Good Anxiety by Wendy Suzuki

Author:Wendy Suzuki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

· GAIL: LEARNING NEW WAYS TO TRAIN HER ATTENTION AND FOCUS ·

Gail is in her early fifties and has recently gone back to work after many years at home raising her three children. When all three of her children moved out of the house to pursue college and develop their careers, she decided to get a job. She found a job as an office manager for a busy dental practice. For the first two years she looked forward to the work, her colleagues, and her paycheck. She liked that her working meant her husband did not have to put in as many long hours at his job. Indeed, one of her goals was to save what she earned so that they could enjoy each other’s company and take more trips together.

But then things started to change.

Here was a person whom her husband, Ron, called the ever-ready bunny—someone who got up at dawn every morning for an early-morning walk, took care of the kids, made three meals a day, volunteered, carpooled, was active in her church group, you name it; she could do it all with one hand tied behind her back. And when she returned to work, she continued to be a master of efficiency and productivity. Slowly but steadily, however, she began to lose her oomph, as she called it. Gail began having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. She began to suffer from a mounting, gnawing anxiety. “I’m so moody,” she described, “and my anxiety is off the charts. I just don’t feel like myself anymore.” She tired more easily, and in general felt the life go out of her bones. “It’s as if a ten-ton elephant is sitting on my chest—I’m flattened out and unable to move.”

Gail was willing to live with her fatigue and even her moodiness. But when she began to feel completely unable to focus at work, that was the last straw. She went to see her doctor, who explained that anxiety and trouble sleeping are common side effects of menopause. This information did not surprise Gail—it had been almost two years since she’d last menstruated. Her doctor explained that there is a connection between dwindling estrogen levels and an overall decline in cognitive function, which often shows up as a difficulty staying focused. Gail was so estrogen-deficient that her physician suggested she could benefit from supplementing with bioidentical hormone supplements (hormone replacement therapy, or HRT), which could help alleviate her symptoms. Since she had no history of breast cancer in her family and all the recent research on HRT showed no negative side effects and only benefits, including protection against heart disease and a general offsetting of aging, she decided she had nothing to lose. She was especially motivated to try HRT because her doctor more or less promised that she would sleep better, her anxiety would lessen or disappear altogether, and her energy would return.

Is anxiety a common side effect of estrogen deficiency? Yes. Menopause is exactly that—a lessening or deficiency in production of estrogen, the central hormone produced by women.

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