Cassie Hayward: This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
Cassie Hayward: the Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong. We'd like to pay
Cassie Hayward: respects to their elders, past and present, and emerging.
Cassie Hayward: From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
Cassie Hayward: of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
Cassie Hayward: Welcome again to PsychTalks. I'm Cassie Hayward, and I'm here
Cassie Hayward: ready to explore the latest research in psychology and neuroscience
Cassie Hayward: with my co-host, Nick Haslam.
Nick Haslam: Hi, Cassie, great to be back here again. Today we're
Nick Haslam: exploring something that affects about half the population, menopause. We're
Nick Haslam: joined by Dr Lydia Brown, a senior lecturer in our school,
Nick Haslam: who's done some incredible research on the role that self-compassion
Nick Haslam: can play in enhancing mental health during this often tricky time.
Nick Haslam: Welcome to the podcast, Lydia. Great to have you with us.
Lydia Brown: Thanks, Nick. It's great to be here.
Nick Haslam: So, our main focus today is on your work on
Nick Haslam: self-compassion in relation to menopause. Um, but can we start
Nick Haslam: with just some quick definitions? What is menopause and what
Nick Haslam: is perimenopause?
Lydia Brown: Sure. So, menopause is really a day in a woman's
Lydia Brown: life when she stops having menstrual periods, um, but you
Lydia Brown: never know when your last period is going to be,
Lydia Brown: usually, unless you have, um, surgery, surgical menopause. Um, so
Lydia Brown: it tends to be, or is defined retrospectively after 12
Lydia Brown: months of not having a period, then you're, um, known
Lydia Brown: to be post-menopausal. But in the lead up to your
Lydia Brown: final period, your menstrual cycles typically become less regular. And
Lydia Brown: in that period where your menstrual cycles are not regular,
Lydia Brown: Um, that would be the perimenopause. Um, of course, for
Lydia Brown: some women throughout their life, they don't have regular periods.
Lydia Brown: And so there are a lot of groups that you
Lydia Brown: can't actually define, uh, menopausal stage very well because of,
Lydia Brown: for that reason, for instance, or if you're taking hormone contraceptives,
Lydia Brown: then some people may not know exactly what menopausal stage
Lydia Brown: they are in.
Lydia Brown: But perimenopause is traditionally for most people, that time, um,
Lydia Brown: leading up to the final menstrual period. On average, it
Lydia Brown: lasts 4 years, but it very much varies between women.
Lydia Brown: And menopausal symptoms, which we can talk about as we
Lydia Brown: go on, they last for a longer period of time.
Lydia Brown: So women typically have menopausal symptoms during perimenopause and also
Lydia Brown: in the early post menopause.
Cassie Hayward: And Lydia, I'm a lot older than you, so my
Cassie Hayward: social media feed is full of perimenopause and menopause content
Cassie Hayward: these days. It certainly seems to be having a boom
Cassie Hayward: in social media and podcast, um, areas. But is it
Cassie Hayward: correct that it hasn't really received much scientific research until
Cassie Hayward: very recently?
Lydia Brown: Absolutely not. So when I started a PhD on menopause,
Lydia Brown: I think that was back in 2009, and really at
Lydia Brown: that time, it was very much a niche area of medicine.
Lydia Brown: Um, I found it a really fascinating area, but I
Lydia Brown: was told by a few people, it's going to be
Lydia Brown: really hard to carve out a research career in menopause. Um,
Lydia Brown: I was recommended to shift topics to a more supposedly
Lydia Brown: mainstream topic like dementia or diabetes. They said it's just
Lydia Brown: gonna be hard to get grant money
Lydia Brown: to look at menopause and mental health research. So that
Lydia Brown: was only 10 years ago. Now, we're very much trying
Lydia Brown: to play catch up. So in research, in policy, uh,
Lydia Brown: in medical practise, there has been this big, um, uptick
Lydia Brown: in interest about menopause, but we don't have that kind
Lydia Brown: of
Lydia Brown: um, research, high quality research from decades previously. So that's
Lydia Brown: posing a little bit of a problem. So it's great
Lydia Brown: we're getting the newfound interest, but we haven't traditionally had
Lydia Brown: it at all.
