#144: Yoga in menopause what helps and what to avoid

Your body changes in midlife and that means how you approach yoga needs to change too.

In this episode, I talk with yoga therapist Cheryl Gordon about how to keep getting all the benefits of yoga in menopause without over-stretching, overheating, or causing unnecessary strain on your joints and connective tissues.

You’ll learn:

• Why hormonal changes in midlife mean your yoga practice should evolve too
• What to keep in mind to avoid overstretching and joint pain
• Why hot yoga may do more harm than good
• How to shift toward styles that support strength, mobility, and hormone balance
• What “real yoga therapy” looks like and why it can help you stay strong, calm, and functional for decades ahead

Enjoy the show!

Connect with Cheryl:

www.cherylgordonyt.com

youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE5vzNEhrdYmDX8GYWLLaKw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cherylgordonyt/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cherylgordonyt

The Mindful Eating Guide  provides the basics to anyone who would like to lose weight sustainably and without restrictions. 

The 5 Step Midlife Reset Masterclass 

Transcript

#144: How to use yoga and mindfulness to boost wellbeing in midlife

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: [00:00:00] So today I have a special treat for you. I have a guest on the show for the first time in a really, really long time. My guest today is Cheryl Gordon. She is a certified yoga therapist and host of another podcast called the Midlife Reset , she helps women navigate menopause with strength, humor, and self-compassion. Through her midlife reset online programs and in-person retreats, Cheryl teaches midlife women how to boost energy, release stubborn weight, and move more easily using the tools of yoga and mindfulness. No quick fixes, no extremes. Just greater calm. Confidence and compassion, I wanna welcome Cheryl to the show.

So Cheryl, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show. 

Cheryl: Thank you, Lynn, for having me. I've been so excited. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: you mentioned that you just finished up [00:01:00] a yoga class and so I guess I will jump right Into it because in my intro I did explain that you are a yoga therapist and I have to say I have never heard of.

Yoga therapy, so I, I'm sure everybody is curious about what does that mean and what is, how is that compared to like a normal, a normal yoga teacher that we see in our fitness, you know, centers and such. 

Cheryl: Well, the way yoga was disseminated or taught traditionally was one-on-one. There was a teacher, there was a student.

Often they lived, there was a residential component to it. And the practices of yoga, which are much more extensive than just the postures we're familiar with at our gyms, were tailored for that individual. So the science of yoga therapy goes back to those roots where we not only will think about physical movements for a client, but we might also pull from the other tools of yoga, like meditation, lifestyle, [00:02:00] relaxation techniques, all different things like that.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay. So in, in practice, that means that when you are working with somebody, it's just one-on-one, or you sometimes also have. Group kind of things. 

Cheryl: Well, traditionally and, and to be a hundred percent proper. , would be a one-on-one, but in the modern world 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: mm-hmm. 

Cheryl: Um, that is a very expensive way to deliver yoga.

Mm-hmm. So the group experience is often much more accessible for people. So, as a yoga therapist, I design my yoga classes. My yoga programming to be kind of cognizant of everyone's individual experience, it takes a lot of it, a lot of experience and trial and error to get to this point. A yoga therapist has got probably five times the number of hours of formal training as the yoga teacher who's at the average yoga studio.

I mean, that's still a huge, like one year commitment at least to become a yoga teacher. It's, it's very intensive, but a yoga therapist is probably five [00:03:00] times that. Okay. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay. 

Cheryl: Though they have to learn anatomy, physiology, pathology. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Wow. 

Cheryl: Uh, as well as all much deeper into the philosophy and traditions of yoga.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: All right. Okay. And you've been teaching yoga for a while and you now you have, , discovered that it is really useful, especially in menopause. Maybe you can maybe take a little bit of a step back because we talked before, so I know more about you than our listeners, and, uh, you are about 10 years older than I am and have been doing yoga.

For a long time, and also your menopause journey has been very different from mine in that while I had mine very early. You had yours later, so maybe talk a little bit about that and how yoga has, has played into that. 

