Archive for September, 2010

As we are progressing through life, so should our clothes. The same clothes that flattered a 20 year-old-body most likely aren’t going to flatter a 40+ body – even if you are in great shape.

To stay fresh, you must refresh! Trying to hang on to clothing that worked before can really date you now.

Here are a few things to avoid…

Don’t dress too young. Dressing too young actually can just succeed in making you look older. Leave the miniskirts to someone else – even if you have great legs.

Forget baggy clothes. You’re so much better off with clothing that gives you shape.

Relook at color. Don’t think you can necessarily wear the same colors as when you were 20. Our skin changes so try different colors when you go shopping and pay attention to how they look next to your skin now.

Don’t worry about the trend of the moment. Instead, find a bold piece of jewelry, get a great new bag, update your shoes (probably not the ones in the picture) for a way to stay updated without getting too trendy.

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Before I give you some ideas on naturally boosting your memory, let’s talk a little about the psychological component. I’ve heard a lot of women refer times when they forget something as ‘senior moments.’ But beware: thinking of it that way may produce the very mental lapses that most people fear will strike them as they move up in age. Your perspective can make a difference.

The New York Times ran a story last July (click here to view) about these so-called ‘senior moments.’ In it they found fear of memory lapses among middle-aged adults can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So even joking about senior moments could be a negative signal to your unconscious! With that said, we can all benefit from avoiding health problems that negatively affect our brain so let’s take a look.

Three things – YOU HAVE CONTROL OVER – that can negatively affect your memory…

Prolonged Stress: Did you you know the chemicals stress produces can actually kill neurons?

High Cholesterol: This is amazing but cholesterol in your brain can slow the speed at which you absorb new information!

Lack of Sleep: Too little sleep on a consistent basis can affect brain function, ability to focus, and yes, memory loss.

Three things YOU CAN DO to promote a good memory…

Become an expect at dealing with stress: Connect with friends, change your perspective, GET A LIFE COACH

Eat Healthy and Exercise: Yeah, yeah, yeah – we’ve all heard; we all know it; so JUST DO IT!

Get YOUR Right Amount of Sleep: While everyone’s body clock is different, 7-8 hours a night still holds true for most.

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If you’ve been coming to my site or blog, you must know by now that I’m passionate about helping women ease through the potential symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Well in my ongoing quest for education and information I have come across a super fun product called MenoPaws Pals. Susanita, who labels herself – CEO (Chief Executive Overheated) – brings you something fun and snuggly to ease your ‘power surges.’

Susanita says, “When being a Hot Cougar isn’t everything it is made out to be…..Cool the Fire & Calm the Spirit – Hug your MenoPawsPalTM”

Anyway, I thought this was fun and maybe a great idea for those of you experiencing night sweats. If you are interested, you can go to http://www.menopawspals.com

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It’s very common for people to “share” their illnesses at work but not so much with the natural transition of menopause. And yet, it’s affecting an huge population of the workforce. More than one-half of the American population goes through menopause and since it’s estimated that women make up 47 percent of the workforce, then hundreds of millions of workers deal with it.

Many working women in their 40s and 50s are hitting their stride professionally but they may also be facing sleep deprivation, memory loss, and fluctuations in body temperature, moods and energy levels. Doesn’t seem kind of ridiculous to have this topic still be taboo in organizational life?

What happens if you “suddenly” become less effective in your work? Many times the source is not even recognized by the woman experiencing the issues. As a Business and Life Coach, I can’t tell you how many times I have been working with a woman on “emotional and strategy” issues in her work for several weeks with seemingly little progress before I had the thought – wait a minute – how old are you again? Inevitably the answer was that the woman was in her 40s or 50s.

The next step was to have her get her hormone levels checked and in most cases they were in flux. Ahh, now we have something to work with. Coaching became something that worked alongside various other approaches to creating balance. Those could include acupuncture treatments, identifying the need to tonify the kidney, herbal formulas and possibly traditional or bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

The bottom-line is that if you’re not aware, you can spiral out of control which of course will negatively affect your work and your life. Or you can recognize what’s happening and proactively address it.

You can restore balance to your body and your life!!

