hot flash lady needs Cool-jams!

A great Article from menopause expert Ellen Dolgen Sarver read on…

It’s not your fault. You’ve been programmed to think that you’re not good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, or perfect enough. It’s on the cover of Photoshop-ed magazines at the grocery store, reinforced on TV, and referred to in current — and unfortunately catchy — songs that objectify women. So much of what surrounds us today is appearance-driven, and there’s a natural tendency to adapt to our surroundings. This unfortunate marriage between societal pressures and our brains has birthed a critical voice in our heads telling us that we are quite simply not good enough. Picture a sumo wrestler sitting on your brain. He is huge, powerful and controlling (and heavy!), but does he wrestle you down or are you tripping over your own shoelaces? It’s never too late to reevaluate the budget of your energy wallet, and make sure that sumo isn’t taking more than he’s owed!

Have you ever tried to silence the sumo with a louder voice telling yourself not to think so much? Over-thinking is something many women do and have done their entire lives. That sumo is only reinforcing negative thoughts, impairing problem solving and throwing a wrench into everyday life. When women enter menopause, several of their symptoms can work together to create a menopause monster. Weight gain and insomnia can partner with depression to make a tornado of negative thoughts and feelings that seems impossible to diffuse. Society’s obsession with slowing down the aging process is unhealthy, yet difficult to avoid. It’s easy to slip into an energy-sucking ocean of negative thoughts when you’re in a sinking boat. Stewing over a hot flash can bring you to an archive of bad feelings you’ve had in your journey through menopause, leading to an unproductive, negative self-reflection, and confusion, and if there’s one thing you don’t need more of when you’re in menopause, it’s confusion!

Your sumo wrestler erodes your ability to solve problems by keeping you fixated on the analysis phase. So how can you think positive, take action, and re-purpose your energy to achieve hormone happiness in menopause?

Do not suffer in silence.
Remember, 50 million women are currently in menopause in the United States. You are not alone. Find a perimenopause and menopause specialist to be your menopause partner. Reach out to your friends and family, and consider throwing a Menopause Party. Sharing your experiences with other women who are going through it is not only a wonderful source of comfort, but it can boost your self-esteem. Get the help and support you deserve.

Put yourself on the top of your to-do list.
Make time for you! Take time to pamper yourself — read a book, grab lunch with a friend, take a long, luxurious bubble bath or go to the movies. Whatever you do, enjoy it.

Be mindful of healthy eating. CNN reports that this will help balance out your plummeting metabolism, mood swings and might even help you sleep better. According to MSN Health, metabolism does slow with age. Find a form of exercise that makes you feel good. Call a friend and go for a walk or a bike ride or join that gym that you’ve been avoiding. Release some endorphins — it feels good and Reuters says modest exercise will also help lower your blood pressure.

Be less self-critical and more proactive.
Send your sumo packing! Listen to your body and start recording your symptoms in a Menopause Symptoms Chart. Then take this chart with you to your perimenopause and menopause specialist so that your doctor will understand exactly how you are feeling and be able to develop a personalized program for you.

Imagine your negative thoughts as bubbles floating by that you can acknowledge as you please and pop when you want. It’s difficult to control your thoughts, especially when they are reinforced by everyday norms. You will find when you shrink your sumo, you spend less energy on feeling terrible, refocusing it on finding solutions and celebrating your happiness and progress.

Try to live sumo free!

Remember: Reaching out is in. Suffering in silence is out!

“E” is the pen name of Ellen Sarver Dolgen, author of Shmirshky: the pursuit of hormone happiness — a cut-to-the-chase book on perimenopause and menopause, filled with crucial information and hilarious and heartfelt stories. It condenses a confusing, daunting medical topic into an easy-to-understand, purse-sized guide which can be used as a reference throughout your PM&M experience. Reading Shmirshky is like getting a big, comforting hug from a dear friend, who happens to know a lot about menopause!