Nick Haslam: I mean, one of the really interesting aspects of it
Nick Haslam: is not just the menopause itself, but also the mental
Nick Haslam: health implications. And that's an area that's getting a lot
Nick Haslam: more attention now too, right?
Lydia Brown: Yeah. So,
Lydia Brown: menopause is sort of, since it's been a medical, uh, topic,
Lydia Brown: since it's been viewed as an area of medicine, we've
Lydia Brown: always thought that psychological symptoms are a part of the menopause.
Lydia Brown: And so if you look at menopause symptom rating scales,
Lydia Brown: they tend to have some physical symptoms like hot flushes,
Lydia Brown: night sweats, um, that could be joint pain.
Lydia Brown: Um, skin changes, and then they, they typically are the,
Lydia Brown: the mental health symptoms as well on those menopause symptom lists.
Lydia Brown: So it, it's always been thought that mental ill health
Lydia Brown: is a part of the menopause.
Nick Haslam: I gather you wrote a sort of big review paper
Nick Haslam: in The Lancet last year and you, I think, reviewed
Nick Haslam: some of that evidence. I mean, can you summarise what
Nick Haslam: you found there?
Lydia Brown: Sure. So, I am very interested in aggregating data from
Lydia Brown: across different studies. So that is in the form of
Lydia Brown: a meta-analysis or a systematic review. And it's a really
Lydia Brown: powerful kind of research or methodology because you can integrate
Lydia Brown: data from around the world to really understand at a
Lydia Brown: higher level what's going on.
Lydia Brown: So when we were in the development stage for this work,
Lydia Brown: we decided to focus just on prospective studies. So these
Lydia Brown: are studies that look at women at baseline before they
Lydia Brown: go through the perimenopause and the menopause transition, um, and
Lydia Brown: to follow them up over time to look at changes
Lydia Brown: in mental health symptoms and disorders.
Lydia Brown: So we limited our, our search to that, and we
Lydia Brown: found that the relationship between depression and menopause is not
Lydia Brown: necessarily as strong as previously thought. So, there wasn't a
Lydia Brown: huge uptick in prevalence of depressive symptoms over perimenopause. And likewise,
Lydia Brown: diagnosis of, uh, major depressive disorder.
Lydia Brown: Um, from our review of currently available evidence, um, we
Lydia Brown: found that those women who have a prior history of
Lydia Brown: depression may be at risk of relapse at that time, um,
Lydia Brown: but there wasn't sufficient evidence to suggest, uh, new onset
Lydia Brown: depressive disorder over the perimenopause.
Nick Haslam: Did that surprise you?
Lydia Brown: It really surprised me.
Nick Haslam: What about anxiety? So I think another common thing you'd
Nick Haslam: say is people would report feelings of anxious or jittery
Nick Haslam: or distressed in a non-depressive sort of way during that time.
Nick Haslam: Was there evidence of that as well?
Lydia Brown: So,
Lydia Brown: anxiety is a really common, um, symptom that women report.
Lydia Brown: They might report feeling irritable, they might report feeling, um, more, um,
Lydia Brown: like things that didn't bother them before are suddenly starting
Lydia Brown: to bother them.
Lydia Brown: Um, and linked to the irritability can just be feeling
Lydia Brown: keyed up or tense. So women definitely report this, but again,
Lydia Brown: when we look at the prospective data in terms of
Lydia Brown: changes and anxiety over time, firstly, there was not a
Lydia Brown: lot of evidence, and that doesn't mean that there is
Lydia Brown: no connection. It means that menopause has been a neglected
Lydia Brown: area of medicine. And so, some of these questions, we
Lydia Brown: just don't fully know.
Lydia Brown: Um, but, so there is a possibility that anxiety might increase,
Lydia Brown: but not for all women. Um, so there's a lot
Lydia Brown: of nuance there. Um, and I think that that nuance
Lydia Brown: is different to a TikTok. When you hear a TikTok,
Lydia Brown: you will get quite alarmed about the menopause and think, wow,
Lydia Brown: I'm going to become really irritable, really rageful, potentially very depressed.
Lydia Brown: So menopause, and we can talk about
Lydia Brown: Some reasons how it can impact mental health, but it's
Lydia Brown: nuanced and not everybody is affected in the same way.
