Yoga for Menopause & Perimenopause

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You. Here we bring you yoga from its source, India. I'm Rasika, a yoga teacher. Today we're going to be going through a sequence for yoga for menopause.

Menopause is a natural time in every woman's life where the body stops menstruating and slowly starts to transition out of the reproductive phase. This usually happens between the ages of 45 to 55, plus or minus, but the symptoms of perimenopause could start much earlier. So this is a phase where there are a lot of shifts in hormones, especially the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which could affect not just a woman's body but also her mental makeup.

So now the question arises, how do you support yourself during this phase? The symptoms of menopause could be many, but predominantly you'll experience some sleep disturbances, you'll experience fatigue, there might be crazy mood shifts, there might be some, you know, weight gain which might happen, unexplained weight gain. So these are some of the symptoms of the menopausal phase, and where yoga comes in here is that it can be an excellent support system in terms of restoring balance in the body. So it can help to calm the nervous system down, it can help take you into a parasympathetic mode, it could help to restore energy levels in the body, and it could help you keep your joints supple and mobile.

So today's practice is going to aim at doing just that. It will be a short practice which will help you move your joints around and find some sense of stability and calm, and probably activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which will help you to rest and digest. So let's get started.

So we'll start by getting into any comfortable seated position of your choice. You can even be seated on a chair or a bed for that matter; if you're comfortable on the floor, you can sit on the floor. We'll start with just a few neck stretches, so you're going to place your hands comfortably wherever they feel more supported, and we'll start to move the head up and down. Lift it up, look up, down, up, down, back to center. Turn to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right — try to turn as much as you can to the left, back to center.

Now let's take the right ear to the right shoulder, feel the stretch on the left side of the neck, and left ear to left shoulder, right ear to right shoulder, left ear to left shoulder, right ear to right shoulder, left ear to left shoulder, come back to center. Let's take one clockwise circle with our head now — going out clockwise, take a nice big circle, and now counterclockwise, back to center.

Moving on to the shoulders now, bring your fingertips onto your shoulders and we'll take a few shoulder rolls. Okay, so taking a nice big circle with your shoulders — one, we'll do five of these, two, three, try to get your elbows to touch in front of you, four, five. Let's switch direction — one, two, three, four, five, release.

Now let's get into a tabletop position, so you will have to come down onto the floor of the mat if you're seated on a chair. Come onto your hands and knees, wrists under your shoulders, knees under your hips. Okay, from here let's get into a cat-cow stretch to mobilize the spine. Inhale, arch your back, so drop the chest down, lift the chin up, lift the sit bones up. Exhale, push the mat away, rounding the spine, bring your chin to your chest and draw the navel into your spine. Inhale and arch your back, exhale and round the back. Inhale and arch your back, exhale and round the back. Inhale, find a neutral spine — you can take a couple more of these, as many as you like.

Tuck your toes and we'll get into a downward facing dog from here, so start to lift the knees up, move your hips back, start to straighten your knees. But if your back feels like it's rounding like this, bend your knees and push the chest back towards your thighs. Keep the gaze between your feet and feel the length in the side body — you want to feel for pushing the mat away and feel the lengthening in the side body. Slowly you may drop your heels down; whether or not it touches the floor, it doesn't matter. Keep the navel in and breathe — one, two, three, four, five.

Slowly let's begin to walk the legs to the front of your mat, take baby steps, as many steps as it takes, come all the way to the front of the mat. And from here, release your hands and keep the upper body loose, loose and limp like a rag doll, so just allow it to drape over your thighs, and then slowly, loose and limp, you want to come up stacking one vertebra at a time, keeping the lower body firm and rooted, upper body absolutely loose and relaxed. Come all the way up to standing, head coming up last. Roll the shoulders back and down, keep the neck neutral, chin parallel to the mat.

