Swimming, swimming, in a swimming pool…..when days are hot, when days are cold, in a swimming pool.

Do you remember singing that tune when you were young? I do.

As I journey through menopause, I am reminded of just how much swimming plays a role in all three keys of my menopause lifestyle.

It keeps me heart and lung healthy.

It keeps me strong.

And it definitely helps me handle my stress!

I have always been so grateful that as a young girl I learned how to swim. It wasn’t just learning how to swim; it was learning how to be comfortable in the water.

Still to this day I am in the water swimming at least a few times a week, and it brings me so much pleasure.

I find that for me swimming is a much needed relaxation tool.

Whenever I get out of the water I feel refreshed and energized. With each stroke I am able to leave my cares and worries behind me.

Some years ago I became lifeguard certified. This gave me the opportunity to watch people swim and I started realizing a few things.

I started noticing how many people I meet who do not know how to swim. Many “elite” athletes I know can’t make it across the pool for one lap.

Many people who know how to swim, swim rarely, if at all.

I also noticed swimmers who could use help in learning to swim more efficiently.

Efficiency in any activity will always bring more enjoyment! You’ll struggle less and have more fun.

You know how when you enjoy and gain so much benefit from something you want the whole world to do it too?

Well, maybe not the whole world, but how about all of you reading this blog post??

Swimming is such a wonderful activity. It’s a great way to cross train your body for all the other sports you participate in.

Moving through the water with ease, using your breath, just feels so darn great!

And for those of you who might not know this, if you learn to swim the medley (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly) you use EVERY muscle in your body.

Writing to you about swimming is meant to:

1. congratulate you if you are already swimming on a regular basis……..you know the secret to this most wonderful moving meditation!
2. encourage you, if you know how to swim but the lifeguards at your local pool don’t know your name, to get back into the water and reclaim your lane!
3. motivate you to learn how to swim. We are made of water to a large extent and getting comfortable within the water element will add years of JOY to your life—-I promise you!

Share your swimming stories with me, and as we lifeguards are taught to yell, “Everyone INTO the water!”

shelli

So how does a menopausal movement coach like myself           celebrate an  absolutely beautiful day?

By taking a walk and turning it into a run!

While running isn’t for every woman, I enjoy it very much.

I particularly like spontaneous runs.

What’s a spontaneous run?

This has happened to me twice already this month.

I’ll start out on a walk.

I have the location and distance already chosen. It’s minimally an hour or about 4 miles, and like most of you who walk I have my favorite loops.

I walk briskly. I tend to do these walks in the morning hours, so it’s a way to check in with myself and the new day.

This morning the sky was clear and the air particularly fresh and sweet. No wind, which was a welcome change from the windy past few months.

After about 40 minutes I’ll get this urge and know that I want to start running.

It’s a VERY different feeling than starting out knowing I’m going to run.

I get this urge, and say to myself, “Why walk when you can run?” and off I go.

It’s important that I check in with myself as I start to run.

How do my legs feel?

How’s my breathing?

How’s my energy level?

It’s not always appropriate to start running 40 minutes into an exercise session, but during these last two times it felt TOTALLY appropriate.

I finish my run sweaty, well spent and ready to start my day!

As an athlete I train in a way that’s commonly called “cross training”.

I swim, bike, lift weights, practice yoga and tai chi, play tennis and golf and generally stay fit by training across the physiologic spectrum.

This produces a well-rounded Shelli!

I have good endurance, good strength and I feel GREAT with lots of energy for the life I lead.

I encourage you to train in the same way, choosing the activities that YOU ENJOY.

Do not let your fitness go by the wayside………..move, breathe, feel how great it is to be alive and make staying active and fit a HIGH PRIORITY during menopause.

I guarantee that you’ll feel better if you do!

Enjoy your own spontaneity!

shelli

Did you know that regarding New Year’s resolutions, health and fitness goals take the largest slice of the pie—-31% ?

That makes it very likely that health and fitness figured into your resolution decisions as they did for most women.

When I talk with women who have let their good intentions fall away, one of the most common reasons they give me is the TIME factor.

They just can’t seem to “make the time”.

As menopausal women, staying active and fit is not an option, it’s a MUST.

I think one of the most hazardous roadblocks that sabotages our health and fitness goals which is often overlooked is the TIME OF DAY we choose.

As busy women our schedules change and our needs change. This happened to me last year.

