It may seem counterintuitive to think about gratitude during the menopause journey, especially if you’re experiencing mood swings, rage, depression or anxiety. But you really can be grateful during the menopause journey. It’s a powerful perspective that can change how you feel. Studies show that those with a more positive outlook may benefit from a more positive body image, less depression, and a greater likelihood of managing menopause with more ease. Ready to change your mindset and fill it with gratitude, hope, and greater well-being?
What is gratitude?
Gratitude is foundational in the field of positive psychology.
Some definitions of gratitude are:
- affirmation of goodness in your life
- the recognition of goodness outside of yourself
- the deepest touchpoint of human existence
Gratitude is also described as dispositional – something to be developed and practiced to reap its many associated benefits. That’s why you may hear it referred to as having a “gratitude practice.“
The positive benefits of gratitude are based in science. Without getting too technical, having a gratitude disposition includes:
- Span – The number of things an individual is grateful for.
- Frequency – How often an individual is grateful.
- Intensity – The depth of feeling over the benefit received.
- Density – The number of people an individual is grateful for a particular benefit or aspect of life.
Gratitude reflects a positive feeling or emotion experienced when we give to or receive a benefit from someone.
Gratitude is good for you (and others). And it can help you to say yes to your life and be present in the moment.
Gratitude benefits in life
We understand the idea of being grateful during the menopause journey may seem odd or even an oxymoron. But it’s a powerful way of being that can profoundly change you physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Consider it an approach to life with advantages extending far beyond those hot flashes you may experience!
Gratitude, as a science, has been linked to numerous positive outcomes, including:
- better physical health
- psychological well-being
- reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety
All three benefits can serve you well in life and during the menopause journey.
Benefits of gratitude during menopause
Gratitude can be vital in your menopause journey as you navigate the road ahead. It encourages you to reflect on:
- your accomplishments
- personal growth
- wisdom gained from life experiences
By expressing gratitude for the lessons learned and the strength gained through adversity, you can foster a sense of empowerment and purpose, embracing the next chapter of your life with confidence and self-assurance.
Gratitude practices and a positive mindset can help women navigate this transitional period more effectively, in a kind and loving way, and with self-compassion. Here’s how gratitude can impact menopause symptoms:
- Improved mood and emotional well-being
- Better physical health, including improved heart health
- Better sleep
- Stress reduction
- Greater optimism
- Increased resilience
- Enhanced relationships
So, let’s break down each one and the benefits to a woman+ on the menopause journey.
How gratitude can help your mood during menopause
Let’s face it – it can be challenging to manage menopause symptoms. Even if you’re not emotionally down, a physical symptom like a hot flash can trigger emotions of embarrassment, frustration, and even anger.
During the journey, you may feel any combination of emotional symptoms:
You’re not alone in your feelings. In the Fawcett Society Menopause and the Workplace study, 69% of women+ said they experience difficulties with anxiety or depression due to menopause.
A 2015 study showed gratitude as a positive emotion that broadens and builds on other positive emotions. That, in turn, increases emotional well-being.
And a small study of women at risk of or who had experienced depression found grateful women were more accepting of their depressive symptoms. That, in turn, led to increased well-being and decreased feelings of anxiety and depression.
Expressing gratitude can also help minimize mood swings for some women+.
…there’s a gratitude circuit in your brain, badly in need of a workout. Strengthening that circuit brings the power to elevate your physical and mental health, boost happiness, improve sleep, and help you feel more connected to other people.
Try gratitude journaling and mindfulness exercises to express your feelings without judgment and create room to focus on what is going well in your life. Those techniques can enhance:
- overall well-being
- reduce negative emotions
- expand positive emotions
A gratitude practice really can transform your life!
Physical health
During the menopause journey, women+ have an increased risk of an abnormal lipid profile – cholesterol and triglycerides – and heart disease.
Multiple research studies show gratitude is associated with:
- higher levels of good cholesterol (HDL)
- lower levels of bad cholesterol (LDL)
- lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure at rest and in the face of stress
- higher heart rate variability, which can signify better heart health and a greater ability to cope with stress
- Heart rate variability (HRV) calculates the difference in time between each heartbeat. It is one way to monitor cardiovascular fitness and resilience to stress.
