Mood swings are common when you’re in menopause. Though it’s often joked about, there is a link between the way your emotions can swing and the hormonal changes that you experience during menopause.
The way that your hormones rise or fall during menopause can cause your mood to be affected because of the way the brain handles the hormone information. Your brain has receptors that your hormones send signals to.
These signals then stimulate the brain to produce more or less chemicals like endorphins. When you don’t get the same level of hormones, such as what happens during menopause, then your brain doesn’t react with the production level that it once did.
These lessened hormone levels impact how you feel physically as well as your emotions. It’s common during menopause to have mood swings with love. One hour, you might really love someone or a situation or your life.
The next, you might experience feelings of hatred toward that person or your life, but it’s usually based on circumstances. This flipping back and forth between love and hate is a common mood swing.
Menopause can also affect the intensity of the way that you feel love, but it’s more rooted in hormones than actual circumstances. It might be extremely strong one day toward someone and the next, you might feel as if you don’t care if you never saw that person again.
Some women have reported these mood swings between love and hate as feeling like they’re not their normal selves and feeling like they’re going crazy. Going through menopause can make you swing into feelings of intense happiness, too – sometimes even giddiness – and you can’t explain it because it’s the hormones.
You can swing from feeling happy to suddenly angry to feeling sad. All of these emotions can swirl and make you wonder if you’ll ever feel normal again. Thankfully, there are ways that you can learn how to manage the strong emotions that you experience when going through menopause.
Some women go through feelings of guilt when they do something uncharacteristic during menopause – such as fly off the handle at a loved one and speak harshly. The first thing you need to learn is that this is a biological change that has nothing to do with how well you can control your emotions.
You can help manage the mood swings by making sure that you’re getting the rest that you need. Not getting enough sleep can acerbate the mood swings. Learning how to get rid of stress can also make it easier to handle the mood swings.
Meeting with others who are going through the same thing can help you have a support system. If your emotions continue to trouble you, your doctor can recommend a replacement therapy that can help.