Throughout most of my life I’ve been a get up and get out there exerciser. Exercise in the morning starts my engine, setting the tone for my day in a positive way.

I’m often teaching late afternoons and at night so I’ll carve out my own time earlier in the day.

Last year there was a time when I was getting up early and writing.

I felt like I needed to exercise in the mid to late afternoon when I was through writing. It helped to clear my head, bring energy back into my body, and was a great segue to the rest of my day.

Making this change felt scary and revolutionary all at the same time.

It’s scary to change such a long held ritual such as exercising first thing in the day.

I realized I had become almost superstitious around getting out and getting going first thing.

I’m sure you can relate to this with some of your own long standing routines.

But you know what? It was exactly the right thing to do.

It’s no fun to think we can’t change.

It also freshened up my attitude and I felt great about myself for having been in touch with my needs enough to have listened and adapted.

And truthfully, there is NO right or wrong time for exercise.

The bottom line is that it’s about what works for you!

Since then I’ve been much more open to exercising at different times of the day and seeing what works best.

Nowadays I’ll even take a break around lunch time and go for a swim.

So, if you’ve given up on some of your fitness and health goals, make sure you’re not overlooking your time of day choice as one of the possible reasons why.

Even if you haven’t, take a moment and check in with yourself and see if you’re timing could be improved.

Don’t be a creature of habit……be a creature who’s not afraid to change things up!

Are you, Ms. Menopause, regularly practicing strength training?

If not, why not?

OK, I can already hear some of you saying “but I hate going to the GYM .” I’ll get to that in a minute, but first here are a few important BENEFITS of
strength training:

1. strengthens your joints
2.  increases the density of your bones helping to prevent osteoporosis
3. increases muscle mass
4.  improves your endurance
5.  decreases insulin levels
6. stimulates the release of growth hormone which improves just about everything else.

Did you know that women who do NOT strength train lose 7 lbs of muscle every 10 years?

This reduces your metabolism as your muscles are your furnace.

Now for those of you who say you don’t like going into the GYM, I hear you.

Maybe, though, you can turn that GYM into a JIM (Joy-In- Movement) experience?

If you are not sure how ASK me and we’ll figure it out.

And here’s another way to look at strength training from a JIM viewpoint.

When you hike or run or come play with me, don’t be surprised if I see some grass and I urge us to go over and get down and crank out some push ups.

Or we pass a kid’s playground and WE become those kids and start using the
monkey bars for chin ups.

Or how about as we carry groceries into the house we use the bags as weights and practice squatting.

Or the gallons of water we carry from the store to the car become weights for shoulder presses ?!

You see, the reason for having a strong body is so that we are FUNCTIONALLY fit.

OUR GYM (JIM) is everywhere!

Test this for yourself and see if getting strong isn’t more fun when you see the potential gym all around you.

And please remember, you can get healthy, active and fit at any age!

To your health,

shelli

Remember that scene from the movie “Network” where Peter Finch is standing by the window and pounding his fists while yelling,

“I’m mad and I’m not going to take it anymore”?

Have you ever gotten to that point when faced with another “been there done that” workout routine?

I get to that point sometimes.

When you simply cannot not stand one more workout on the treadmill, or on your bike or whatever, it’s time to shake things up a bit.

Or should I say, “Why don’t you just SKIP it altogether?”

I was out for a run.

The run was nice, I was breathing deeply which felt good, and I welcomed my sweat. I was returning home and about a half mile from my house. I often walk this distance as a cool down.

Then I had this thought. Why don’t I start skipping?

So right then and there I started skipping!

It’s interesting what we’ll do if we don’t prejudge and talk ourselves out of spontaneous ideas, isn’t it?

Now I don’t know how much time any of you spend skipping, but I can tell you that I haven’t skipped in probably 30 + years.

But skip I did, and what an experience!

At first I felt very silly. For those of you who don’t like to feel silly in public, all I can say is “get over it. ”

I got over it the first time I took a yoga class. If I had given in to that looking silly fear I would never have gone back to my second class.

I still practice “getting over it ” because I really do feel like it’s an instructive part of any learning curve.

Silly is as Shelli does, so along I went skipping the whole way home!

People in my quiet residential neighborhood are used to walkers and runners, but a skipper?

One guy who was taking in his garbage pails looked at me and put his head down and turned quickly away. I’d guess he hasn’t taken his inner child out to play in quite some time!