Gratitude is good “medicine”! These health benefits can contribute to overall well-being during menopause.
Better sleep
Sleep can be elusive during menopause due to hormonal swings that cause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats.
While there are many ways to get more shut-eye – from CBT to brain wave music – what if it was as simple as extending your gratitude practice to your sleep hygiene routine before bed?
For example, in one experimental investigation of gratitude, patients with neuromuscular disorders wrote down three things for which they were grateful for 21 consecutive nights. The study found those who practiced gratitude slept more hours and felt refreshed upon waking.
If you do this exercise, consistency is critical. It’s also important to be specific about what you’re grateful for and why. Doing this before bed can calm your mind, promote relaxation, and improve sleep quality.
A subsequent study extended that research, found gratitude predicted improvements in greater subjective sleep quality and duration, less sleep latency (how long it takes to fall asleep), and daytime dysfunction.
Focus on positive thoughts before you go to sleep, and your sleep may improve.
Stress reduction
Menopause can also cause/increase stress, which in turn can affect how you feel emotionally, physically, and mentally.
On top of managing menopause symptoms, you may be dealing with life changes at the same time, like:
- major career decisions
- an empty nest
- divorce
- being a caregiver to aging parents
So, how does practicing gratitude help women+ better manage stress?
One of the results of the hormonal changes that occur (and the symptoms that follow) during the menopausal transition is a potential increase in cortisol, the stress hormone. Gratitude practices have been found to decrease cortisol levels by 23%, further evidence of the link between our mindset and our biochemistry.
Additionally, practicing gratitude engages our parasympathetic nervous system (responsibility for many “automatic” functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion, as well as the relaxation response) and has been shown to increase feelings of relaxation and happiness. It’s one of the many self-care strategies women+ can use on the menopausal journey.
Greater optimism
Gratitude exercises promote an optimistic but realistic outlook on life. That view can help women+ facing menopausal challenges maintain a positive attitude and hope for the future.
Here’s how it works. When you express gratitude for what’s good in life or show gratitude to someone who has somehow helped you, your brain (stem) releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter.
Dopamine makes us feel good! And, because it feels good, we want more. It triggers other positive emotions, and we feel more optimistic.
Serotonin is another neurochemical released when we reflect on or write down the positives in life and at work. Serotonin enhances our mood (think anti-depressant effect), willpower, and motivation.
A leading scientific gratitude expert, Robert Emmons, found that at-risk patients who counted their blessings and wrote gratitude letters for six months lessened their risk of depression by 41%.
In suicidal inpatients, writing a letter of gratitude reduced feelings of hopelessness in 88% of patients and increased optimism in 94% of them.
It doesn’t always have to be a letter. A simple thank you, holding the door open for someone, or paying it forward all make a difference in your life and someone else’s.
Increased resilience
Resilience can be understood as an adaptive approach to help you cope with adversity in and out of a difficult situation. Practicing gratitude during life’s challenges calls on us to recognize or develop strengths we didn’t know we had.
It can enhance resiliency, making it easier to adapt to the physical and emotional changes that come with menopause. It appears that both gratitude and resilience are necessary conditions for vitality. Women+ can better navigate this life stage by acknowledging their inner strength and resiliency.
Strengthen your relationships with your partner or spouse
How are your relationships going during the menopause journey? Be honest. Do you still feel as connected to your husband, wife, or partner? Is there still a spark? Are you really talking or just having go-through-the-motions conversations? You need gratitude, even if it’s the last thing on your mind.
Research shows gratitude releases the “love” hormone, oxytocin, which acts like “glue” to bind individuals. Practicing gratitude can strengthen interpersonal relationships.
Think about how you feel when a friend expresses gratitude.
Now, how do you feel when your partner expresses it? The feelings are likely stronger. By this stage in your marriage or relationship, you may take things you do for one another for granted. Reflect on those small gestures, and be grateful for them.
