Practice Point #87 - Menopause

I received a question from Trish. Their question is...

Do you have any advice re poses that are good to practice during menopause or poses that should be avoided?

In this time of life we want to use yoga to keep your endocrine system in balance, or bring it into balance if it is stressed.

The endocrine system is made up of all the body's different hormones, regulates all biological processes in the body.

So think pineal gland, adrenal glands, pituitary gland, thyroid glands.

So we want to practice a variety of yoga poses, more specifically forward bends, twists and backbends and inversions to pacify, then activate the glands.

I want to keep this simple and accessible to all.

So I am just going to give a couple of postures that you can trust will be beneficial at this stage of life.

Let’s start with the Inversion category. Headstands are excellent for activating the pineal and pituitary glands, however they are heating and we all know hot flushes are a symptom of menopause so to avoid overheating the body you can take supported dwi pada viparita dandasana instead.