The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, 2nd Edition

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Menopause doesn't have to be a dreaded curse of aging during which we can look forward only to hot flashes and whacked-out hormonal mood swings. According to Christiane Northrup, M.D. (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom), menopause often marks the beginning of a woman's most sexually passionate, creatively inspired, and professionally productive phase of life.

While this may sound like wishful thinking, Northrup backs up her good news with solid medical expertise. As an obstetrician and gynecologist, Northrup has specialized in using a mind-body approach to women's health for decades, which means she doesn't just write about hormones, but also examines how a woman's lifestyle, emotions, and beliefs are affected by menopause. With the right diet, attitude, and perhaps some supplements along the way, women can actually look forward to a resurgence of energy and a revolutionary opportunity for personal growth--one that rivals the hormonally driven period of adolescence in its scope and urgency, she claims. And yes, at just under 500 pages, The Wisdom of Menopause does explain how to have a positive and healthy menopause in concise detail. Northrup has indeed "written the book" on menopause.

It helps that Northrup has been through menopause herself (she vowed she wouldn't write a book on it until she was on the other side). Readers have the sense that they are gleaning advice from a knowledgeable holistic doctor as well as a sage aunt whose life was radically altered by the "change of life" (Northrup divorced at the onset of menopause). After she shares her personal story of "the change," Northrup delves into a significant discussion on how self-sacrifice catches up with women in midlife. Suddenly, hormones are directing women out of the caregiver role and into an inwardly focused assessment of life and its meaning, she explains. Resentments (not hormones) are what spur the notorious surges of anger, as women reexamine the agreements surrounding their relationships with colleagues, friends, and family members.

From here, Northrup guides readers into a thorough section on menopausal hormone changes--a discussion that is scientifically informative, yet entirely accessible. While acknowledging the need for hormone-replacement therapy and the tremendous relief it can provide (helping to alleviate insomnia, hot flashes, and depression), Northrup encourages women to avoid synthetic hormones and instead consider "bioidentical" hormones (such as estradiol, estrone, and estriol). She also devotes an entire chapter to foods and supplements that support hormonal balance. By the way, she says to skip the wild Mexican yam creams: "they certainly don't provide the documented benefits of progesterone." Be warned: some readers may find the advice in Wisdom of Menopause too alternative for their liking. For example, in her discussion on insomnia, one of Northrup's recommendations is to cover the mirror at night, following the ancient Asian design principles of feng shui. (Skeptics will find Northrup's medical assertions carefully cited and footnoted in the rear of her book.)

Northrup gives a solid and practical diet plan that supports hormonal balance while countering the weight gain that so frequently plagues menopausal women ("focus on portion size, not calories," "eat protein at every meal," and cut down on refined and high-carbohydrate foods). Readers can also expect a thorough mind-body discussion in subsequent chapters that cover breast health, bone loss, and cultivating midlife beauty, along with chapters titled "Sex and Menopause: Myths and Reality" and "Creating Pelvic Health and Power."

She concludes with a list of mail-order and online resources, such as retailers for bioidentical hormones, progesterone cream, Chinese herbs, soy products, weight-loss audiocassettes, lubricants, and Kegel weights. Northrup takes a truly comprehensive approach to all the effective treatments of menopausal symptoms so that women can make their own highly informed and wise choices. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Northrup (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom), cofounder of the Women to Women health-care center in Maine, offers a celebratory, "psychospiritual" approach in her comprehensive guide to menopausal health and well-being. Beginning with the premise that, though difficult, the "hormone-driven changes that affect the brain... give a woman a sharper eye for inequity... and a voice that insists on speaking up," Northrup details hormonal imbalances, mood swings, serious illnesses, treatment options and all the other symptoms, side effects and decisions women face in midlife. Middle-aged herself, Northrup writes from experience and, more important, from her professional expertise as a physician who has treated many women and researched menopause. While much of the health-care material here is available in other sources, Northrup's approach a description of symptoms, followed by both traditional and alternative treatment options along with some anecdotes is particularly useful. Occasionally she veers off into New Age jargon, but she is a firm believer in the relevance of tangential influences on physical health, including emotional and financial well-being. The specific medical advice on sleep, diet, breast health and the empowerment motif will bring insight, comfort and confidence to women embarked on "the change." Agent, Ned Leavitt. (Apr. 3) Forecast: Northrup is a bestselling author widely held in the same esteem as Gary Null and Deepak Chopra. Among the competitive field of books on menopause, hers stands out for its whole-woman approach, which will make it attractive not only to her core readership but also as a hand-selling favorite among booksellers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
"Boomer" women drawn to holistic medicine with a New Age tilt are the target readers of Northrup's second book (her first was Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom [1996]). Northrup opens with chapters that emphasize the mind-body connection, discussing menopause as a journey that "Puts Your Life under a Microscope" and a time when "(Your) Brain Catches Fire" and many women move "From Dependence to Healthy Autonomy." Later chapters consider the physical foundations of menopause, weigh the advantages and disadvantages of hormone replacement, discuss useful foods and supplements, and address related issues, from pelvic health and sex to the impact of menopause on the health of a woman's skin, bones, breasts, heart, sleep patterns, and mental health. Northrup discusses her own menopausal experiences in some detail: some readers will find this involving; others, solipsistic. Northrup's references to the more mystical reaches of holistic healing will also polarize: finding chakras and Tarot cards in this menopause manual will confound some readers, but others will find Northrup's eclecticism enlightening. Acquire where holistic health, broadly defined, circulates. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Northrup writes from experience and, more important, from her professional expertise as a physician who has treated many women and researched menopause. The specific medical advice on sleep, diet, breast health and the empowerment motif will bring insight, comfort and confidence to women embarked on 'the change.'"—Publishers Weekly


