Yoga & Women’s Health

How did you get into yoga and what’s your niche?

I used to go along to yoga classes with my Mum, so she had a big influence on my yoga journey. From there I built up a regular practice and first started teaching in 2017. I recently returned to yoga after having kids and it provides such a nice balance between NHS GP Work, yoga, and lifestyle medicine.

Tell me more about lifestyle medicine.

It’s a relatively new speciality within medicine, with a focus on how lifestyle contributes to overall health. The main six pillars are ~ movement, stress management, sleep, social connection, nutrition, and avoiding harmful substances. You’ll notice that yoga hits on the first four of those.

How does this overlap with women’s health, hormones, and menopause?

Yoga can be really beneficial for managing the symptoms of menopause because menopause can affect all of the main pillars, and yoga covers those four. It can help manage hot flushes, anxiety that can come with menopause, and problems with sleep. Often when women go through the menopause it happens at a difficult time of life, they might have ageing parents, can be at a peak in their careers, their kids are teens or maybe leaving the nest, and there’s a lot going on! This means yoga can be very helpful.

I was wondering if hot yoga is beneficial for the menopause, especially with the temperature changes and hot flushes?

Hot yoga can absolutely be beneficial for those going through the menopause as it can help with stress relief, sleep and mental health. There are loads of benefits in terms of reducing stress due to the increased endorphins from activity in the heat. There is no reason it should make hot flushes worse after a class and it may actually be beneficial. Of course, as you would anyway, if anyone felt too hot or unwell, it’s a good idea to rest and cool off.

I hear rumours of an exciting collab coming up in January… can we have a sneak preview?

Yes! I will be doing a workshop with Becky in January ~ Yoga & Women’s Health. We’ll be going into what can be most supportive through the different stages of the menstrual cycle. You can really crave different forms of movement, and food, so we’ll look into the reasons for that, move our bodies, and answer lots of questions.

You can find out more about Carrie and book onto one of her classes here.