Researchers have found a way to reduce unpleasant symptoms
A new study finds that talk therapy can help women survive menopause. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have been shown to improve quality of life and be less associated with anxiety and depression.
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Talk therapy can help women cope with menopause by improving their quality of life and reducing symptoms such as depression and anxiety, research has found.
As The Guardian explains, menopause marks the end of menstruation for women and involves a transition period that can last several years. This phenomenon is often accompanied by a range of symptoms caused by hormonal changes, including hot flashes, night sweats, memory problems and psychological difficulties including depression and anxiety.
Researchers now say that talking therapies such as cognitive -behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) could help women during this period.
Professor Aimee Spector, study author from University College London (UCL), said there was a clear link between the physical and psychological symptoms of menopause, citing hot flashes as one example.
“When people get hot flashes , they tend to be very worried about them, and that worry can often cause people to have more hot flashes,” she notes.
Professor Spector emphasizes that treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy can help women combat the negative thoughts they may have associated with symptoms, such as fears about what others may think.
In an article in the journal Affective Disorders, Aimee Spector and her colleagues described how they pooled data from 22 robust studies that examined the effects of various interventions, such as marital support, on psychological symptoms of menopause.
When considered together, they found that these treatments had a moderate to large effect on quality of life and a small but positive effect on anxiety and depression.
They were also associated with small improvements in memory and concentration—however, Because these results were obtained in only three studies, it is unclear whether this finding is reliable.
More specifically, cognitive behavioral therapy had a small effect on depression and anxiety, while mindfulness-based interventions had a small effect on the former but a moderate to large effect on the latter. A finding that alerted the team may be due to the fact that the duration of MBI interventions was longer than that of CBT.
There were eight additional studies that did not have enough data to be included in the analysis and included a range of techniques treatment, offered some additional support for the results.
However, it is unclear how long-lasting any benefits are, when during menopause such treatments may be most beneficial, or whether they may benefit some women more than others, The Guardian notes.
Additionally, the study failed to shed light on how much significant improvement women might get in their mood from these treatments.
Aimee Spector says more research is needed, including how best to implement these treatments and may Whether CBT can help women live with or cope with cognitive problems associated with menopause, such as brain fog.
The possibility of using talk therapy, such as CBT, to manage symptoms associated with menopause has generated considerable controversy in recent months after draft National Institute for Healthcare Excellence guidelines for GPs suggested CBT could be offered “alongside or as an alternative” to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to treat symptoms including night sweats.
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