Healthy Aging: Here’s How to Do It Well

Let’s start with an honest moment: aging isn’t always easy. Changes seem to happen rapidly, often leaving us feeling like our bodies are suddenly strangers. But here’s the thing, healthy aging during menopause doesn’t mean fighting the inevitable. It’s about understanding what’s happening biologically and learning to support your body proactively, based on science.

So, let’s explore how you can age healthily and confidently during perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause.

How can women age healthily during menopause?
Healthy aging during menopause includes staying active, eating a balanced diet, getting quality sleep, and managing hormone-related changes. These habits help support heart, bone, brain, and metabolic health through this natural life stage.

Understanding What’s Happening to Your Body

Around your 40s, estrogen begins its gradual decline while taking you on a roller coaster ride of hormonal changes during the perimenopause. This hormonal shift influences nearly every part of your body: from your heart and bones to metabolism and sleep patterns. It’s crucial to recognize these changes not as failures but as natural processes that you can positively impact. After all, it’s all biology, baby!

Protect Your Heart

Heart disease becomes a significant risk for women after menopause, primarily due to declining estrogen levels. Estrogen helps keep arteries flexible and cholesterol levels balanced. With estrogen being low, you’re at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, including hypertension and heart attacks. Here’s how you support your heart health1:

• Regular physical activity. aim for at least 150 minutes of exercise per week, including at least two sessions of resistance training.
• Maintain a balanced diet rich in fiber, healthy fats, and lean proteins. Your body needs more protein to help preserve muscle mass and support metabolism.
• Regular check-ups. Monitor your cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose regularly.

Strengthen Your Bones

Bone density loss accelerates significantly in the early years of menopause, increasing your risk of osteoporosis2. This isn’t just about avoiding fractures. It’s about preserving your independence and mobility as you age.

• Incorporate weight-bearing exercises, such as stair climbing, hiking uphill, or low-impact activities that still place mechanical load on bones, such as brisk walking on an incline or step-ups.
• Include strength training in your routine at least twice a week to maintain muscle mass and improve bone density.
• Ensure adequate intake of calcium (about 1200 mg daily) and vitamin D (around 800-1000 IU daily).

Master Your Metabolism

Hormonal changes during menopause also shift how your body distributes fat, often towards the abdomen. This change isn’t just cosmetic; it increases the risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes3.

• Focus on nutrition. Prioritize a diet similar to the Mediterranean style: rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean proteins.
• Regular strength training helps boost metabolism and maintain lean muscle, which naturally decreases with age.
• Stay mindful of your caloric intake, explicitly personalizing it based on your specific activity level and metabolic changes to prevent unwanted weight gain as your metabolism slows.

Prioritize Sleep

Disrupted sleep is common during menopause transition, largely due to hormonal fluctuations and night sweats. Poor sleep doesn’t just make you tired, it negatively impacts mood, cognitive function, and metabolism4.

• Practice good sleep hygiene by establishing a calming bedtime routine, ensuring your sleep environment is cool and comfortable. Most importantly, maintain a consistent sleep schedule to get enough deep sleep for recovery.
• Address night sweats directly through lifestyle adjustments or, if appropriate, hormone therapy or alternative treatments.

Adopt Healthy Life Habits

Hydration remains important as we age. Dehydration impacts cognitive performance by reducing blood volume, thus affecting neuronal efficiency, and can exacerbate symptoms like fatigue and headaches5, 6.

• Aim for around 2 liters of water daily, more if you’re active or experiencing hot flashes.
• Limit alcohol consumption strictly to no more than one standard drink per day. Excessive alcohol can further disturb sleep, affect bone density, and increase the risk of chronic diseases. I would suggest restricting alcohol only to special occasions (and it’s some for a girl who loves a good glass of wine!).
• If you’re a smoker, quit. It’s one of the most impactful decisions you can make to protect your health as you age.

Practical Steps for Right Now

If you take away anything from this article, let it be this: you have agency in how you age. Here’s how you start today:

• Schedule your health screenings (cholesterol, bone density, blood glucose)
• Commit to regular exercise sessions that you genuinely enjoy
• Review your diet to ensure it supports your current stage of life
• Begin prioritizing sleep with specific habits and routines