Cassie Hayward: And Lydia, I don't know if it's just my social
Cassie Hayward: media algorithm, but I'm sure a lot of women are
Cassie Hayward: in the same algorithm in terms of getting a lot
Cassie Hayward: of content around the physical things we can do around
Cassie Hayward: making sure we eat enough protein and doing strength training
Cassie Hayward: and strengthen our bones with jump training or whatever. But
Cassie Hayward: I don't see a lot about what we can do
Cassie Hayward: for the mental health side of things. And, you know,
Cassie Hayward: there's jokes about perimenopause rage, and you said that that's,
Cassie Hayward: you know, may or may not be a thing, but
Cassie Hayward: There's certainly a lot of advice out there in the
Cassie Hayward: kind of social media sphere about these physical things that
Cassie Hayward: we can do to improve our bodies over this time.
Cassie Hayward: But what would you say about the, the kind of
Cassie Hayward: mental health preparation we can do?
Lydia Brown: So I think first is that it's not a woman's
Lydia Brown: responsibility alone, if she feels like
Lydia Brown: I'm not, if, if, if you're not getting the right
Lydia Brown: support from your doctor, and that's a whole another topic
Lydia Brown: that a lot of doctors aren't necessarily well equipped to
Lydia Brown: manage the menopause. Um, and like I've suggested that clients,
Lydia Brown: when I've worked as a clinical psychologist, uh, I've been
Lydia Brown: concerned that they had a lot of hot flushes and
Lydia Brown: night sweats that were impacting their sleep, and they really
Lydia Brown: needed to be addressed. I've suggested to clients to follow
Lydia Brown: those symptoms up with their GP.
Lydia Brown: And basically, I, I've experienced recently, GPs kind of turn
Lydia Brown: around and say, Look, there's nothing I can really do
Lydia Brown: to help you. And then if you then feel the
Lydia Brown: burden to try and sort of inverted commas, improve your
Lydia Brown: mental health, there's a bit of a problem there and
Lydia Brown: that you're not receiving the support as a baseline that
Lydia Brown: you need. So before we think about what we can
Lydia Brown: do for our individual mental health,
Lydia Brown: I think looking to see what supports you have around
Lydia Brown: you as a starting point is probably the first step.
Lydia Brown: And so, looking at your GP support, do you have
Lydia Brown: a good GP that's aware of the menopause? So I've had, like,
Lydia Brown: for example, a friend of mine who's training to be
Lydia Brown: a GP, she was really interested to upskill in the menopause,
Lydia Brown: and her mentor during her training said, Honestly, I'd recommend
Lydia Brown: staying clear of that area. It's a very complicated area. Um,
Lydia Brown: you can refer to a specialist clinic.
Lydia Brown: And my friend was just felt quite saddened by that.
Lydia Brown: So this is all changing, and the Senate Inquiry into
Lydia Brown: menopause that took place last year as part of that.
Lydia Brown: We're now recognising that there's a huge gap in clinician training,
Lydia Brown: and we're addressing these things, but, uh, it's a work
Lydia Brown: in progress.
Nick Haslam: And is it just a training issue? Or is it
Nick Haslam: also that GPs don't yet have a good evidence base
Nick Haslam: from research such as the kind you do, um, on
Nick Haslam: which to give advice?
Lydia Brown: So, there is a growing, and there's a lot of
Lydia Brown: research looking into menopausal hormone therapy, um, also called hormone
Lydia Brown: replacement therapy. And that's not my sort of direct area
Lydia Brown: of expertise, but there's been a lot of research around
Lydia Brown: that over time.
Lydia Brown: And there's been challenges around that too, in terms of, uh,
Lydia Brown: misunderstandings or exaggerations of the link between menopausal hormone therapy
Lydia Brown: and breast cancer that's now addressed. But because there's a
Lydia Brown: lot of nuance and a treatment like hormone therapy,
Lydia Brown: Um, has risks and benefits. I, I think sometimes doctors
Lydia Brown: report feeling a little unsure. Um, so we're improving sort
Lydia Brown: of access, not me personally, but we're looking into improving
Lydia Brown: that training for GPs, and there are tools that GPs
Lydia Brown: can use to help them decide. So there is evidence,
Lydia Brown: but there's also
Lydia Brown: confusion as well. So, for example, I've heard in psychiatric wards,
Lydia Brown: midlife women might come in in a mental health crisis,
Lydia Brown: and I've heard of, um, psychiatrists there prescribing menopausal hormone therapy,
Lydia Brown: having learned that hormone therapy might be helpful for mental health.
