photo taken by Jack on 21st March at Premier Warrington View image
I have always craved exercise that helps me switch off from the outside world because I never switch off. My mind is hyperactive. I have to do things that leave little room in my head for anything else. Constant travelling made joining a club difficult and I leaned into the lone sports of running, swimming, and a Davina DVD in the hotel room to give my head some time off. When the travelling paused, and the menopause was giving me physical challenges that were driving me crazy, I decided I was going to learn to box. Why boxing? The menopause symptoms I had made it feel like I was living inside someone else’s body. I felt I needed to shock my system and prove to myself I was still in there.
Hormones have always ruled my body.
I’ve had endometriosis for years and used hormones to stop my periods forever ago, so it was always going to be a bit of a mystery how I would be impacted by the menopause and when I would even know.
I started with symptoms years ago, but my GP at the time felt I was too young to be menopausal. After being tested for MS and being told that I had irritable leg syndrome, joint pains from too much travelling, insomnia because I worked too much and couldn’t switch off, reoccurring sinusitis from allergies, oh, allergies appearing at an alarming frequency because that can just happen, vertigo due to an inner ear imbalance, weight fluctuations because that’s our age – it took a bad fall when I was running and an odema that just wouldn’t heal – and a full blown meltdown at my male GP who asked “is this stuff really that bad?” for him to finally send me for a blood test, which showed my body was completely depleted of oestrogen. It was a weird feeling finally finding out that I was in the menopause.
I had been feeling rubbish for so long I had just started to think that was how things were going to be, my run of feeling fantastic days were over, I just had to get my head round that and it would be fine.
Now, I had HRT. The menopause symptoms I had, made it feel like I was living inside someone else’s body. I felt I needed to shock my system and prove to myself I was still in there. Boxing seemed like the perfect way to do it.
7 reasons boxing can help you through the menopause.
1. It requires your full concentration. You can really leave everything else behind and just focus on being in the ring, take time out just for you. It’s a mixture of dance moves, co-ordination, and strength. I don’t have a natural gift for any of those things, and I’m pretty sure I’m the most uncoordinated person in the place but it doesn’t matter.
2. Why doesn’t it matter? Because the chances are, like me, you have no intention of becoming the next Nicola Adams or Terri Harper. Learning now, is about showing yourself you can do this, and that the menopause hasn’t taken over you or your body.
3. It’s the kind of mindfulness and meditation you can achieve. Breathing is a really important part of boxing, regulating your own body movements and breathing is essential, it’s about calm not chaos. People usually associate moving and active meditation with yoga, but boxing has the same benefits, plus a total body workout.
4. Punching helps to relieve muscle tension. The benefits of this are enormous. The tension we store, for so many reasons, makes us unfocused. The repetitive nature of boxing training releases that tension punch by punch. You feel more focused, relaxed, and high on endorphins.
5. You are never alone in the boxing gym. You can’t kid yourself about how much you are doing, and you get support when you need it, even if you don’t feel like you do need it. Boxing isn’t just exercise, it’s about sequencing moves, thinking about what’s coming next, being mentally alert and sharing the experience.
6. Learning something new is the ultimate high. There is a real sense of achievement when you learn to wrap your hands, put on boxing gloves for the first time, hit a pad perfectly and you hear the satisfying “snap”. When you can skip for a whole 2 minutes without stopping (how did we skip all day as kids!), use a reflexing speed punching ball for the first time, and step inside a boxing ring, you think, yep, this is me, I’m boxing.
7. It’s a lift for your face and self-esteem. For me, HRT was life changing when I started taking it, and a few months later it’s a little more of a rollercoaster. No matter how I feel when I walk into the boxing gym, I consistently feel better and look better when I walk out, in the words of Muhammad Ali "my only fault is I don't realise how great I really am".
Nina changes the tough stuff necessary to keep leaders’ vision and strategy alive and prosperous, planet and people engaged, healthy, smiling and having fun. Coach, Consultant & Trainer. Contact her when you are ready to make your contribution to changing the world at ninadar.com the first 30 mins are free.
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