From here we're going to continue with some of these shoulder stretches, so make sure there's a little enough space in front of you. Bring both your hands to your thighs, and as you inhale you're going to lift the heels up and the hands up, going in unison together, exhale come back down, all the way, heels down, hands down. Inhale and arms up, heels up, exhale and down — we'll do five, okay. Each: inhale and up, exhale and down, three, let's do two more, inhale and up, exhale and down, four, last one, inhale and lift, exhale and down, five.

Now bring your hands by the side of your body, and as you inhale you're going to lift your hands up only to shoulder level, okay. So inhale and lift your arms up in line with your shoulders, exhale and down — one, inhale lift, exhale and down, two, inhale lift, exhale and down, three, inhale up, exhale and down, four, inhale and lift, exhale and down for five.

Okay, now you're going to take both your hands in front of you — I'll probably turn to the side so you can see it more clearly — palms together. We're going to open our hands out as though we're opening a window, okay, so as you inhale, open the arms out — you'll feel an opening in the chest — exhale, bring it back together. One, inhale and open, exhale and back, two, inhale open, exhale and back, three, inhale and open, exhale and back for four, inhale and open, exhale and back for five, release, take a moment.

Last one here for the shoulders — you're going to interlock your fingers in front of your chest, and from here inhale, flip the palms up as you lift, and it's like you're pushing into an imaginary wall on top of you, exhale come back to your chest. Inhale, flip the palms, lift, exhale and back, two, inhale lift push, exhale and back, three, inhale lift and push, exhale and back for last one, inhale and lift, exhale and back for five, release your hands.

Now spread your legs apart, maybe about four feet apart, three to four feet apart, whatever's comfortable for you. We'll get into a little twist over here, so you're going to open your right arm outwards and left hand will come to your chest, like so, okay. So as you twist, this is how you will move — okay, so let's go, we'll start with the right side. Exhale twist towards the right as much as you can, exhale twist to the left — your legs don't move at all, your feet are parallel. Exhale twist to the right, exhale twist to the left, exhale twist to the right, exhale twist to the left, exhale to the right, exhale to the left — the inhales will happen possibly — exhale, exhale to the left, inhale back to center, exhale and bring both your legs together.

Now come to the front of your mat, and we're going to move the spine in a backward bend and a forward bend movement simultaneously — okay, so you can keep your feet about hips-width apart, whatever's comfortable, feet parallel to each other. Inhale, lift your arms up, push the hips forward and arch your back slightly, exhale as you come into a forward fold, roll the shoulders up. We'll do this five times: inhale, arms up, arch, exhale, forward fold, roll the shoulders up, two, inhale, come up, arch, exhale, forward fold, roll the shoulders, three, just two more, inhale up and arch, exhale, fold, roll the shoulders, last one, inhale, arch, exhale and roll the shoulders. Inhale, come up to Samasthiti position, and now we can come down to seated.

Get into a Sukhasana position, so you can just cross your shins and sit, and from here we're going to get into side stretches. Okay, so we'll first make it dynamic and then we'll hold it statically towards the end. Okay, so you're going to take your right hand out to the right side and take your left hand into a circle like so, and slowly lift that left shoulder up, getting into a side stretch. Okay, so we'll move like this dynamically from side to side, focus on the exhales and the inhales will take care of themselves. Exhale, move over towards the other side, switch, exhale towards the right, exhale to the left, feel yourself grounding down through your sit bones, exhale to the right, exhale to the left, exhale to the right.

This time let's hold it — try to lift the chest up as though you're turning the chest up towards the sky, and if you can go deep enough you can bring your forearms down, but don't lift the left hip up, keep the left hip grounded, keep the left elbow straight, and maybe you can look kind of diagonally up towards the ceiling. And we'll stay here — one, feel the stretch in the left side body, two, three, four, five. Slowly switch sides, moving over to the left, plant the forearm down if you can, otherwise stay on your palm, no problem, keep the chest lifted though, the bicep will remain by your ear, don't collapse the shoulder in front of your face. All right, so the dynamic movements there were to create that energy, and the static hold is to create a sense of rest and stimulus, both of which we need during this phase. Four, five, slowly come back to center. Take a moment there just to notice how you feel — maybe you feel a little more length in the side body, maybe you feel a little taller, just notice.