1 1/3 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup fat-free (skim) milk

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 cups shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese (6 oz)

3 chopped plum tomatoes

1 cup fresh baby spinach leaves, coarsely chopped

1 cup yellow or red bell pepper strips

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

3 cloves pressed or diced fresh garlic

1 cup chopped fresh basil

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons freshly shredded Parmesan cheese

• Heat oven to 400°F. In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in milk and oil until soft dough forms. (If dough is dry, stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons additional milk.) On lightly floured surface, knead dough 10 times. Shape dough into ball. Cover with bowl; let stand 10 minutes.
• Place dough on ungreased cookie sheet; flatten slightly. Roll out to 12-inch round. Bake 8 minutes.
• Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over crust; top with remaining topping ingredients. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is light golden brown and cheese begins to brown. Cut into wedges to serve.

Red Wine For Breast Cancer Help

Who doesn’t love a glass of red wine occasionally. Well folks, there is good news for all red wine drinkers. According to a recent study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, drinking red wine in moderation may reduce one of the risk factors for breast cancer, providing a natural weapon to combat a major cause of death among U.S. women.

The study, published online in the Journal of Women’s Health, challenges the widely-held belief that all types of alcohol consumption heighten the risk of developing breast cancer. Doctors long have determined that alcohol increases the body’s estrogen levels, fostering the growth of cancer cells.

But the Cedars-Sinai study found that chemicals in the skins and seeds of red grapes slightly lowered estrogen levels while elevating testosterone among premenopausal women who drank eight ounces of red wine nightly for about a month.

White wine lacked the same effect.

Researchers called their findings encouraging, saying women who occasionally drink alcohol might want to reassess their choices.

“If you were to have a glass of wine with dinner, you may want to consider a glass of red,” said Chrisandra Shufelt, MD, assistant director of the Women’s Heart Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and one of the study’s co-authors. “Switching may shift your risk.”

Shufelt noted that breast cancer is the leading type of women’s cancer in the U.S., accounting for more than 230,000 new cases last year, or 30 percent of all female cancer diagnoses. An estimated 39,000 women died from the disease in 2011, according to the American Cancer Society.

In the Cedars-Sinai study, 36 women were randomized to drink either Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay daily for almost a month, then switched to the other type of wine. Blood was collected twice each month to measure hormone levels.

Researchers sought to determine whether red wine mimics the effects of aromatase inhibitors, which play a key role in managing estrogen levels. Aromatase inhibitors are currently used to treat breast cancer.

Investigators said the change in hormone patterns suggested that red wine may stem the growth of cancer cells, as has been shown in test tube studies.

Co-author Glenn D. Braunstein, MD, said the results do not mean that white wine increases the risk of breast cancer but that grapes used in those varieties may lack the same protective elements found in reds.

“There are chemicals in red grape skin and red grape seeds that are not found in white grapes that may decrease breast cancer risk,” said Braunstein, vice president for Clinical Innovation and the James R. Klinenberg, MD, Chair in Medicine.

The research team also included C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Women’s Heart Center, director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center and the Women’s Guild Chair in Women’s Health, as well as researchers from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

Cool-jams Corn and Arugula Salad

3 ears fresh corn, in their husks
2 red bell peppers
1 tomato, diced
1/2 garlic clove, chopped
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 bunches arugula (about 8 cups),
stems removed
3/4 cup imported black or green olives,
for garnish
1 1/2 cups red and yellow cherry tomatoes, halved, for garnish
3-ounce piece Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Prepare a charcoal  or gas grill.

Grill the corn and peppers 4 inches from the coals, turning occasionally, until the skins of the peppers are black, the corn husks are black, and the corn kernels are light golden when the husk is pulled back, 6 to 10 minutes. Remove from the grill. Transfer the peppers to a paper or plastic bag, close tightly, and let cool for 10 minutes. Let the corn cool.

Remove the corn husks and silk. Cut the kernels from the cob and set aside. Scrape the skin from the peppers with a knife. Reserve the skinned peppers separately from the corn.

In a blender, puree the peppers, tomato, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil to make a vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper, strain through a fine mesh strainer, and reserve.

On individual serving plates, divide the vinaigrette evenly among the plates. In a large bowl, toss together the corn and arugula and distribute onto the plates. Garnish with the olives and cherry tomatoes. Shave the Parmigiano over the top. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Women have a higher risk than men of developing insomnia at some time in their lives.