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
"Northrup writes from experience and, more important, from her professional expertise as a physician who has treated many women and researched menopause. The specific medical advice on sleep, diet, breast health and the empowerment motif will bring insight, comfort and confidence to women embarked on 'the change.'"
-- Publishers Weekly


Praise for Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom:

"Feminine wisdom is the intelligence at the heart of creation. It is holistic, intuitive, contextual, and functions as a field of infinite correlation. Dr. Northrup's book is an expression of this wisdom."
-- Deepak Chopra, M.D., author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

"Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom is a gateway to the deepest understanding of health and well-being. Women have an innate sense of spirituality, an ability to attune to the wisdom within themselves and the larger whole that has been systematically ignored in medicine. Dr. Northrup restores the spiritual to the medical, facilitating the understanding and confidence that every woman needs in order to create a healthy body and a fulfilled life."
-- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and A Woman's Book of Life

"A masterpiece for every woman who has an interest in her body, her mind and her soul."
-- Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit

"While most male physicians seem hesitant even to use the word 'healing,' many women doctors -- epitomized by Dr. Christiane Northrup -- are demonstrating what genuine healing has always been about: the integration of the physical and the spiritual, psyche and soma, into a harmonious whole. This book demonstrates the reemergence of the feminine in healing, a force that has kept the inner pulse of healing beating for centuries. If you can't have Dr. Northrup for your doctor, read her book."
-- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words, Meaning & Medicine, and Recovering the Soul

"Dr. Chris Northrup's book is an outstanding collection of information and case histories that will benefit everyone who reads it. It lives up to the title and I certainly intend to share it with my wife and daughter. I could go on extolling its virtues, but it will do more good if everyone just takes my advice and reads it."
-- Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Through her bestselling books, groundbreaking PBS specials, and up-to-the-minute clinical knowledge, Dr. Christiane Northrup has earned a place as one of America’s most trusted medical advisors.

In The Wisdom of Menopause, she once again challenges convention with this inspiring look at one of the most commonly misunderstood female health issues. The “change” is not simply a collection of physical symptoms to be “fixed,” Dr. Northrup claims, but a mind/body revolution that brings the greatest opportunity for growth since adolescence. The choices a woman makes now–from the quality of her relationships to the quality of her diet–have the power to secure her health and well-being for the rest of her life. Through her personal story and many fascinating case histories, Dr. Northrup shows:

• How menopause jump-starts changes in the brain, issuing a dramatic wake-up call to body, mind, and emotions
• How to ensure the long-term health of breasts, bones, and heart
• How the body adjusts naturally to changing hormones
• Why bestselling drugs like Premarin may not be the best choice
• How to deal with metabolism shifts, weight gain, sexual problems, and appearance issues
• How to negotiate the challenges of “the empty nest” and midlife marriage

And much more.

In a book destined to be a classic, Dr. Northrup shows women how they can make menopause a time of personal empowerment and positive energy–emerging wiser, healthier, and stronger in both mind and body than ever before.

From the Inside Flap
Through her bestselling books, groundbreaking PBS specials, and up-to-the-minute clinical knowledge, DR. CHRISTIANE NORTHRUP has earned a place as one of America's most trusted medical advisors.

In The Wisdom of Menopause, she once again challenges convention with this inspiring look at one of the most commonly misunderstood female health issues. The "change" is not simply a collection of physical symptoms to be "fixed," DR. NORTHRUP claims, but a mind/body revolution that brings the greatest opportunity for growth since adolescence. The choices a woman makes now–from the quality of her relationships to the quality of her diet–have the power to secure her health and well-being for the rest of her life. Through her personal story and many fascinating case histories, Dr. Northrup shows:

• How menopause jump-starts changes in the brain, issuing a dramatic wake-up call to body, mind, and emotions
• How to ensure the long-term health of breasts, bones, and heart
• How the body adjusts naturally to changing hormones
• Why bestselling drugs like Premarin may not be the best choice
• How to deal with metabolism shifts, weight gain, sexual problems, and appearance issues
• How to negotiate the challenges of "the empty nest" and midlife marriage

And much more.