Why am I even talking about this skipping adventure with you?

For one thing, it was terrific exercise. My heart rate soared.

And for another thing it was FUN and felt great.

It made me think, as I often do, of how programed we are to move in the same ways over and over and OVER again.

As I skipped and sang “skip skip skip to my-lou ” my body, breath and mind felt loose and free to move and I could feel energy circulating all through me .

This kind of feeling comes from the joy you feel when you move.

All kinds of movement have this potential. Not just the ones we adult women think are appropriate for us, or the ones we feel UNsilly and comfortable doing, not just the ones we are good at and find easy to do……..

all kinds of movements.

I love when I’m reminded in such simple and fun ways not to take myself so seriously when it comes to my movement world.

So here’s a tongue twister for you………..

Shelli skips sings and smiles by the sea shore on sundays and saturdays.

For those of you whose tongues are particularly TWISTED from your yoga practice, please add these words—with her six silly students!

now go get silly and skip and let me know how it felt!

shelli

A friend was talking to me about the “doldrums”.

She was recounting a story about a group of women who were sailing from Hawaii to California, and while out in the middle of the Pacific they experienced the doldrums.

Now not being much of a sailor, as well as someone who rarely lets a word that I don’t understand go by me, I asked her for further explanation.

It turns out that to sailors, being in the doldrums means being out at sea with NO wind…..NO movement.

So these women waited 10 days for a wind to carry them along. Just sat and waited.

And as it turns out, when the doldrums come, garbage also just sits and waits for a breeze. So while they were waiting for the doldrums to pass more and more garbage piled up all around their boat.

I was fascinated by this story. Always in search of a great metaphor, I couldn’t let this one float by me.

How many times and how often during menopause do we feel in the doldrums?

Hot flashes, lack of energy, lack of motivation, lack of joy, lack of fun and playtime……..these challenges and feelings strike us all at one time or another.

And when this happens our own garbage starts stewing and we can feel stuck waiting for that breeze to carry us forward.

One of the reasons I launched this blog was to create a community of women who would encourage each other when the wind seems out of our sails and we’re in need of a fresh breeze!

It’s only natural that the doldrums visit us all from time to time.

So if you’ve been in the doldrums lately, post a comment on the blog and let us know.

There are so many ways we can get going again and I am here to help you launch those sails!

Let’s learn to use the doldrums as a signal to perhaps rethink, recreate and reenergize ourselves so that we keep the wind at our backs!

shelli

A student of mine is recuperating from a head-on car collision.

We met recently for a two mile loop walking around the lake in my town. As you can imagine she is moving very slowly, so we walked very very slowly.

Some of you may not be familiar with moving meditations or with doing ANYTHING very slowly, but the experience of moving slowly produces a very different feeling energetically and mentally.

We walked the loop mindfully in just over an hour and I could immediately feel the benefits.

My mind felt very relaxed and refreshed like I had taken a nap.

It was very rejuvenating and reminded me of what I had learned at meditation retreats about moving in this manner.

When we move slowly, we sense very different information because we have the time to observe and take in so much more.

It is important to incorporate this kind of slow movement experience in our lives.

Try it while you’re eating, for instance.

I eat very slowly and when people try to pace themselves with me it can bring on a great sense of frustration for them.

Frustration is often a signal that something can bring us benefit if we’ll only leave that frustration behind!

Think about other areas of your life where you are always MOVING so quickly.

Slow down and see what feelings can come from slow movement.

At first it might make you very uncomfortable, but stick with it and see if you don’t feel a sense of peace and relaxation.

Moving quickly has its time and place and so does SLOWING down.

Let me know whether this idea appeals to you and how you’ve incorporated slow movement into your life.

Shelli

Have you ever choked up in an interview, stumbled over your lines in a play, or missed a chance to speak up for yourself?

I know I have.

Your self-esteem can take a little dip when your actions don’t meet your expectations.

And if you feel like you have failed in a BIG way, you can feel crushed.

It’s hard to recover from that kind of blow.

During menopause, because it occurs at mid-life, we often take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re heading.

Often, if our expectations have not been met, our self esteem suffers.

I find though, that asking better questions helps you meet your expectations.

Asking yourself, “Gee, this isn’t working anymore. How can I change to prosper in my life?” will get you thinking more creatively than bemoaning how and why you feel so badly.