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder characterized by the inability to obtain sufficient sleep— typically seven to eight hours for adults, enough to feel refreshed and alert throughout the day—and leads to associated symptoms such as excessive daytime sleepiness. Patients with insomnia dedicate enough time to sleep, but they either cannot fall asleep easily (known as sleep onset insomnia), or they wake up and can’t fall back to sleep easily (sleep maintenance insomnia). Some have both. There is a tendency for insomnia to run in families, although the genetic component is not yet known.

There are two types of insomnia—primary and secondary.

Primary insomnia occurs spontaneously, meaning that nothing in the environment, including medical issues, is to blame.

Secondary insomnia is far more common than the primary variety. Causes include depression, anxiety, chronic pain from conditions such as arthritis or fibromyalgia, dementia, sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome. Some medications and too much alcohol, caffeine or nicotine also can lead to secondary insomnia.

Some causes of secondary insomnia, such as depression, night sweats, hot flashes and fibromyalgia, are more common in women. Restless leg syndrome is often the result of iron deficiency anemia, which occurs more often in women than men.

Menopause—and the hormonal changes during menopause—are often associated with insomnia. Many menopausal women say hot flashes wake them up at night, while others report insomnia at different times during their menstrual cycles.

Pregnancy, too, can create discomfort that disrupts sleep and is also associated with a higher risk of restless leg syndrome and sleep apnea…read more

It seems that a  mix of certain traditional Chinese herbs thought to have weak estrogen-like activity might help ease menopausal hot flashes, a small clinical trial suggests.

But the herbal mix, dubbed Jiawei Qing’e Fang, is not widely available. And while the new study suggested some benefits, it had enough limitations that the true effects of the herbs are still unclear, according to an expert not involved in the work.

For the study, reported in the journal Menopause, researchers in China randomly assigned 72 women to either take Jiawei Qing’e Fang everyday for eight weeks, or use a placebo mix of starches that were made to look, taste and smell like the herbs.

All of the women were relatively young — between the ages of 45 and 55 — and either had irregular menstrual periods, or had recently stopped menstruating. At the outset, all said they were having at least 14 bouts of hot flashes per week.

After eight weeks, women on the herbal mix showed a 70 percent drop in their hot flash “score” — which reflects how often and how severe their hot flashes were. The placebo group also showed a big, though not as dramatic, improvement: a 56 percent decline in hot flash scores.

The benefit in the placebo group may reflect psychological effects (that is, women who thought they were receiving the real thing felt better), according to senior researcher Dr. Xiumei Gao, of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China.

But the current findings suggest that Jiawei Qing’e Fang has benefits beyond the placebo, Gao told Reuters Health in an email.

There’s also some lab research suggesting that the trio of herbs used in the mixture has estrogen-like activity — which, in theory, could help cool hot flashes.

The mix used in this study was based on a traditional Chinese preparation known as Qing E Fang, whose first recorded use for menopause symptoms goes back more than 1,000 years, according to Gao.

The researchers used two herbs from that formulation — cortex eucommia and fructus psoraleae — plus a third, called Salvia miltiorrhiza that is used in Chinese medicine to treat “gynecologic diseases.”

The study is interesting, said Dr. Gregory A. Plotnikoff, director of the Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

But there are also a number of important limitations to the research, according to Plotnikoff, who researches herbal medicine, including its use for menopause symptoms.

For one, he told Reuters Health in an email, the placebo response in this study “is huge in comparison to most clinical trials and every menopausal hot flash trial I have ever reviewed.”

And that raises questions, Plotnikoff said — including whether women in the study could have been reporting hot flash improvements in order to “prove something,” or even to please the researchers.

He also said that the study was simply too small to know whether the statistically bigger improvement in the herb group was a real advantage over the placebo group. The difference was “barely” statistically significant, Plotnikoff said, and “could easily disappear” if a larger group had been studied.

Gao said that a further, larger trial is now underway to try to confirm the current findings.

But even if the herb mix proves to be better than a placebo, Plotnikoff questioned the appeal it would have. The herbs are thought to have estrogen-like activity, and many women want hot flash relief without hormonal effects.