In a book destined to be a classic, DR. NORTHRUP shows women how they can make menopause a time of personal empowerment and positive energy–emerging wiser, healthier, and stronger in both mind and body than ever before. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Feminine wisdom is the intelligence at the heart of creation. It is holistic, intuitive, contextual, and functions as a field of infinite correlation. Dr. Northrup's book is an expression of this wisdom."
-- Deepak Chopra, M.D., author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

"Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom is a gateway to the deepest understanding of health and well-being. Women have an innate sense of spirituality, an ability to attune to the wisdom within themselves and the larger whole that has been systematically ignored in medicine. Dr. Northrup restores the spiritual to the medical, facilitating the understanding and confidence that every woman needs in order to create a healthy body and a fulfilled life."
-- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and A Woman's Book of Life

"A masterpiece for every woman who has an interest in her body, her mind and her soul."
-- Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit

"While most male physicians seem hesitant even to use the word 'healing,' many women doctors--epitomized by Dr. Christiane Northrup--are demonstrating what genuine healing has always been about: the integration of the physical and the spiritual, psyche and soma, into a harmonious whole. This book demonstrates the reemergence of the feminine in healing, a force that has kept the inner pulse of healing beating for centuries. If you can't have Dr. Northrup for your doctor, read her book."
-- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words, Meaning & Medicine, and Recovering the Soul

"Dr. Chris Northrup's book is an outstanding collection of information and
case histories that will benefit everyone who reads it. It lives up to the title and I certainly intend to share it with my wife and daughter. I could go on extolling its virtues, but it will do more good if everyone just takes my advice and reads it."
-- Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author
Christiane Northrup, M.D., trained at Dartmouth Medical School and Tufts New England Medical Center before cofounding the Women to Women health care center in Yarmouth, Maine, which became a model for women's clinics nationwide. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, she is past president of the American Holistic Medical Association and an internationally recognized authority on women's health and healing.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One


Menopause Puts Your Life Under a Microscope

It is no secret that relationship crises are a common side effect of menopause. Usually this is attributed to the crazy-making effects of the hormonal shifts occurring in a woman's body at this time of transition. What is rarely acknowledged or understood is that as these hormone-driven changes affect the brain, they give a woman a sharper eye for inequity and injustice, and a voice that insists on speaking up about them. In other words, they give her a kind of wisdom--and the courage to voice it. As the vision-obscuring veil created by the hormones of reproduction begins to lift, a woman's youthful fire and spirit are often rekindled, together with long-sublimated desires and creative drives. Midlife fuels those drives with a volcanic energy that demands an outlet.

If it does not find an outlet--if the woman remains silent for the sake of keeping the peace at home and/or work, or if she holds herself back from pursuing her creative urges--the result is equivalent to plugging the vent on a pressure cooker: Something has to give. Very often what gives is the woman's health, and the result will be one or more of the "big three" diseases of postmenopausal women: heart disease, depression, and breast cancer. On the other hand, for those of us who choose to honor the body's wisdom and to express what lies within us, it's a good idea to get ready for some boat rocking, which may put long-established relationships in upheaval. Marriage is not immune to this effect.

"Not Me, My Marriage Is Fine"

Every marriage, even a very good one, must undergo change in order to keep up with the hormone-driven rewiring of a woman's brain during the years leading up to and including menopause. Not all marriages are able to survive these changes. Mine wasn't, and nobody was more surprised about that than I. If this makes you want to hide your head in the sand, believe me, I do understand. But for the sake of being true to yourself and protecting your emotional and physical health in the second half of your life--likely a full forty years or more--then I submit to you that forging ahead and taking a good hard look at all aspects of your relationship (including some previously untouchable corners of your marriage) may be the only choice that will work in your best interest in the long run, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

From the standpoint of physical health, for example, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the increase in life-threatening illnesses after midlife, which cannot be accounted for by aging alone, is partly rooted in the stresses and unresolved relationship problems that simmered beneath the surface during the childbearing years of a woman's life, then bubbled up and boiled over at perimenopause, only to be damped down in the name of maintaining the status quo. The health of your significant other is also at stake. Remaining in a relationship that was tailor-made for a couple of twenty-somethings without making the necessary adjustments for who you both have become at midlife can be just as big a health risk for him as it is for you.

This is not to say that your only options are divorce or heart attack. Rather, in order to bring your relationship into alignment with your rewired brain, you and your significant other must be willing to take the time, and spend the energy, to resolve old issues and set new ground rules for the years that lie ahead. If you can do this, then your relationship will help you to thrive in the second half of your life. If one or both of you cannot or will not, then both health and happiness may be at risk if you stay together.