Lydia Brown: And I would say that that's jumping too quickly. We
Lydia Brown: don't have necessarily the evidence base for a treatment like that.
Lydia Brown: And yet on the ground, perhaps, a psychiatrist has done
Lydia Brown: some sort of training and thought, oh, OK, great, this
Lydia Brown: might help with mental health. So we do need to have,
Lydia Brown: make sure that our clinical practise is informed by research,
Lydia Brown: especially when it comes to mental health.
Nick Haslam: So that's a kind of medical treatment, um, hormone replacement therapy.
Nick Haslam: How about more talk therapy or psychological therapies and, and
Nick Haslam: including those that people can maybe administer for themselves. So
Nick Haslam: you've done some important work on self-compassion. Can you tell
Nick Haslam: us a bit about what that is and how it
Nick Haslam: relates to this area?
Lydia Brown: Sure.
Lydia Brown: So, again, going back to that caveat that I think the, the,
Lydia Brown: the cornerstone of mental health and well-being for women should
Lydia Brown: be holistic, and you can't separate the medical support, which
Lydia Brown: may or may not include hormone therapy, from a broader support,
Lydia Brown: which can include psychological therapies, but also interventions for all
Lydia Brown: women to support their well-being at this time. And those
Lydia Brown: two things have to go hand in hand.
Lydia Brown: Some of my research that I'm really excited about is
Lydia Brown: looking at the possible role of self-compassion for women going
Lydia Brown: through menopause. So, at midlife, it's a time when often
Lydia Brown: women have a lot of different demands. So they may
Lydia Brown: have gained seniority in work. They may have a team
Lydia Brown: working for them. They may, um, have more responsibilities at work,
Lydia Brown: or they may not. They may be at home with kids, juggling.
Lydia Brown: Lots of different timetables, um, giving back to the community,
Lydia Brown: ageing parents. So life is quite complicated, and you can
Lydia Brown: feel quite stretched in a lot of ways, and often
Lydia Brown: there's not really the time for self-care. Your own well-being
Lydia Brown: just goes to the bottom of the priority list.
Lydia Brown: And so self-compassion is about bringing, um, awareness of your
Lydia Brown: own needs back, uh, onto the table and prioritising that.
Lydia Brown: And we can talk about the formal definition of self-compassion.
Lydia Brown: I think that's quite nice to talk about too. Um,
Lydia Brown: but women at midlife, I think, might especially benefit from, um,
Lydia Brown: a psychological resilience factor like self-compassion.
Lydia Brown: So just to go into what self-compassion means,
Lydia Brown: So self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness and
Lydia Brown: support that you would extend to a good friend. So
Lydia Brown: often we know how to be kind to others, and
Lydia Brown: especially at times in need, when a friend needs us
Lydia Brown: the most, if they're struggling, we, our heart goes out
Lydia Brown: to them and we want to help.
Lydia Brown: But when we're struggling ourselves, we sometimes can beat ourselves
Lydia Brown: up about it. So I'm a new mum myself, and
Lydia Brown: if my 3 year old is having a tantrum,
Lydia Brown: it can be a bit tricky to sometimes bring in
Lydia Brown: that moment of compassion. I might think, Oh, gosh, I'm
Lydia Brown: not a very good mother, or why is my daughter
Lydia Brown: having another tantrum? Sometimes women, especially can, and men, but
Lydia Brown: research shows that women are lower on self-compassion than men.
Lydia Brown: Uh, that, um, we can struggle to be kind to ourselves,
Lydia Brown: but it's a psychological resilience factor that we can train.
Lydia Brown: So even though, due to, perhaps in part genetics, due to, um,
Lydia Brown: our upbringing,
Lydia Brown: Um, self-compassion as a construct only really entered psychology back
Lydia Brown: in 2002, when it was first introduced as a psychological construct.