Right now, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is considered the most effective therapy for severe hot flashes.

But its use sharply dropped after a large 2002 U.S. clinical trial found that women on hormones had higher rates of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer and blood clots than placebo users.

Experts now advise that if women use HRT for menopausal symptoms, they should take the lowest possible dose for the shortest time possible.

There are several herbal or “natural” products marketed for easing menopause symptoms, including black cohosh, soy, red clover and dong quai. But there is little evidence from clinical trials on whether they work, according to the North American Menopause Society.

Black cohosh is probably the best studied, but trials have come to mixed conclusions about whether it is helpful.

If hot flashes are not severe, experts say, simple steps like avoiding hot and spicy foods, turning down the thermostat, or relaxation techniques, such as yoga or meditation, may help.

For most women, hot flashes gradually get better with time.

Another issue with the current study, according to Plotnikoff, is that the women were fairly young and in the middle of transitioning to menopause — a time when hot flashes are naturally highly variable.

Because of that, Plotnikoff said, data from such women would not be accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as evidence of an effective hot flash remedy.

Delicious Sweet Potatoe Soup...yummy and so good!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 3 medium tomatoes, chopped
• 1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 4 1/2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped, unsalted dry-roasted peanuts
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro

Yoga for Menopause

Forty-four postmenopausal women, 50 to 65 years of age with an apnea-hypopnea index less than 15 and a diagnosis of insomnia, were assigned to 3 groups: no treatment, twice-weekly passive stretching with a physical therapist, and twice-weekly yoga classes. The women completed a questionnaire before and 4 months after treatment that evaluated quality of life, symptoms of depression, menopause symptoms, severity of insomnia, daytime sleepiness, and stress. Participants also underwent polysomnography.

“When compared with the control group, the yoga group had significantly lower post-treatment scores for climacteric symptoms and insomnia severity and higher scores for quality of life and resistance phase of stress,” the authors write. “The reduction in insomnia severity in the yoga group was significantly higher than that in the control and passive stretching groups.”

The 1-hour yoga sessions included stretching positions and strong, fast breathing (bellows breathing) and ended with directed relaxation. The sequence, based on yogasana and Tibetan yoga techniques, is known as yoga HT for menopause.

“A specific sequence of yoga might be effective in reducing insomnia and menopausal symptoms as well as improving quality of life in postmenopausal women with insomnia,” the authors conclude. They speculate that the benefits study participants experienced resulted from changes in the central, autonomic, and neuroendocrine nervous systems….read more

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Coat parchment with cooking spray.
2. To prepare cookie cups: Whisk flour, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Whisk egg whites, sugar, butter, oil and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth. Add dry ingredients and whisk until blended.
3. For each cookie cup, spoon 1 1/2 tablespoons batter onto a prepared baking sheet, allowing 2 cookies per baking sheet. With an offset metal spatula, spread each mound of batter into a 5 1/2- to 6-inch circle.
4. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, until golden brown around the edges, 8 to 12 minutes. Have ready two 12-ounce custard cups (or similar bowls with a 3-inch base). As soon as the cookies are done, loosen from parchment with a wide metal spatula, then set inside the cups. Gently press each cookie into the bottom of the cup and pleat the sides to form a tulip shape. (If cookies become too brittle to shape, return them to the oven for a minute or two to soften.)
5. To prepare compote: Place lemon thyme in a mortar or small bowl; bruise with a pestle or wooden spoon to release its fragrance. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add 1/4 cup berries and mash with a fork. Add creme de cassis (or black currant syrup), lemon juice and sugar, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Add remaining berries and stir gently to coat with sauce.
6. To assemble desserts: Place cookie cups on individual plates. Fill each with a scoop of ice cream (or sorbet), spoon on compote and garnish with lemon thyme sprigs.

Tips & Notes

• Make Ahead Tip: The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days. If cookies soften, crisp in a 325°F oven for about 5 minutes.

• The cookies are pliable only while hot, so work quickly. Have a wide metal spatula and two 12-ounce custard cups (or similar bowls) ready before baking.