Cheryl: I'd love to. I think this is a really important bit of information for a lot of women out there who might be doing yoga or meditation or other healthy practices, and they feel like they might be somewhat [00:04:00] insulated from the realities of menopause.

Um, I was 57 when I hit menopause, so I was well past the average age. And I have to admit, I was a little arrogant perhaps in my, in my insulated bubble thinking, oh, I do yoga, I meditate, I eat well, I'll be fine. And, uh, it, it was, it was a sucker punch. It was a very big shock about how many imbalances I had brought into my menopausal journey, things that I thought that I had dealt.

So I have had to really rejig kind of all of my practices and take a fresh look at what my routines were. And that often happens for most of us when we had a big life change like menopause. So just because I'm a yoga therapist doesn't mean that I had all the answers I had to go looking. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. So what, what did that mean in practice?

Like what kinds of things did you change? Because I know that yoga and Pilates are right now super. You know, hot, uh oh 

Cheryl: or Oh, that's 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: good to know to do. [00:05:00] Yeah. I feel like all of my friends, in their, I'm the youngest, so I'm 54. They're from my age all the way up to 62 and no way they can find the time to go strength training, but.

Sign up for a yoga class or Pilates class and they're there Saturday morning at eight. You know what I mean? So it's wild. But um, yeah. So, so what is it that has changed in the yoga that your body is responding differently than it was before you hit menopause? What have you noticed as a change? 

Cheryl: I think we can get away with a lot before we have that big hormonal shift.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm. 

Cheryl: We can ignore a lot of signals around things, but when the big hormonal shift comes. I think you have to take a really hard look at your lifestyle. So for me, that meant, um, I was getting, and this is gonna lead into our later discussion, I think, about where yoga fits in with strength training and other fitness disciplines.

I was, um, not utilizing yoga practice to its full capacity because I was weaving it in being efficient. So [00:06:00] doing some strength training with my Asana practice, maybe skipping meditation 'cause I was really busy and I'll probably get to it later. And. Some of the other aspects of yoga, the mindfulness aspects of yoga.

Mm-hmm. Which at their heart are about self-compassion and kindness that had kind of been buried under the pressure to always achieve more and keep doing and to be more externally focused. So I think a lot of the things that I was doing on the outside, I was doing all the right things. I had a, a Lincoln on an hour practice every morning.

I was. Doing an evening meditation, but I don't think that maybe the intention was as deep and rich as it needed to be for my body to get the nurturing that it needed. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. Well, I'm trying to relate it to my own experience. I, I spent over 10 years. Doing. It wasn't quite yoga, but it was yoga.

A woman had come up with her own kind of concept of it, but there was no music or anything there, and it was [00:07:00] just listening to her talk us through the thing. And it was very meditative and I, I realized that when she. Unfortunately died, uh, then I couldn't find another instructor like that, and I was, I was really missing that because it was such a strong mindfulness thing, you know, being there, I felt like it really helped me recover from my stressful life to go there.

Plus there was something like, in the movements that she chose, they were very beautiful, you know, so you had this really nice feeling. It, it wasn't. It wasn't, uh, stretching. I mean, it was a flow yoga type. I don't know how to describe it any better than that, but, but yeah, so that's what it makes me think of when you say that you're maybe being more external, that when I've gone to yoga classes in the, you know, later, I've always been thinking like, oh, I gotta do this position a little bit harder and a little longer and a little stronger and, and twist a [00:08:00] little bit more.

You know, it's been about, yeah, pushing yourself in yoga versus. That kind of more. Harmonious feeling that I got before. Is that what you 

Cheryl: and I think, I think you can bring this meditative aspect into strength training too. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm 

Cheryl: Uh, I have a friend who does strength training who listens to yoga, chanting while she lifts 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: weights.

Cheryl: So that's, that's really enhancing the power. But the question I think is so interesting that you bring up Lynn, is why is the kind of class that you did, whatever you wanna call it, yoga, whatever, for 10 years with that lovely teacher, why did that generate that feeling for you? That's so different than going to say a body pump class.