Lydia Brown: So it's relatively new. So that means that if you're
Lydia Brown: an adult now, you probably were never taught how to
Lydia Brown: be kind to yourself. So there's this big deficit there.
Lydia Brown: Um, but through training, we can learn, little by little,
Lydia Brown: how to be kinder to ourselves, in our thoughts, in
Lydia Brown: our emotions, and in our actions. So at midlife, being
Lydia Brown: self-compassionate can relate to the thoughts that you tell yourself.
Lydia Brown: It relates to how you deal with your emotions, especially
Lydia Brown: when you're feeling bad or anxious, or any kind of
Lydia Brown: negative emotion.
Lydia Brown: Um, so your behaviours, your thoughts, and your emotions.
Cassie Hayward: Do you find much individual difference in how easy it
Cassie Hayward: is to train people in self-compassion as a, I think
Cassie Hayward: the women kind of going through perimenopause and menopause now
Cassie Hayward: are kind of typically Gen X and whatever you buy
Cassie Hayward: into the stereotypes of generations, but
Cassie Hayward: Gen X is kind of defined as being pretty tough and,
Cassie Hayward: you know, no pain, no gain, all that kind of
Cassie Hayward: stuff from, from growing up. So, do you think those
Cassie Hayward: women are trickier to teach self-compassion, because it's just so
Cassie Hayward: different to how they've gotten through life?
Lydia Brown: Yeah, I was thinking about cohort of
Lydia Brown: I was wondering about this, and I don't know about
Lydia Brown: exact research, looking into how different generations are at being
Lydia Brown: kind to themselves, but I do think that maybe Gen
Lydia Brown: Z is a little better at this because it's part
Lydia Brown: of their world a bit more.
Lydia Brown: Um, but Gen X, um, I'm a Millennial, so same, Millennials,
Lydia Brown: we were never taught about this. So it's really like
Lydia Brown: a foreign language. It's like if you've always spoken English
Lydia Brown: your whole life, and then you find yourself in China
Lydia Brown: and people are speaking Mandarin, it can feel really foreign.
Lydia Brown: And when you start to practise words of self-kindness or
Lydia Brown: actions of self-kindness. It can feel jarring and influent, but
Lydia Brown: just like any language, the more you practise it, the
Lydia Brown: better you get at it.
Cassie Hayward: But I think also, as you said, a lot of
Cassie Hayward: women in that stage are also juggling kids and parents
Cassie Hayward: and work and trying to get their, all their protein
Cassie Hayward: and fitness stuff in that they're being told to do,
Cassie Hayward: and then finding time to be kind to yourself is
Cassie Hayward: really hard.
Lydia Brown: Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And that's why
Lydia Brown: self-compassion is not really a one size fits all idea.
Lydia Brown: And if you add on, like, another item on your
Lydia Brown: to do list, it can be a bit counterproductive. So
Lydia Brown: it's about really kind of thinking for yourself, what would
Lydia Brown: self-compassion look like to me in the week ahead. And
Lydia Brown: it might be cancelling a social engagement, or it might mean, actually, um,
Lydia Brown: you're thinking of going to, it can just mean different
Lydia Brown: things to different people.
Cassie Hayward: But it's not something you say, OK, from 11 to
Cassie Hayward: 12 on Tuesday, I'm gonna do self-compassion. It has to
Cassie Hayward: be a more holistic way of looking at your week.
Lydia Brown: Exactly. And it doesn't have to take up time. So,
Lydia Brown: something like, uh, your thinking patterns. If you are, for example,
Lydia Brown: having menopausal hot flushes,
Lydia Brown: again, this is part of a holistic treatment. It's not, uh,
Lydia Brown: I'm not saying that, um, it's the only option, but
Lydia Brown: if you were experiencing a hot flush, some women can
Lydia Brown: have quite sort of negative thoughts around that. They might think,
Lydia Brown: Oh my goodness, not again. Now I'm distracted from work.
Lydia Brown: I'm not as efficient as I used to be.
