How mindfulness can ease symptoms of menopause

MINDFULNESS could help women going through the menopause, researchers say.

Popular with celebrities including Emma Watson and Angelina Jolie, mindfulness – which involves training the mind to help focus on the moment – could help with anxiety, depression and irritability, a study found.

Researchers questioned more than 1,700 women on how mindful they were in everyday life and their problems with anxiety, low mood and anger. It is believed mindfulness stops people dwelling on negative thoughts by keeping their mind in the present.

Women who lived their lives least ‘automatically’, paying more attention to their daily activities, were least afflicted by the menopause. Dr Richa Sood, who led the study from Mayo Clinic in the US, said: ‘We found that midlife women with higher mindfulness scores experienced fewer menopausal symptoms.

‘These findings suggest that mindfulness may be a promising tool to help women reduce menopausal symptoms.’

Mindfulness was not found to improve hot flushes and night sweats, which it has done in previous studies.

But those who were most mindful were found to be least anxious, depressed and irritable.

Kathy Abernethy, of the British Menopause Society, said: ‘This study is encouraging as it suggests that women may have options other than taking medicines.’