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Pause & Effect: World Menopause Month

8 dimensions of wellness weekly newsletter world menopause month Oct 01, 2025

October isn't just pumpkin spice and cozy sweaters, it's also World Menopause Month, and this year the International Menopause Society (IMS) chose Lifestyle Medicine as the theme for World Menopause Day on the 18^th.

I can feel the eye rolls from here. I promise this is more than just “have you tried yoga” or gross juice cleanses. Every Wednesday this month I’ll be exploring the different parts of Lifestyle Medicine and how it relates to my Eight Dimensions of Wellness Coaching philosophy. The two overlap quite a bit so this will be a lot of fun to explore, especially as it relates to your menopause transition and beyond.

So, grab your favorite beverage and get comfy as we look at a little bit of history and what I have planned for the month.

History of World Menopause Day

World Menopause Day was reinstituted on October 18^th, 2010 by the International Menopause Society’s then president, David Sturdee. The first theme was urogenital atrophy. Since then, The IMS picks a new theme every year to serve as a focal point for raising awareness about menopause and breaking down the stigma that's kept too many women suffering in silence for far too long.

It was recognized around 2014-ish that it was difficult to consistently coordinate activities for one single day and eventually, October became World Menopause Awareness Month. This gave communities worldwide the opportunity to organize events, share resources, and most importantly, start conversations.

This year's focus on lifestyle medicine is particularly meaningful because it acknowledges something important. The choices you make every single day have significant influence over how you experience menopause. Which was a profound realization for me because that meant I had at least some measure of control rather than just being at the mercy of genetics (see my October article about symptom genetics HERE).

The Lifestyle Medicine Revolution

What exactly do we mean by “Lifestyle Medicine?” The American College of Lifestyle Medicine was founded in 2004 by a group of visionary healthcare professionals who recognized that our healthcare system was failing to address the root causes of chronic disease.

The field emerged from a radical idea: what if, instead of just prescribing medications for symptoms, we treated the whole person? What if we acknowledge that your body is an interconnected system where sleep affects stress, stress affects nutrition, nutrition affects movement, and all of it affects your overall health?

Lifestyle Medicine is built on six core pillars:

Whole food nutrition
Regular physical activity
Stress management
Restorative sleep
Positive social connections
Avoiding risky substances

These aren't just random wellness social media trends. They're evidence-based interventions that address chronic conditions at their root cause.

Your October Roadmap

Every Wednesday this month, I'm breaking down exactly how Lifestyle Medicine intersects with menopause in all six of the core pillars and how it intersects with my Eight Dimensions of Wellness philosophy. Here's a sneak peek at what's coming:

October 8: Whole Food Nutrition & Physical Activity
We'll explore how what you eat and how you move can either fuel your menopausal symptoms or calm them. No deprivation diets. No punishing workouts. Just strategic, sustainable approaches that honor what your body actually needs right now.

October 15: Stress Management
Because your cortisol levels are having a field day with your declining estrogen, we'll talk about practical strategies that actually fit into your real life.

October 22: Restorative Sleep
When night sweats are hijacking your rest and your racing mind won't shut up at 3 AM, you need more than generic "sleep hygiene" advice. We'll get specific about what actually works during menopause.

October 29: Connectedness & Risky Substance Avoidance
From the isolation many women feel during this transition to the temptation of that extra glass of wine to cope, we'll address the social and behavioral dimensions of menopause that don't get nearly enough attention.

The Eight Dimensions Philosophy

Here's where my approach diverges from the traditional six-pillar Lifestyle Medicine model. While I deeply respect and utilize the six pillars we’ll cover over the next four weeks, I view health through the lens of eight interconnected dimensions of wellness: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, occupational, environmental, and financial.

Why does this matter for menopause? Because menopause isn’t just a physical change. It ripples through every dimension of your life.

Physical wellness during menopause is obvious. We're talking hot flashes, sleep disruption, and metabolic changes. But it's intimately connected to your emotional wellness, because brain fog and mood swings aren't personal failings; they're neurological responses to hormonal shifts.

Your social wellness takes a hit when you don't feel like yourself or when you're too exhausted to maintain relationships. Your occupational wellness suffers when symptoms interfere with work performance. Your intellectual wellness feels threatened when memory and focus become unreliable. Your spiritual wellness, including your overall sense of purpose and meaning, may waver when you're questioning who you're becoming.

Even environmental wellness matters. Is your workspace triggering hot flashes? Is your bedroom optimized for sleep? And financial wellness? That's real too. From healthcare costs to potential career impacts to deciding whether hormone therapy fits your budget, money matters intersect with menopause in ways we need to acknowledge.

Every topic I'm covering this month touches on multiple dimensions of wellness. Nutrition isn't just physical, it's emotional (your relationship with food), social (how you eat with others), and financial (your budget). Sleep affects your physical recovery, emotional regulation, occupational performance, and intellectual clarity. Stress management impacts literally everything.

This interconnected view is why being your Compass is one of my core coaching tenets. Navigating menopause isn't about following a single path. It's about understanding how all these dimensions work together so you can find YOUR unique route forward.

The Beautiful Life Truth

Here's what Lifestyle Medicine and my Eight Dimensional approach have in common: they both refuse to reduce you to a single symptom or a single number on a lab report. They both honor the complexity of your experience. And they both recognize that sustainable change doesn't come from willpower, it comes from aligning your habits with your values and doing the best you can with what you have right now.

This October, we're not just raising awareness. We're building a roadmap. We're honoring the chaos that comes with this transition while creating clarity about what you can control. Because you deserve better than generic advice. You deserve strategies that work for your body, your life, your goals.

If you’ve read my about page then you know the promises I make to my clients but if you haven’t, or just need a refresher, they are:

First, I will show up as your alchemist to help you turn the chaos of conflicting information into sustainable habits that work for your body.
Then, I will show up as your compass to help you find the strength you've always had but somewhere along the way began to doubt.
Finally, I will show up as your lighthouse to help you navigate the storms of uncertainty and find YOUR path forward.

I hope that over the course of the next four weeks, you’ll gain a better understanding of Lifestyle Medicine as well as my personal coaching philosophies and most importantly, how both can help you during your menopause transition and beyond.

And until then, keep an eye out for my next weekly roundup. We’ll be covering a recent article I read about the “Cashing in on Menopause,” celebrating National Coaches’ Day, and checking in how tip #1 from last month’s Self Care Tips article is going.