What's your relationship with caffeine?

How big a role does caffeine play in your life?

When I was 10 my father ‘built’ a small cruising sailing boat in our back garden - spending hours and hours fitting it out.  When it came time to launch this somewhat home-spun but oh-so special boat it was named after my mother.  You might think this was a wonderfully romantic act - but the name ‘Early Dragon’ was actually a reflection of what happened if you asked her something before her first cup of coffee!  

Happily we had many happy holidays aboard - early dragons not withstanding.

For many of the women I see caffeine plays a fairly major role in their lives.  I am as fond of my morning flat white as the next person - and very very fussy about how it’s made - few can make it exactly the way I like it (except for me obv!), but I now have at most 2 coffees in the morning.  This after years of working in high-pressure jobs and being ‘tired but wired’ most of the time - where coffee provided the ‘pzazz' when I was just too tired to go on.

Caffeine raises cortisol and thereby disrupts the steriodogenic (try saying that in a hurry!) hormones - thats all your sex hormones basically.   It can help to exacerbate the feelings of stress, and can result in lower levels of estrogen - which can leave you feeling emotionally fragile, can exacerbate hot flushes/night sweats and low libido, to name just a few symptoms.

So as we approach - or manage through - menopause, it’s worthwhile thinking through our relationship with caffeine.  If you’re an early dragon maybe it’s time to thing about how to cut down, how to reduce some of the stress and regain some hormonal balance.

Photo by www.emmajackson.co.uk