Remember, gratitude brings about positive feelings. If you feel more positive about your life, you may feel more positive about your relationship, which can positively impact how your partner feels as well.
Kindness is often contagious, especially in a relationship. Write a thank you note or send a random text message or emoji; sincere compliments are always welcomed.
Feeling closer due to expressing gratitude can also help improve your intimate relationship.
Let’s face it. Physical intimacy can be a struggle during menopause due to vaginal dryness, a drop in libido, depressive symptoms, or negative feelings about weight gain or other changes in your body. With a foundation of love and gratitude, you’re both more likely to express your feelings and frustrations and extend grace and patience while you find solutions to the impact of the hormonal transition.
Improve relationships with friends
In the same way, gratitude can strengthen the bond you have with a partner or spouse; it can also bring you closer to friends, co-workers, and family. A strong support network is crucial during menopause, providing emotional support and understanding.
In one study of women with breast cancer, the evidence suggested that everyday positive emotions may be potent factors in resilience during periods of chronic stress. Feeling gratitude upon receipt of a benefit from another person predicted an increase in perceived social support.
Some ways to practice gratitude
Ready to get started?
1. Use Gratitude Heals resources by Linda Roszak Burton, ACC, BBC, BS or purchase the book
2. Expressing what or who you’re grateful for:
- Gratitude journal
- Visual journal – reflect and doodle
- Gratitude letter – write it, deliver it, and read it to the person
3. Gratitude prompts
- Write down three good things that went well in your day/week and explain why.
- Mindfully make a list of all the people in your life that you’re grateful for.
For each entry, follow these four steps to compose meaningful expressions of gratitude:
- Name the person, experience, or behavior for which you are grateful.
- Describe how you benefited. Be specific.
- Describe why this was meaningful. Be specific.
- Describe specifically the intentions, actions, strengths, and possible sacrifices made by the giver.
4. Gratitude techniques to reduce stress
- Guided imagery
- Gratitude meditation
With guided imagery, you can visualize yourself somewhere you find relaxing. Perhaps it’s a beach, a quiet forest, or a tranquil room with no noise. This visualization technique can calm you enough to gain the type of perspective needed to feel less overwhelmed and better manage your stress.
You’re prompted to envision and experience that environment – including what you see, smell, hear, and feel. By engaging your senses, you can reduce stress.
Guided imagery is also a non-hormonal technique to manage symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, to improve sleep, depression, and anxiety.
Some practitioners offer “live” guided imagery sessions, or you can listen to an app, video, or audio recording.
Guided imagery can also prompt you to think of your best self and focus on the positive aspects of life.
Another option to help cope with stress is gratitude meditation, which research shows can effectively reduce the stress associated with menopausal vasomotor symptoms (aka VSMs – hot flashes, night sweats, and palpitations). With meditation, you focus on the present moment and reflect on the things in your life for which you are grateful, thereby reducing perceived stress during menopause.
This gratitude meditation can be done in just one minute.
Being grateful
It’s important to note the impact of gratitude on menopause can vary from person to person. What works for one individual may not work for another, and menopause experiences differ greatly.
Nevertheless, cultivating gratitude and a positive mindset can be a valuable tool for menopausal women to improve their overall well-being and quality of life.
It is not a cure for menopausal symptoms, but it can be a complementary strategy to help manage the emotional and physical aspects of this life transition and make a change for the better!
Linda Roszak Burton, ACC, BBC, BS
The content in this article was made possible through a collaboration with Linda Roszak Burton, ACC, BBC, BS Founder, and Managing Partner of DRW, Inc., an organizational development and executive coaching firm. We are very grateful for Linda's leadership in the gratitude arena and her willingness to share her expertise and wisdom!
Linda is currently conducting research with Central Queensland University in Queensland, Australia, and Angelia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England, on gratitude interventions to support nurse resilience and stress management.
She writes for the Wharton Healthcare Quarterly feature series on gratitude, is a frequent keynote speaker, and is the author of Gratitude Heals® - A Journal for Inspiration and Guidance (Available on Amazon). In addition, she also has TEDxTalk on "Gratitude - The Power to Heal the World."
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