Read the full video transcript below
Today's topic
Hello, and welcome to my weekly video blog. And today on A.Vogel Talks Menopause, well, I'm going to talk about our 100th edition. And as you can see from the picture, we've got some of the decorations up already.
This has been an absolutely fascinating time for me. When we first started nearly two years ago, I thought we would probably have enough subjects just to last for a few months. But here we are, the 100th video, and there's plenty more stories to come, believe you me.
What has been great is that now we have almost 64,000 women who subscribe to this every week, and it's not just from the UK and Ireland, but it's from all around the world. So welcome all you ladies out there who are far, far away, and it's lovely that you're actually joining us here every week.
One of the lovely things that I find that makes this such a pleasurable job for me is the amount of positive feedback we get every single week. We can get up to 300 or 400 emails a week, either people are asking questions, or else it's just to say, "I've tried something you suggested, and I feel a lot better."
The simple things often work the best
And over the last couple of years, the one thing that we have found is that it's the simple things that often work the best, and these are things that are normally easy to do. They fit into your daily life. You don't have to change things dramatically in order to sometimes get good results.
So I thought this week, what I would do is just go through our biggest success stories just in a little nutshell, and especially, for those of you who maybe just joined us and you're not quite sure what this is all about. But for those of you who have been watching for a while, can you guess what the number one success is? And it begins with W. Yes, it's water.
Water
Now we knew, and for a long time how important water is in the menopause for all sorts of different reasons. But even we were staggered by how quickly just upping your water intake on a daily basis can make to your symptoms.We had women literally within three or four days coming back and saying, "I can't believe that I'm just feeling so much better."
Water works really quickly for joint aches and pains, for mood, for anxiety, for hot flushes and night sweat, for brain function. It's great if you've got that kind of foggy brain. And it's really good for dry skin and it can help your digestion, especially, if you're getting a bit bloated or constipated. So this is a fabulous one to start with. And, you know, for the majority of us who can drink tap water, it's free, which is even better.
What you said..."Hi, I don't normally leave reviews but because of the awful hot flushes and tiredness I was experiencing I felt I must. I started taking sage tablets and drinking lots more water and I have to say how much better I feel. The hot flushes haven't completely gone but they are so much better and I feel so much better in myself. I wasn't a believer in herbal products but I was so desperate I’d try anything. I enjoyed your videos very informative." |
Magnesium
Number two, and again for those of you who have been around for a while, this is a mineral, and it begins with M. And it's magnesium. Magnesium is absolutely vital in the menopause. We call it your happy mineral because it's needed for mood.
It's great for joint aches and pains. It's really good for helping you to sleep. It's wonderful for heart health, and it's also really good for muscle function.
And we've got one of our ladies in the main office, is going through the menopause, and she was having problems with her joints. And all she has done is started to take a calcium and magnesium supplement, and she now swears by it, because her joint pains have completely disappeared. So again, sometimes it's something really simple that you need to do that's going to make a huge difference for your menopause.
Diet
Now number three is the diet, and this is the one that a lot of people go, "Oh, I don't want to give up my nice things." It's not necessarily about making drastic changes as I mentioned before. Sometimes small things can make a huge amount of difference. But just remember that in the menopause, your nutritional needs go sky high.
Outside, you may not feel particularly much. But like a swan, you know, if you imagine a swan on the water, they look very serene. Not much is happening above water, but underneath, their little legs are paddling like mad. And this is what's happening inside our body during the menopause. Our body is having to try so desperately hard to stay balanced, to stay healthy, to try and not give you all these menopause symptoms, and that uses up energy.
And where do you get your energy from? You get it from your food. So the better your diet, the more energy, the more nutrition you're giving to your body to help you through this particular time. So all we're saying here is, there's loads of articles on good diets on the website. We've got fabulous recipes that you can add into your day-to-day life. And sometimes, just tweaking the diet a little bit can make a huge amount of difference that's really good.
Rest and relaxation
Now, number four is rest and relaxation. Remember the swan, quiet on top, busy, busy underneath. Our bodies are using all this energy to try and stay nice and stable. And that can take a lot out of you.
We know that fatigue is probably number five on the list of menopause symptoms. So many women get fatigued. And again, it's all to do with how you balance everything. It's about looking after yourself, which is really important. And I get so many women who say, "I don't have time to rest. I don't have time for any kind of relaxation." And you're really hampering your way through the menopause if you don't give yourself that little bit of time.
And one of my colleagues made a lovely analogy in that if you're on a plane and you need oxygen, you're always told to put your own mask on first. Look after yourself first, and then you will have the ability to look after people.
And during the menopause, we get so busy. We're still working. We're still looking after other people. But if we don't look after ourselves, our symptoms are likely to get worse, and that's going to drain us of energy, and we're going to end up with fatigue.
So that little 30 minutes me time a day where you can just shut yourself away can be probably one of the biggest gifts that you can actually give yourself during the menopause.
And I know if I miss my relaxation time, even after a few days, I can feel myself getting a bit cranky. So it's good for you and it's also good for other people who are around you as well, because you'll be in a better mood and you will be stronger.
What you said..."Dear Eileen, it is always wonderful to hear your Menopause Mondays videos. It has been exactly a year since I was officially confirmed going through menopause, and having found your site was godsent! I am doing well and happy with my new "normal". I followed many of your suggestions and incorporated many healthy changes into my lifestyle, including yoga, relaxation through quiet times and prayer, exercise, HT (unfortunately in my case it was completely necessary), Night Essence, and very healthy diet." |
Herbs and supplements
Now, after all that, number five is really success with other herbs and supplements. You can look at things like fermented soya.
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We've got black cohosh. We've got maca. We've got our sage tablets. You've got herbs like ginseng. And all these herbs can go quite a long way at helping to support your system through the menopause.
So it's great that we've got five top things, if you like, that we get such great feedback, that you can do to help yourself through the menopause, and that is before you need to look at anything else to help you through it.
What you said..."I have been taking sage tablets since last December for hot flushes and it really does work . So thank you Eileen for all your good advice I do not miss any menopause Mondays as they are so helpful you have helped me cope with the menopause thanks." |
Thank you
Now, just before I go, I want to say a huge thank you to all you ladies out there, because you're the ones that keep me going. You send in the most interesting, the most frustrating, and sometimes, the really heart-breaking questions. And I will look at these and sometimes think to myself, "Wow, this is something new. I've not heard of this in the menopause. Let's look into it. Let's do a little bit of research."
So all the videos that I do come from questions that you've sent in and sometimes I happen to see things in newspaper articles or we sometimes do a little bit of research. So please keep them coming in. I want to get to video number 200 along the way at some point, so please keep those questions coming in.
The other people that I want to thank are the invisible people that you can't see behind me, and that's the team that are here. I'm just the front person. I do the last little bit, if you like, by sitting in front of the camera. But we have an amazing team here who work with the filming, the editing, the posting, the checking to make sure that I've done everything right, the complementary health department, the medical department, just to make sure that I've got my facts straight.
So all these people work hard on a weekly basis to make sure that you get to see the videos as well, so I want to say a big thank you to them.
Goodbye from my 100th episode
So from my 100th video, I will say goodbye. But if…especially for those of you who have just recently joined me, I've done another 99 and they're all on the website, and it covers a whole range of subjects. So if you're needing answers to some of your questions, please do have a look through them.
And until then, I will see you next week for another A.Vogel Talks Menopause.
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