Lydia Brown: Um, I've got to change my clothes, and some of
Lydia Brown: that may be true, you, you know, you might need
Lydia Brown: to change your clothes. So there can be aspects of
Lydia Brown: the inner dialogue that may have like a seed of
Lydia Brown: truth to them, but if you can stop and think, Oh, wow,
Lydia Brown: this is a moment of suffering. How can I be
Lydia Brown: kind to myself right now? It might be, I'm just
Lydia Brown: gonna take a moment to do a few slower breaths.
Lydia Brown: I'm just gonna go for a 10 minute walk and
Lydia Brown: stop what I'm doing at my desk, um, in the
Lydia Brown: middle of the night, the same. So last year, I
Lydia Brown: had a baby, and after having a baby, you have
Lydia Brown: a big rapid decline in oestrogen. And I kept waking up,
Lydia Brown: having to have a shower and having to change my pyjamas,
Lydia Brown: and I was like, I've got a virus. Like, I
Lydia Brown: think I need to go back to hospital.
Lydia Brown: And I felt quite kind of sick and I, and,
Lydia Brown: and I was drenched in sweat. And it took me
Lydia Brown: like a couple of
Lydia Brown: Like, I think it was like a couple of weeks
Lydia Brown: to realise, Hang on a second, this is oestrogen withdrawal
Lydia Brown: related hot flushes. And they were worse than what I
Lydia Brown: thought they were. Like, I'd studied hot flushes for years,
Lydia Brown: but when I experienced it myself, and I had these
Lydia Brown: kind of thoughts that probably weren't helping around, I've got
Lydia Brown: a virus
Lydia Brown: and maybe I have to go back to hospital. Um,
Lydia Brown: that wasn't my fault I had those thoughts. It was
Lydia Brown: a lack of education, even though I was an expert,
Lydia Brown: during my pregnancy, nobody told me to expect that. So again,
Lydia Brown: it shows how mental health is not a woman's responsibility.
Lydia Brown: Um, by themselves. Uh, and that could be a bit
Lydia Brown: gaslighting at worst, if we kind of thought, OK, I,
Lydia Brown: I'm experiencing hot flushes, so I have to, you know, uh,
Lydia Brown: fix that or deal with my mental health all by myself.
Lydia Brown: I really see it as a bit of a shared responsibility.
Cassie Hayward: And I think also, we can't ignore social media in
Cassie Hayward: this space, and I think you can get yourself into
Cassie Hayward: a spiral of all the bad things that are gonna happen,
Cassie Hayward: and you watch a couple of TikToks about someone having
Cassie Hayward: bad experiences, and then, of course, the algorithm just feeds
Cassie Hayward: you more of that. I mean, it's great to have
Cassie Hayward: more awareness and more content creators talking about this, but
Cassie Hayward: I think it can cause a bit of distress in
Cassie Hayward: women if all they're seeing is the bad side of
Cassie Hayward: what might happen. What advice do you have on, on that?
Lydia Brown: This is such a good question, and it's something that
Lydia Brown: I'm also grappling with myself, because
Lydia Brown: there is a lot of suffering relating to menopause. A
Lydia Brown: lot of it is, I say unnecessary suffering, that's not
Lydia Brown: quite the right word, but it's due to social factors,
Lydia Brown: like the medical neglect, like even misogyny and ageism combined,
Lydia Brown: so that women don't look forward to being an
Lydia Brown: older, wiser leader in society, they worry about being invisible,
Lydia Brown: or they worry about being past their prime. So there
Lydia Brown: are so many different reasons why we might sort of
Lydia Brown: feel negatively about menopause, and also,
Lydia Brown: The symptoms can wreak havoc on some people's lives. And
Lydia Brown: as a psychologist, I've definitely seen this. Not just the symptoms,
Lydia Brown: but the underlying hormonal changes can, like, very much, um,
Lydia Brown: impact mental health. But at the same time, when you
Lydia Brown: look at global data, you don't see a, a huge
Lydia Brown: plummet in, um, mental health. You don't see huge rise
Lydia Brown: in depression, huge rise in anxiety.
Lydia Brown: And so to try and balance the lived experience, um,
Lydia Brown: and as I said for myself, I found a hot
Lydia Brown: flush worse than what I could have ever expected. So
Lydia Brown: there's a lived experience, and then there's a message that
Lydia Brown: we want to share with younger women that menopause isn't
Lydia Brown: necessarily a terrible, terrible thing.