Yeah. Or uh, you know, any other kind of sort of fitness class. And there are a lot of yoga. Classes being offered at in fitness settings that do have a performative aspect to them that it, that is about, you know, uh, getting deeper into the pose or holding a pose longer. There's, there is that a little bit of self [00:09:00] competition even not, or, or maybe even competition with others within the class.

So that's not, that's more of a westernized sort of more modern take. What you're talking about, what your teacher did was really lead you through movement into a meditative. State. And that's a brilliant, uh, a brilliant strategy, and it's something that leaves lasting effects on the body. When we move, we act, especially in things like yoga postures or more somatic kind of movements, we, we stretch into the tissues, like the vessels and the nerves, and especially the connective tissue, the fascia.

Mm-hmm. And this. This stimulates certain emotions in the brain. It's called somatic memory. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay, 

Cheryl: so when you hold a pose where your arms are up and you're like a warrior pose, you know, you're, you are stimulating emotion relating to that position of your body. And through many millennia of study yogis have found, when you hold a [00:10:00] warrior pose, you feel stronger.

You feel empowered, you feel confident, um, you feel willpower emerging. So we say warrior poses in yoga help you find your destiny or shoot for your goals. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay. 

Cheryl: And then there are other poses that, that are softer, more surrendered, and they might bring more nurturing feelings. I think most people know about child's pose.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm-hmm. 

Cheryl: Which isn't always relaxing for everybody, but the reason they call it child's pose is because it's supposed to bring back feelings of being grounded and cocooned and safe, like being cradled as a child or a baby. So you have a, a, an ancient memory of that in your own body. So when you recreate that shape, even as an adult, you go back to some of those early nurturing experiences.

Yeah. So Asana, there's, that's the name of, for postures in yoga. Um, they're very brilliantly designed to evoke that somatic memory and, and create those emotions. So in doing so, you can have [00:11:00] this rich emotional landscape unfold during your class. Whereas most times when we go to an activity, be it, go out for wine with friends or, uh, go to work or even go to a workout class, there's a certain way we're supposed to behave and feel.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm. 

Cheryl: And we're kind of supposed to do that. Whereas if you go to a a class that's working with your somatic memory and allowing for that full range of emotional expression. It feels really releasing. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm, 

Cheryl: it feels really relaxing. You feel more like yourself after. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. 

Cheryl: And that's what in one part, I mean I could talk for 5,000 years about this, but in one part that's why that yoga class or that class felt so different for you Lynn, is 'cause you were experiencing that full release of the somatic memory.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. So it sounds to me like, maybe for midlife women, these vary. Ambitious yoga classes, you know, 'cause I, I hear the women when you, when they come out of the locker room and they're like, oh, that was [00:12:00] so hard and Oh, that, you know, like. I'm gonna be sore tomorrow. You know, it's the same kind of things that they talk about when they're like, oh, I gotta work out.

But maybe that's not what you're after. If you're trying to use yoga to help you in menopause and to work with helping in the menopause symptoms and the weight loss and the things, the benefits that yoga can bring. 

Cheryl: And I'm so sorry. 'cause you're going to get angry letters about this, Lynn, but if you're a menopausal woman, do not do hot yoga.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Really? Okay. 

Cheryl: Oh, run Screaming from hot yoga. This's. I, this is my personal bias. Okay. I admit. But it is based in a lot of research. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: So tell me more about that. Because we only have a hot yoga studio at my gym, so, 

Cheryl: well, the main reasons I think that people are attracted to hot yoga. I mean, you right now you live in a cooler climate.

Mm-hmm. I'm in Canada, so I mean, there's a lot of months out of the year. We, we really appreciate the heat. Yeah. So there's nothing, nothing really wrong with the heat. Uh, I'm all for a sauna [00:13:00] or something like that, but uh, for hot yoga, I think it's often marketed as it's a better workout because you're sweating more.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm. 