Preparing for Transformation

At midlife, more psychic energy becomes available to us than at any time since adolescence. If we strive to work in active partnership with that organic energy, trusting it to help us uncover the unconscious and self-destructive beliefs about ourselves that have held us back from what we could become, then we will find that we have access to everything we need to reinvent ourselves as healthier, more resilient women, ready to move joyfully into the second half of our lives.

This process of transformation can only succeed, however, if we become proactive in two ways. First, we must be willing to take full responsibility for our share of the problems in our lives. It takes great courage to admit our own contributions to the things that have gone wrong for us and to stop seeing ourselves simply as victims of someone or something outside of ourselves. After all, the person in the victim role tends to get all the sympathy and to assume the high road morally, which is appealing; none of us wants to feel like the bad guy. But even though taking the victim role may seem a good choice in the short run, this stance is ultimately devoid of any power to help us change, heal, grow, and move on.

The second requirement for transformation is more difficult by far: We must be willing to feel the pain of loss and grieve for those parts of our lives that we are leaving behind. And that includes our fantasies of how our lives could have been different if only. Facing up to such loss is rarely easy, and that is why so many of us resist change in general and at midlife in particular. A part of us rationalizes, "Why rock the boat? I'm halfway finished with my life. Wouldn't it just be easier to accept what I have rather than risk the unknown?"

The end of any significant relationship, or any major phase of our lives, even one that has made us unhappy or held us back from our full growth and fulfillment, feels like a death--pure and simple. To move past it, we have to feel the sadness of that loss and grieve fully for what might have been and now will never be.

And then we must pick ourselves up and move toward the unknown. All our deepest fears are likely to surface as we find ourselves facing the uncertainty of the future. During my own perimenopausal life changes, I would learn this in spades--much to my surprise.

By the time I was approaching menopause, I had worked with scores of women who had gone through midlife "cleansings"; I had guided and counseled them as their children left home, their parents got sick, their marriages ended, their husbands fell ill or died, they themselves became ill, their jobs ended--in short, as they went through all the storms and crises of midlife. But I never thought I would face a crisis in my marriage. I had always felt somewhat smug, secure in my belief that I was married to the man of my dreams, the one with whom I would stay "till death do us part."


Delirious Happiness and Shaking Knees

I will always remember the happiness of meeting and marrying my husband, a decision we made merely three months after we met. He was my surgical intern when I was a medical student at Dartmouth. He looked like a Greek god, and I was deeply flattered by his attention, especially since I wasn't at all sure I had what it took to attract such a handsome man with such an Ivy League, country club background. Something deep within me was moved by him beyond all reason, beyond anything I'd ever felt before with any other boyfriend. For the first five years of our marriage my knees shook whenever I saw him. There wasn't a force on this planet that could have talked me out of marrying him. I remember wanting to shout my love from the tops of tall buildings--an exuberance of feeling that was very uncharacteristic of the quiet, studious valedictorian of the Ellicottville Central School class of 1967.

He, however, was considerably less eager to display his feelings. I couldn't help but notice during the years we were both immersed in our surgical training that my husband seemed uncomfortable relating to me when we were at work, and often appeared cold and distant when I'd try to show affection in that setting. This puzzled and hurt me, since I was always proud to introduce him to my patients when we happened to see each other outside of the operating room. But I told myself that this was because of the way he had been raised, and that with enough love and attention from me, he would become more responsive, more emotionally available.


The Childbearing Years: Balancing Personal and Professional Lives

My husband's life didn't change much when we had our two daughters. Mine, however, became a struggle--one that millions of women will recognize from their own experience--as I tried to find satisfying and effective ways to mother my children, remain the doctor I wanted to be, and at the same time be a good wife to my husband. Nonetheless, these were happy years, for both of us adored our daughters from the beginning and enjoyed the many activities we shared with them--the weekend walks, the family vacations, the simple daily contact with two beautiful, developing young beings.

I did sometimes resent the disparity between what I contributed to the upkeep of our family life and what my husband did. Once, when the children were still young, I asked him if he'd consider working fewer hours so that I wouldn't have to give up delivering babies, an aspect of my practice that I dearly loved. He replied, "You've never seen a part-time orthopedic surgeon, have you?" I admitted that I hadn't, but suggested that this didn't mean it couldn't happen with a little imagination on his part. It was not to be, however. It was I who, like so many other women, became the master shape-shifter, adjusting my own needs to those of everyone else in the family.

In the early years of our family life, I was also becoming increasingly aware that the inequities that bothered me in my marriage were a reflection of inequities that existed in the culture around us. I saw many people like my husband and me--people who had started their marriages on equal grounds financially and educationally, even people who, like us, did the same work--and always, once the children arrived, it was the wif...