You must detach yourself from the idea – if you have it – that your self worth is measured by ONE aspect of your life, like money, career, looks or accomplishments.

The lesson here is that you don’t want to link your self-esteem to any one ability but rather to your life as a WHOLE.

As billionaire businesswoman Oprah Winfrey says, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

Another take on handling our self-esteem, can be found in the book The Power of Positive Thinking.

Peale says: “The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, the multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and leave you spent and discouraged. It is easy to lose track of your abilities and powers” – but by re-appraising your personal assets, you can convince yourself that “you are less defeated than you think you are.”

If you practice ALL OR NOTHING THINKING (which we all do on occasion) then Peale has a good idea for you.

When your self-esteem has suffered a blow, take a piece of paper and write down what you DO HAVE that you feel good about.

Your list might include:

1. a wonderful spouse
2. children who are thriving and healthy
3. devoted friends who are there for you
4. good physical health
5. integrity
6. work that you enjoy
7. hobbies you’re passionate about

Not bad, right?

Make your own list right now.

If you have trouble making a list, try this.

Imagine yourself as an observer at your own funeral. Surely you wouldn’t want to hear your spouse, your children, your friends and colleagues say things like, “She was never able to enjoy all the good things she had during her life.”

Think about what you would like them to say about you. Those are the things that really matter – positive personal assets that you don’t lose just because times are challenging.

If you’re feeling down, focusing on those positive personal assets will help you overcome the worst feelings you could possibly have about yourself.

And no matter what happens in your life, you won’t despair. You’ll be able to use all your natural resources to regroup any time you need to.

Always remember that one of the best ways to feel better about yourself, to feel as though you have purpose in your life, is to pursue something you’re passionate about.

Make menopause a passionate time of life and see your self esteem soar to new heights!

shelli

If you’ve been doing some goal setting lately, or as I prefer to say GOAL GETTING, then vision boards can be useful!

We have all heard that in order to accomplish our goals, it is important to write them down.

A vision board is a visual tool to be used much in the same way as a written list.

For example, having photos of places you want to visit, people you consider your mentors, or things you dream of having can be put on a vision board.

You can also put on your board motivational quotes and photos of hobbies you’d like to pursue.

These serve as reminders of your goals and dreams.

Taking time to create a vision board is fun and easy and will help you to think about what it is you want to experience in the future.

Your vision board itself is not magical.

Each time you make a positive change or take action based on what you want to create, there is a ripple effect of change throughout your entire life, so take it one step at a time!

Creating the Vision Board

First you need a bulletin board.

Second, gather some of your favorite magazines that have photos of the life you want to create, as well as photos that you cherish of family, or places that you have always wanted to revisit.

Third, you need thumb tacks and scissors and some time to sit and cut out anything that jumps out at you.

As you reach your goals or as they change, make changes to the board. It’s always a work in progress!

Take some time to think about doing a vision board for yourself or with your family.

Continuing to have dreams and continuing to do GOAL GETTING is so important during menopause.

It’s one KEY to helping us see that the “change of life” years are not the end, but truly present a NEW BEGINNING!

Enjoy your dreams,

shelli

Move a little every day! So many choices, so little time…….

* Do you watch TV? Do crunches, stretch, push-ups (or any form of activity) in front of the TV.

* Walk during your lunch break.

* Walk instead of driving whenever you can.

* Take a family walk after dinner. One thousand steps will greatly aid your digestion.

* Get a dog and walk it. My dog has grown very fond of my after dinner walks!

* Join an exercise group.

* Do yard work.

* Get off the train or bus a stop early and walk.

* Bicycle to the store instead of driving.

* Wash your car by hand.

* Pace the sidelines while watching kids during their athletic events.

* Park further from the store and walk. And one of my personal favorites when you park further from stores is to return the shopping cart to the store after you load your items into your car.

* Ask a friend to exercise with you.

* Exercise indoors if the weather is bad.

* Do you smoke or take coffee breaks? Take a walk instead.

* Dance.

* Explore new physical activities.

* Take stairs instead of the escalator.

* Walk to a coworker’s desk instead of sending an email.

* Reward and acknowledge you efforts!

Pick five of these and do them this week!

Always remember that no step is too small when it’s a step in the right direction, and getting and staying physical during menopause is a MUST!!!

Stay motivated and may your many menopause moments be minimal!

shelli