Cheryl: Uh, this is completely erroneous without getting into a whole bunch of anatomy and on crazy stuff. Basically sweating does not equal workout, and I think you make that point a lot in your podcast because you just, because you've had a hard workout on the treadmill or something and you've burnt so many calories, you actually haven't achieved the health outcome you really wanted.

Yeah. Hot yoga is very similar. You might sweat your bag off as my late husband used to say, but it does not mean that you got a workout. Second of all, it's often marketed as this is how yoga's done in India. Yeah, well India is a country where most of the country is closer to the equator, at least closer than Canada or Finland.

Um, so there is a lot of, a lot of heat in that culture, but. Traditionally, yoga was adapted according to the environment. So we wouldn't be doing a [00:14:00] lot of aggressive postures like sun salutations when it was 90 or a hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside. Okay. Uh, so often in these, uh, hot yoga classes, they're doing a vinyasa style flow, which is like a sun salutation, or they're doing, um, things that heat the body temperature up artificially.

So we really don't wanna do that when the environment is already so hot. And in, in India, they never would've done that. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay. 

Cheryl: My biggest concern for menopausal women though, so I've kind of debunked the marketing myths around hot yoga, you won't burn more calories, you won't get a better workout, and no, it's not the way yoga's done in India.

But the thing that I really concerned myself about around menopausal women is. First of all, our fascial tissue, that connective tissue that I mentioned, when that connective tissue, it's like an elastic sort of thing. When it's warmed, it will bend a lot more than when it's cold. Yeah. So you can get a lot deeper into your postures, which you may [00:15:00] be, especially if it's a performative class or competitive oriented class, you may feel, oh, I'm getting really good at my postures 'cause look at how I can touch my toes, or whatever the goal is.

But the thing is, is that that. Sacrifice that your fascial tissue is making to get you into that pose. 'cause it's warm and pliable that is deeply tied to your nervous system. And the reason that you feel a little tighter is because your nervous system is nervous of going too deep into that pose. So the nervous system registers this overstretching as a danger signal, and then so provides the body with rebound pain.

That's how it tells the body that there's danger. It says, you know, we've really overstretched, so we're gonna make you even tighter and more sore so that you don't do that nonsense again. And then we think we're, we're getting old or we think that we have chronic pain and we go to the chiropractor or all these other things, but actually we're [00:16:00] doing it to ourselves because we're overdoing it.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. 

Cheryl: So when I teach women now. I, and I'll stick to my lane, which is older women, 50 plus. When I teach women, now, I'm recognizing that the hormonal changes that we've undergone have really taken a lot of our natural pliability away from the connective tissue. I don't wanna argue with that. I don't wanna force that because then my girls are gonna end up with more pain.

Mm. Specifically a lot I see in the SI joint, which is in the, in the lower back on one side, but it can be anywhere. So in order to keep us limber and pliable, I believe in dynamic movement, which is in and out of the movement and done within a comfortable range. Then a lot of relaxation practices because that connective tissue responds really well to feeling safe and grounded and relaxed, you'll get a much greater range of motion.

[00:17:00] Even say you have frozen shoulder and you can't live, you'll get a much greater range of motion in the long run with more relaxation rather than aggressive stretching. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay. Wow. This is all really interesting and I've gotta follow up by asking, what about yin yoga? So I, I will say that I'm not surprised to hear that the stretching when you're hot.

'cause that's something I always a little bit worried about because I've had an issue when I was really young where I tried to do the splits. I mean, I was like 12, something like that. And, and my like hip dislocated. 'cause it just went chch and I still. Have in, like, it hurts me still to this day. So I'm really conscious of like, I don't wanna stretch too much and, and so that heat really worries me.

But then, um, now there's yin yoga, right? And it, and it seems like if I go to a yin yoga class, it's all women my age and older lying there on [00:18:00] the hot floor with the hot lamps on them and stretching. So what do you say to that? 

