely, if you are in that part of what I call ‘the peri-menopausal dance’ where estrogen spikes and hot flashes take over, you can calm your body down as phytoestrogens trigger the feed-back loop that switches off estrogen production in your ovaries.

These plant based fibres that gently act like estrogen in the body are perfectly safe for women at midlife and help to balance and soften our hormonal change.

You can find a list of these foods below:

Ground Flax (keep in the refrigerator to protect omega 3's)

Sesame seeds

Chickpeas/ Garbanzo beans and chickpea miso paste

Chia seeds (again in the refrigerator because they are packed with omega 3 fatty acids)

Berries especially raspberries

Organic edamame and other fermented soy products such as tempeh as and miso.

Sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Alfalfa, soybean or mung bean sprouts

Organic tofu or soy milk (these can be hard to digest if you already experience some bloating, gassiness or adult acne and your digestion is not at 100%. Avoid until you have your digestive health supported)

Dried prunes, apricots and dates

Lentils, adzuki beans, mung beans

Maybe after reading this you would like to make yourself a bowl of Red Lentil and Lemon Soup or a serving of Beet Hummus, a Ground Flax and Blueberry Muffin or make your own Granola, to which you can add berries and raw nuts and seeds so that you can reclaim control over your peri-menopausal experience in a safe and gentle way.

The path to being a woman who finds menopause is a breeze is accessed through the food you eat each day. Plate by plate you can support your body to shift from a stressed out and sweaty peri-menopausal nightmare to daily cool, calm relaxation.

Now that we are the generation that has started the conversation about menopause, let's be the women who empower ourselves around this natural hormonal change with natural nutrition based solutions, that offer no risk to our health and wellbeing as our first line of defence.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

It’s Fall/Autumn, leaves are turning colours and morning temperatures are beginning to cool.

Tis the season to drink pumpkin flavoured everything and lust after fabulous, knee-length leather boots.

When I had three children at home, I remember resenting September/October with a passion. It felt like going back into shackles when the school/extra-curricular/evening-Mom-taxi routine set in. I just so loved the relaxed and unstructured days of summer and never wanted to let them go.

I am now an empty nester and this year I am enjoying a more relaxed observing of the turn of the seasons. I do not have to get out of bed at 6am to drive kids to band practice and I am not on call for rides to the mall or extra curricular activities in the evening. I just get to watch the leaves change colour, wiggle into a soft roll neck sweater in the morning and lean into how much I love chai tea.

Interestingly, there are old routines and recipes that I still want to pull into my life in the Fall. Comforting foods that just ‘fit’ into Fall for me and enrich the season (spoiler: It does not come from Starbucks!) I have started making chicken bone broth on a weekly basis again so that I am ready for soup season and I a making my staple Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe that I used to lean on heavily for lunch boxes.

Chewy, dense and absolutely packed with nutrition, these cookies are not too sweet and more of a meal in a biscuit, designed to keep teens energized and satiated.

The beauty of making your own cookies is that you get to choose the nutrition you want for yourself.

I love pumpkin seeds because they are packed with protein. This slows the passage of sugar to the bloodstream. They also give me a healthy dose of zinc to support my skin and tissue health and boost immunity. This batch contains sliced almonds and goji berries but I encourage you to make this recipe your own and add nutritious nuts, seeds and berries that you love the most.

I also add blackstrap molasses for easily absorbed iron and this accounts for the dark colour of the cookie. We need adequate iron stores at midlife to support us when our periods get heavy or erratic, to boost our energy and to ensure the function of our thyroid gland. Our thyroid gland is more efficient at converting thyroid hormone T4 to active thyroid hormone T3 when our iron stores are fully stocked. Your thyroid gland is a master gland that has kept the rhythm of your menstrual cycle for decades, so it can get stressed when you move into the peri-menopausal dance. Give it some love and load iron, selenium and iodine rich foods into your diet.

The non-negotiable are the chocolate chips. Every bite of this cookie should be rich in chocolate.

After years of making these cookies weekly for my family, it is an absolute joy to make, bake and store in the freezer so that I can pull one out whenever I want the taste of Fall.

Ingredients

      11/2 cups whole wheat or spelt flour

                     1tsp baking powder

                     1 cup butter or 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup coconut oil

                     1 egg

                     1/2 cup unrefined sugar or Sucanat

                     1/4 cup blackstrap molasses

                     2 cups rolled oats

                     1 cup coconut chips or desiccated coconut

                     1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

                     1/2 cup pecans/ walnuts/ sliced almonds/ goji berries or cranberries

                     3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Instructions

      Heat the oven to 350F/200C

      Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly to a rubbly batter

      Drop batter onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet using a tablespoon and form into an oval

      Cook for 12 minutes until just done.