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You must know by now that I’m a champion for embracing the transition of life we call menopause. But I’m finding that not all of us are responding to this time in a very mature way.

Even though most of us are pretty darn healthy – healthier than our mothers and grandmothers at this age – but many still have trepidation when we think of perimenopause and menopause.

Kathy Kinney and Cindy Ratzlaff, authors of “Queen of Your Own Life: The Grown-Up Woman’s Guide to Claiming Happiness and Getting the Life You Deserve,” agree with me that this is the perfect time to feel your power and admire the woman you’ve become.

“We wanted to blast away the societal tall tale that young is beautiful and old is just … old,” says Kinney.

You may want to check out this entertaining and inspiring book where they share the their tried-and-true techniques they call “the seven best gifts a woman can give herself.” They reveal how they learned to value themselves just the way they are—women in full bloom, sensual, vibrant, wise and more beautiful than ever—and they’ll show you how you can, too.

Would would happen if you decided RIGHT NOW to joyfully embrace this next stage of your life (and hopefully the next one and the one after that, and the one after that)?

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For all those women out there who think men aren’t interested in women in their 40s and 50s!!

Bill’s Thoughts:

Debra, I applaud and honor you for addressing the issue of menopause, and particularly for celebrating menopause as something wonderful, when society too often brands it as something negative (I’m big on creatively dispelling negative myths).

As an attempt to assist you in your magnificent research in this area, I would like to offer you some male reflections on female menopause and how it affects a certain niche of post-menopausal male/female relationships.

More specifically, I would like to share my observations on dating – both mine and those of similar men. I fall into a class of men having the following characteristics:
• 50-something (I’m 57, like you)
• Single
• Heterosexual
• Highly educated
• Highly successful careers (though some, like me, were successful enough to retire early)
• Reasonably well-off financially, though not necessarily super wealthy
• Spiritually-oriented
• In touch with our feminine side
• Active social life (friends, theater, parties, etc.)
• Good physical shape
• Healthy libido
• Interested in dating 50-something women (that’s dating women in their 50’s, not dating something like 50 women – lol!)

The challenge that this class of men face is that it seems (emphasis on “seems”) that 50-something women don’t seem to be interested in dating within this class of men, or any men, for that matter. Having said that, we readily acknowledge that we may not be the right fit for their personality: maybe they prefer 70-something men, or 20-something men, or uneducated, heavily inked, bikers. But, it seems that they are not interested in dating any men. From our standpoint, that unwillingness/fear is very sad because we have a lot to offer. We come to dating out of our abundance not our inadequacy, strength not weakness, sharing not solace, giving not taking.

So, this whole situation seems very enigmatic. Maybe we’re fooling ourselves. Maybe 50-something women won’t date us because our class of men are fundamentally a bunch of jerks? As for me, other classes of women are very happy to date me: 20/30-somethings, married women (with their husbands’ consent and knowledge), and nuns (I’ll explain that to you sometime). But I’d/we’d really, really rather be dating 50-something women!

Having said all this, I have had the pleasure of dating some wonderful 50-something women who are very interested in dating and make great girlfriends. In my case, the only reason that the relationships didn’t work out is that they found another great 50-something man that better fit their needs. The one common characteristic of these women, that I have casually observed, is that they seem to be very much in touch with their masculine side.

In summary, from the front lines of dating, it seems that 50-something women are reluctant/afraid to date, which is a shame because I think that their lives would be so further enriched by dating the right man. And I purposely say further enriched, not improved – these women already have great lives thank you very much.

So, I have identified the problem, that’s the easy part. I have my ideas as to solutions, but I’d rather leave the solutions to you, as you are much more knowledgeable than me. And, maybe it’s really about the men, not the women. But, I felt that the behavior appears with enough frequency to at least bring it to your attention for further analysis.

I pray that my sharing with you is of some use in the great work that you are doing.

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Today I got a clean bill of health from the surgeon and my energy is also fully restored. So please check in daily to see what new info there is that will help you enjoy and take advantage of this time of your life. Tomorrow I’ll be posting an email I received from a man in his 50s with his perspective on women and dating at this age – it’s very interesting!