Lydia Brown: So how do we balance that in practise? I mean,
Lydia Brown: I guess having some of these conversations is part of it. Um,
Lydia Brown: they're not necessarily very TikTok friendly because TikTok loves drama,
Lydia Brown: and this doesn't have as much drama to it. Um,
Lydia Brown: but I think that the nuance will really help advance
Lydia Brown: the field and move us towards more holistic care and
Lydia Brown: better support of women.
Lydia Brown: Um, going through menopause now, but also future generations of
Lydia Brown: women who will go through menopause in the years to come,
Lydia Brown: building those more um, healthy attitudes towards, um, ageing women.
Nick Haslam: It's great that you bring up the societal factors and
Nick Haslam: the sort of ageism and the stereotypes and the misogyny
Nick Haslam: and sexism and all these uh things. Uh, are there
Nick Haslam: differences in how women approach ageing in general and also
Nick Haslam: menopause in particular? Is there sort of a mindset people
Nick Haslam: have that might put them in,
Nick Haslam: more risk of suffering or, um, conversely, that might help
Nick Haslam: them get through it better?
Lydia Brown: Definitely. So there is longitudinal research on this topic. So,
Lydia Brown: looking at a woman's attitude towards menopause and her attitudes
Lydia Brown: towards ageing before she goes through menopause, and looking to
Lydia Brown: see how that might predict mental health across the transition.
Lydia Brown: And what we know is that a negative attitude towards
Lydia Brown: ageing
Lydia Brown: and or menopause does increase your risk of experiencing more
Lydia Brown: menopausal symptoms and being more impacted by those symptoms, um,
Lydia Brown: as you, as you go through the menopause. Um, so, and,
Lydia Brown: and also some of my research has found that attitudes
Lydia Brown: towards the menopause tend to be more positive, um, in
Lydia Brown: older women, in post-menopausal women.
Lydia Brown: So again, there's this idea that menopause, we have this fearful,
Lydia Brown: potentially view of menopause, but then as we go through it,
Lydia Brown: and we're on the other side of it, we realise, oh,
Lydia Brown: this is just a natural life transition, and it's not
Lydia Brown: that scary thing that I thought it was.
Nick Haslam: How much is it just wrapped up in the dread
Nick Haslam: of getting older?
Lydia Brown: It's hard to tease the two apart. And as a
Lydia Brown: menopause researcher, the number of conversations I've had about disentangling
Lydia Brown: the effects of age and menopause is huge because they
Lydia Brown: do go together. I mean, in research, there are ways
Lydia Brown: you can try and untangle those, but I think they're intertwined, really.
Lydia Brown: And I think that traditionally, our culture has allowed
Lydia Brown: I mean, I think ageing men can, you know, have
Lydia Brown: challenges too, but there are many leaders in the world
Lydia Brown: who are ageing men, and they don't worry, I don't think,
Lydia Brown: about their wrinkles. Maybe about their suntan, I don't know.
Lydia Brown: But we have a lot of ageing men who are
Lydia Brown: in their prime and in their power in the post-menopause
Lydia Brown: equivalent years. And I think that as we see more
Lydia Brown: women take those positions of power,
Lydia Brown: in their later years, again, this will help us to
Lydia Brown: feel less fearful about menopause, um, without dismissing it as
Lydia Brown: being a nothing, a non-event, it's certainly an event.
Cassie Hayward: Lydia, over the next few years, what kind of key
Cassie Hayward: themes or issues do you want to explore in your
Cassie Hayward: research in this space?
Lydia Brown: So for me, this is, I guess, going back to
Lydia Brown: my kind of heart and my personal interest. For me,
Lydia Brown: there are two threads to my research. So, I'm really
Lydia Brown: interested in the, like, the big data stuff, the epidemiological
Lydia Brown: Um, understanding of evidence, medical evidence, meta-analyses, and given traditionally,
Lydia Brown: menopause has been such a neglected area, and given, I
Lydia Brown: see every week, um, examples of people saying things on
Lydia Brown: a big platform that, to me, don't sound evidence-based. I'm
Lydia Brown: very excited about contributing to the medical research in this space,
Lydia Brown: and especially relating to mental health.
