Hot flush beating exercises

Morning exercise for energy, mood and flexibility

Increase your energy, good mood and out of stiffness in just 30 minutes. Darren Harding, Promensil’s fitness expert gives tips for daily exercises to brighten up the start of every day. Easy to do, you should make this part of your daily routine as soon as you get up.
 

DEEP ABDOMINAL BREATHING
Lie flat on your back with your knees pulled up, keeping your feet slightly apart. Inhale deeply through the nose, allowing your stomach to relax. Your stomach should balloon out as you breathe in. Imagine that your body is filling with energy on each inhalation. As you exhale, imagine the air being pushed out from the bottom of your lungs to the top. This breathing will promote deep relaxation, energy, and stress control. According to researchers, this exercise has a reducing effect on the number of hot flushes.

JOINT FLEXIBILITY

Gently ease your body into the day by rotating each joint 10 times in each direction. Sit flat on the floor, legs stretched out. Flex your toes first, rotate your feet at the ankles, then your lower legs at the knees and then bend your knees up to your chest 10 times with each leg separately to flex your hips.
For the upper body, start by stretching each finger separately in both directions, then rotating your wrists. For elbows, touch your shoulders then straighten the arms again and finish with 10 circles with your shoulders in each direction.

Work on the waist and spine, stand up and bend slowly down as far as you can without bending your knees, then follow with sideways bends with your arm outstretched above your head.

MUSCLE TENSION RELEASE, ENERGY LEVEL INCREASE

To release tension and increase energy, jump up and down in place for several minutes. Move your arms freely, shake out your wrists, and raise your arms over your head. Slowly rotate your head in both directions, then bend forward and back.

BALANCE YOUR BODY AND MIND
Yoga exercises level out instability by relaxing and gently stretching every muscle in the body, promoting better blood circulation and oxygenation to all cells and tissues. Finish off your morning routine with a few yoga positions, such as Downward Dog, Half Lotus and Cobra and remember to do a few deep breaths before you start going about your daily chores.
 

Darren Harding 
Fitness expert and personal trainer

Writing on behalf of Promensil 
www.promensil.co.uk

Good things to eat throughout menopause: Isoflavones

Menopause is a natural time in a woman's life during which time her periods cease. This should be a time when a woman's focus changes from the possibility of creating babies and her body working towards that every month, to a time to focus her growing energy outwardly and to enjoy becoming free of her monthly hormonal cycle. But sometimes all of a woman's energy is stolen to cope with quite severe menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes, weight gain, feeling down, low energy, mood swings, bone loss and insomnia.

When a woman is healthy and her hormones are in balance there should be no symptoms of menopause. In fact women in Asia are reported to have less menopausal symptoms. This is thought to be due to their diets high in legumes (chickpeas, soya etc.), which are high in phytoestrogens (isoflavones). These compounds help to block the uptake of synthetic chemical oestrogen (not good) at the same time as helping to keep our own natural body levels of oestrogen higher (good). Luckily diet and taking certain nutritional supplements can help with hormone imbalance.

Increasing foods high in phytoestrogens, such as the isoflavones can help. These foods can be found in the soy foods such as tofu, tempeh and soy milk. Someone suffering from menopausal symptoms could swap some of their dairy foods for soy milk, soy yogurt and even soy cheese and notice a difference. Other foods high in isoflavones are chick peas, split peas and beans, alfalfa and linseeds. Also clover sprouts and red clover. Red clover supplements are useful to take as they have a higher concentration of isoflavones and so give a higher level of relief.

 

Sharon Kaye DipION

Nutritionist

Writing for Promensil

www.promensil.co.uk

Contact: Sharonkaye33@yahoo.com

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