Generally, a woman experiences menopause when she steps into her late forties and early fifties. There are also cases wherein menopause signs or symptoms occur at an earlier or a later stage in one’s life. Factors which may affect the onset of menopause may be genetics, lifestyle and environment. Menopause signs and symptoms may occur several years before the actual menopause period and these are called .

Changes in menstrual flow (alternating periods of light and heavy menstrual flow), hot flushes and night sweats, irritability and mood swings, vaginal dryness, insomnia, and increased fat around the belly and waist signal the perimenopausal period. After several years, the actual would start to appear.

This is a common complaint of women having menopause. Hot flashes start out as a feeling of intensifying warmth which usually starts from the chest and going towards your head. Most of the time, it is also accompanied by profuse sweating and skin warmness. Hot flashes occur mostly during the evening which leads to night sweating and insomnia. It may last from a few seconds up to even hours which seriously disrupts a person’s sleep. It can occur many times in a day.

Because of the hormone that keeps the vagina lubricated declines, lubrication is also lessened leading to a dry and uncomfortable feeling for a woman. Most of the time, using vaginal lubricant treats this discomfort but if it persists, a gynecologist may prescribe an estrogen cream.

Headache and difficulty concentrating also come as a possible . It may even come to a point when a woman would take several short naps to regain her energy after doing minor tasks. Headaches can be very annoying and may cause trouble sleeping and doing normal activities of daily living.

Hormone Replacement Therapy may be considered as a gold standard in treating menopause symptoms but some studies point out that it increases the risk of developing cancer. Herbal remedies such as Black Cohosh, Ginseng, and the like have also become widespread.

Exercise is a great way to fight off the effects of menopause because it keeps one’s body strong and the immune system is boosted. It also gives the woman more energy in times of fatigue and exhaustion. Apart from that, eating nutritious foods especially foods rich in calcium is important.

Menopause does not necessarily mean that having a womanly life has ended, but because of the , it has become a dreaded phenomenon by some if not almost all women. In a brighter perspective, having menopause could actually make one’s life lighter because the burden of having a monthly period has already been taken off one’s back.