Lydia Brown: And then also, I'm very interested in the inner journey
Lydia Brown: of midlife and how contemplative practices and psychological resilience factors
Lydia Brown: like self-compassion might be relevant, self-compassion based interventions informed by
Lydia Brown: cognitive behaviour therapy, with that particular lens of self-compassion and
Lydia Brown: how might they might be relevant to women.
Lydia Brown: Who perhaps can't take, um, menopausal hormone therapies, say, if
Lydia Brown: they are breast cancer survivors, or if they're not tolerated,
Lydia Brown: or if women choose that they do not want to
Lydia Brown: take hormone therapy, but also as an adjunct, so you
Lydia Brown: can take a hormone therapy
Lydia Brown: and you can also cultivate self-compassion.
Cassie Hayward: Lydia, when it comes to social media, there's so much
Cassie Hayward: stuff out there on perimenopause and menopause, but I think
Cassie Hayward: it can be a bit overwhelming to know what's evidence-based
Cassie Hayward: and what's just an influencer or a content creator talking
Cassie Hayward: about menopause. How do you advise people to navigate that space?
Lydia Brown: It's a tricky question. And I think that social media,
Lydia Brown: often by definition, you have to give something in a
Lydia Brown: bit of a snapshot in a sentence or a photo
Lydia Brown: with a tagline.
Lydia Brown: Oftentimes, the messages can be a bit simplistic. So what
Lydia Brown: I'd highly recommend is, um, you can use social media, um,
Lydia Brown: to help inform your menopause journey, and then maybe complementing
Lydia Brown: that with information from sources like the Australian Menopause Society,
Lydia Brown: so that you're getting, um, messages from, you know, various voices.
Lydia Brown: So I think the Australian Menopause Society is a really
Lydia Brown: great website and resource to use. They also have a
Lydia Brown: list of members, and these are doctors and clinicians who
Lydia Brown: have a particular interest and usually training in menopause.
Lydia Brown: Um, and so if you find that you are going
Lydia Brown: through menopause and your doctor is not well equipped yet
Lydia Brown: to manage that, I'd recommend having a look at the
Lydia Brown: Australian Menopause Society, uh, website. Jean Hailes Centre for Women's
Lydia Brown: Health also has great resources.
Cassie Hayward: Lydia, it's been so wonderful having you on the show.
Cassie Hayward: Just wondering if you can leave our listeners with one
Cassie Hayward: piece of advice on how to maintain their mental health
Cassie Hayward: and well-being through this stage.
Lydia Brown: So I think it starts before the menopause, uh, for all, uh, people, women, and,
Lydia Brown: and those born with, uh, uterus, um, who will go
Lydia Brown: through menopause.
Lydia Brown: I think, uh, being prepared, but not alarmed about the menopause.
Lydia Brown: So recognising it's a natural and normal transition that is
Lydia Brown: part of life. Um, there's a lot of joy and
Lydia Brown: happiness on the other side. So data shows that these
Lydia Brown: are the happiest years of our life, post menopause. So
Lydia Brown: knowing there's so much to look forward to, according to
Lydia Brown: the data.
Lydia Brown: Um, but then also being prepared. So that involves support
Lydia Brown: from medical professionals, friends, a circle of women or a
Lydia Brown: circle of others who are going through that journey can
Lydia Brown: be really helpful.
Lydia Brown: And then finally, within yourself, using this midlife time as
Lydia Brown: an opportunity to stop and focus some of your attention
Lydia Brown: inwards towards building your own health and well-being.
Cassie Hayward: Oh, such good advice, and hopefully our listeners can go
Cassie Hayward: and take a moment and have some self-care themselves. Thank
Cassie Hayward: you for joining us.
Nick Haslam: Thank you to everyone for tuning into this episode of PsychTalks.
Nick Haslam: If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe, rate
Nick Haslam: and review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Nick Haslam: Until next time.
Cassie Hayward: This episode was produced by Carly Godden with production assistance
Cassie Hayward: from Mairead Murray and Gemma Papprill. Our sound engineer was
Cassie Hayward: Jack Palmer.