Tearfulness

The hormonal changes that women experience during menopause (all stages of menopause) can make us more susceptible to crying when we feel sad, mad, happy or any other emotion. It can make how we experience these emotions much more intense that before, and that can lead to a tearful moment.
Sometimes the smallest thing can set you off and it might seem completely irrational – and for some, this can be very concerning.

During the menopause journey, there are a number of factors that can all contribute to increased tearfulness for many women. These include:

• Oestrogen: as the levels of this hormone start to fluctuate and eventually decline, this can lead to tears
• Serotonin: as you may have read in some of our other articles, oestrogen has an impact on how our brains use serotonin. So as oestrogen levels decrease during menopause, so our happy hormone (serotonin) doesn’t work as effectively as before and this can lead to a number of mood changes – including anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings, and you’ve guessed it, tearfulness.
• MAO-A (monoamine oxidase A): this is another brain chemical that researchers have found may be impacted by changes in the levels of oestrogen during menopause. MAO-A helps to regulate healthy brain functioning, by managing (or removing) certain chemicals in our brains – including serotonin and dopamine, both of which play a role in our moods

Here are a couple of things that you can do to help manage tearfulness during menopause.

• Be kind to yourself: Use the tears as therapy. Allow yourself to feel the emotions and release those feelings by crying. Sit down in a quiet spot. Breath. Once you feel better, move on. There is nothing to be ashamed of.
• Exercise (no we are not crazy!): As with many of the other mood-related symptoms you may experience during menopause, exercise is a great way to help stimulate endorphins that make us feel better. A health body and a health brain are better able to cope with the stresses of menopause, and exercise is a great way to release emotional stress too.
• Feeding your brain: Before you grab that sugary comfort food when you next feel emotional, think about whether this will really help you in the long run? Maintaining a diet high in zinc and magnesium has been shown to help improve mood. Some of the best sources for this are spinach, egg yolks and legumes.
• Avoid alcohol: Eek, it feels like we are telling you to give up all the “good stuff” in life!! But when it comes to menopause, alcohol really isn’t your friend. As much as a glass of good wine might seem like the obvious solve when you are feeling emotional – it can actually make mood swings, irritability, depression and the tearfulness that goes with these, worse.