And from here we take a couple of seated twists again. Okay, inhale lift your arms up, exhale twist towards the right, so bring your left elbow to the outside of your right knee, right hand goes behind you but stay on your fingertips, don't sink the weight back, okay. Twist, use your spine to twist — one, don't focus so much on the neck looking back, don't strain the neck, focus more on the twist in the spine, two, three, four, five. Inhale, come back to center, lift both your hands up, exhale and twist to the left, right hand to the outside of your left knee, left hand behind you, maybe on your fingertips, and use that right hand like a hook to twist deeper — one, two, three, four, five, good. Inhale, come back to center, exhale, release, relax, notice how you feel again.

And then now let's come into Upavistha Konasana, so you're going to take your legs out wide into a wide V, as much as you can comfortably go — you don't have to push yourself, that's not what this practice is about. If you feel uncomfortable sitting upright with your legs spread out like this, feel free to roll up a blanket and sit on the edge of the blanket, or even a stable cushion you could sit on — that helps you keep that elevation much better. Okay, keep your legs engaged, don't just let it sag out, and from here inhale, find that lift in the spine, so think that you're pushing your butt backwards and you're leaning forwards, and on the exhale start to fold. You can bring your hands forward, you can bring your hands to your legs — it's up to you, there is no right or wrong here. If you have a bolster around at home, you can even have a bolster in front of you vertically and fold over it, so that to make it really nice — that's a restorative way to practice this, so choose what you'd like to do.

You can bring your hands forward, keep walking your hands forward — the objective is not to touch the floor with your forehead, the objective is to reach forward and lengthen your spine, so keep that objective in mind. There is no ego in the practice, it is not about whether you can touch the floor or not — you want to feel the sensations around your hamstrings, around your back, that is what this posture is for, so keep the sensation where it needs to be. It's a beautiful posture for women, and you can practice this on a daily basis. Three, four, five.

Inhale, slowly lift your head up and start to walk your hands back. Now you can feel free to stay in this posture for as long as you want, you can even go up to three to five minutes. So depending on how your knee is — even if you're not able to fold forward, no problem, you can just stay upright here as well, just try to find that long spine, that should be enough as well.

Okay, from here bring your hands beneath your knees, use that to bend the knees and bring your feet together, the soles of your feet together, into Baddha Konasana, butterfly. Hold on to your toes, inhale again, find that length in your spine, feel the sitting bones moving backwards, exhale, reach forward with your chin as much as you can go, try to think that you're bringing the chin to the outside of your toes. Okay, one, two, three, feel that opening in the inner thighs, inner, inner thighs, four, five, inhale, come back up. And exhale, we'll go back down, but this time we will round the back, rounding the back and bring your forehead towards your toes — one, two, three, four, five, slowly inhale and lift your head up again.

And now we can move over to our last and final posture, staying in Baddha Konasana. Just feel free to rest all the way back, bringing your back down, your head down — you can support your thighs or your knees with blocks or whatever props you have, cushions, anything is okay to just feel supported and safe in the posture. So lie down, you may place both your hands on your belly, or maybe one hand on your belly and your chest.

And just take a moment here to honor the beautiful way in which the body works, in which nature works. As difficult as this phase might be otherwise, there is a beauty to it — it is a transition, and as a lot of women have come out and said, it is probably a very, very empowering phase in a woman's life. So tap into that and stay here for as long as you need to.

Thank you so much for practicing with me today. Now, of course, yoga is a beautiful way to feel supported during this phase, but remember that you have to also do other things to help support this time in your life. So make sure that you have a good nighttime routine, you eat nourishing and warm foods, you practice some kind of meditation or something which is emotionally nourishing as well, and make sure you get some amount of daily movement. So all of this together will help you sail through this phase with a lot more ease. If you enjoyed this practice and found it easy or simple to implement in your life, feel free to make this a part of your daily routine. And if you know any other women who are going through this, feel free to share this video with them as well.