Cheryl: Well, I think yin yoga definitely has a place. Um, but I would be, again, a little bit concerned with the artificial heat,

 And I think the artificial heat might be nice if you were supported in your're stretching, which I call more restorative yoga rather than yin yoga. And I'm starting to really split hairs here. Yin yoga's done without a ton of props. Um, it's kind of mostly done, maybe a couple blocks and that would be it.

And the focus is on holding a posture for five minutes or more where you're feeling quite a, a deep stretch sensation. And that's kind of held out as the goal or the, the result or the success model is. Wow, I really stretched. Whereas restorative yoga is done with a ton of pillows and bolsters and props and op chairs and all kinds of stuff.

So you barely feel anything. You're just kind of floating there and we try to make the [00:19:00] body as absolutely comfortable as possible. The reason I think that this is more effective for building long range mobility and less chronic pain you could do this with warmth too, which would be wonderful.

You're not pulling the, like if I'm gonna put my arm up, there's gonna be a pillow underneath it so it can't go any deeper into the stretch. Okay? But all the tissues could feel that warmth and could be allowed to release that habitually held tension in that joint. That's the kind of release that the nervous system can deal with.

It's slow, it's gradual, it's nothing, nothing dramatic. And it's like, oh, well this does feel rather pleasant. Alright, well maybe we'll allow this then, 'cause we're not nervous at all about this stretch. Okay. So I, I would push people more to restorative yoga at our age. Rather than yin, although I know I have a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues who love their yin yoga.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. But it sounds like one could go maybe to a yin yoga class if there are no other [00:20:00] options. Like for me, no other options. Uh, but then use the blocks, like if I think about having my knees bent to the side. Butterfly. Butterfly 

Cheryl: legs. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. Yeah. And then put some blocks under so that I don't feel any hard stretch, but I can bingo, still get like the nice warmth coming through the floor and relax and yeah.

Cheryl: And I think when you're laying around relaxing, I know that when we're fitness oriented and I've always loved to move to, um, and when we're a type A personality, you know, you've had a corporate job or Yeah. You know, you've been, I've always been entrepreneurial, so I know it's really hard and it's. Seems like we're wasting our time, but menopause did teach me that that reset for the nervous system, whether it's through going to a class or just doing a little five minute nurturing meditation, this is so fundamental so that I can, uh.

Deal with the symptoms of the hormonal shift, the insomnia, the joint [00:21:00] pain, the brain fog, all the different things that come to us with that hormonal shift but recruit my nervous system wiring to support me as I adjust to this new hormonal reality. So it seems like that laying around, you're not even getting a good stretch.

Why go to that y yoga pack? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you could see. The way I see your nervous system, you would know that that's probably the most important part of your week. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. So it sounds like this is another kind of mindset shift because I feel like I, I talk a lot about, you know, if you've been into fitness, you've been doing the group fitness classes, you've had to sweat, you've need to feel like you've been hit by a truck in order to feel like you've.

Done something and when you go strength training, you don't feel like that at all. So it's really hard to understand that it was actually beneficial to you, even if it didn't feel like what you've been told. It needs to feel like, and, and I guess this is another mindset shift that the [00:22:00] gentler yoga practice is going to be more useful to us at this point in our lives.

Cheryl: If you wanna look at longevity, I mean, after menopause, even at my advanced stage, there's a chance I'll live for another 30 years or more. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Mm-hmm. 

Cheryl: That's a long time. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. 

Cheryl: So if I wanna look at being into my eighties, nineties, or maybe beyond, and still be independent, um, still be relatively pain-free, cognitively sharp, physical movement's so important, but we have to do it smart.

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Yeah. Yeah. 

Cheryl: And that's why I took up weight training quite seriously in my menopausal years. 

Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto: Okay, so this conversation went on a little longer than planned. There was just so much to cover, so I'm breaking it into two parts.

In next week's episode, we'll dive into the rest of my chat with Cheryl, where we talk about mindfulness micro rests, and how to reset your energy during the day. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss part [00:23:00] two. See you then and happy training.