Six practices that actually work in perimenopause and menopause
I've been living these since 2017. The research finally caught up.
Eight years ago, I launched a blog. It was called Finding the Bliss. I called the first post The Six Pillars of Blissful Happiness.
This was at a time when I had just had my midlife epiphany. I was so excited about the positive changes going on in my life, and so passionate about what had brought them about, that I wanted to write about it and help other women who had been quietly living below their potential. My mind was set. I was going to become a life coach and a yoga teacher.
But…
I had no certifications. No clear plan. I had a laptop, a firm conviction, and the ongoing experience of how six simple practices were gradually dissolving the version of me that had never felt truly happy or fulfilled, and transforming my body, my mindset, my resilience, and my energy into something that actually felt like me.
That post, dated February 14th, 2017, became the very first word of what is now Finding the Bliss.
I'm returning to it today because the science has finally caught up with something that ancient cultures have known and practiced for thousands of years.
What I wrote in 2017
Those six pillars weren’t theories. They were what had pulled me through what I now recognize as a midlife unraveling, where you are so busy “doing life” that you don’t have the time to realize that something essential is missing.
I’d returned to yoga practice in my early forties. And through yoga, I found breath. Then stillness. Then a completely different relationship with food, with my mind, with what I chose to give my energy to. The transformation was so real, so physical, so emotional, so irreversible that I couldn’t stay quiet about it. I wanted to tell the world what I had just discovered and what I was experiencing. I was in love with the practice, with what it gave me, with how it made me feel.
The six pillars I wrote about were: proper breathing, meditation, yoga practice, proper nutrition, relaxation, and positive thinking.
Now, with eight more years of study, coaching certifications, yoga teacher trainings, and nutritional qualifications behind me, I can tell you why. Particularly for women navigating the perimenopause and menopause transition, these practices are so precious.
What the research now confirms
Hey, ladies, if you’re somewhere in your mid-forties to late fifties, listen up.
These aren’t general wellness suggestions. They are, increasingly, evidence-based tools for one of the most significant biological shifts of your life.
Breathing
Controlled breathwork directly regulates the nervous system. During perimenopause and menopause, when declining estrogen disrupts the body’s ability to self-regulate, this matters more than most people realize. A 2023 clinical study published in the SBV Journal of Basic, Clinical and Applied Health Science found that just ten days of daily pranayama practice significantly reduced anxiety, lowered blood pressure, and improved cognitive function in menopausal women. Ten days.
Meditation
Meditation isn’t about emptying your mind. It’s about changing your relationship with it. A 2023 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Public Health, reviewing over a dozen randomized controlled trials, found that mindfulness-based interventions significantly reduced anxiety and depression during the menopause transition, with effects comparable to, and in some cases stronger than, standard psychological treatments.
Yoga practice
A 2024 systematic review including 24 studies and over 2,000 women found that yoga significantly reduced the psychological, physical, and urogenital symptoms of menopause, including anxiety, hot flashes, and disrupted sleep. One study within this body of research recorded a 66% reduction in hot flash frequency after just ten weeks of regular practice.
As a 200-hour certified yoga teacher with a particular love for Yin and restorative practice, I’ll tell you: the poses are almost secondary. It’s the combination of conscious movement, breath, and stillness that creates the shift.
Nutrition
What you eat is one of the most direct levers you have during this transition. A landmark randomized controlled trial published in the journal Menopause (Barnard et al., 2023) found that a whole-food, plant-based diet rich in soy reduced total hot flash frequency by 78% over twelve weeks, with no hormone therapy. For context, that figure sits alongside, and in some measures surpasses, HRT in efficacy.
I’ve been plant-based since 2017. I didn’t do it for the hot flash data. I did it because my body asked me to. The research simply confirmed what I’d already felt.
Relaxation
Chronic stress elevates cortisol. During menopause, when estrogen is already in decline, sustained cortisol elevation amplifies every symptom you’re managing: disrupted sleep, mood instability, brain fog, weight changes. A 2024 meta-analysis of mind-body practices in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, published in Menopause, confirmed that relaxation-based interventions positively influence bone mineral density, sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and fatigue. Relaxation is not self-indulgence. It is, quite literally, physiological medicine.
Positive thinking
I’ll be honest. This was the pillar I once rolled my eyes at. But reframing how we interpret what’s happening to us has measurable effects. Research published in PubMed found that optimism-building practices reduce cortisol reactivity to acute stress, decrease worry, and increase positive affect. How you think about this transition shapes how you live it. The mind and body are not separate systems.
From six pillars to the B.L.I.S.S. Framework™
Eight years of practice, study, and coaching didn’t change what I believed in 2017. They deepened it.
Those six pillars became the foundation of the B.L.I.S.S. Framework™, the five-pillar methodology at the heart of everything I do with women in midlife:
B — Body & Breath Awareness · breath + conscious movement
L — Lifestyle & Liberation · nourishment + sustainable choices
I — Intuition & Inner Voice · meditation + learning to trust yourself again
S — Strength, Self-Worth & Support · the mindset work, the rebuilding
S — Stillness, Surrender & Spiritual Connection · relaxation + something deeper than rest
What I didn’t know in 2017 was that I hadn’t just found a yogic lifestyle. I’d found the architecture for a whole-person approach to midlife transformation.
The six pillars were always pointing here.
One practice to begin today
If you’re in perimenopause or menopause and the symptoms feel relentless, before anything else, try this:
Sit quietly for five minutes. Inhale for four counts. Hold for four. Exhale for six. Do this before you get out of bed in the morning. Even this small, consistent practice shifts the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic activation into rest, and that shift alone changes everything that comes after it.
Small. Consistent. Transformative. That’s where it starts.
If you’d like to go deeper, to work through the B.L.I.S.S. Framework™ in a structured, supported way, the BLISS Clarity Session is a good place to begin. A 30-minute free clarity call, designed to help you see clearly where you are and what becomes possible from here.
And before you go, I’d love to know: which of these six practices already lives somewhere in your body, and which one has been quietly calling you back?
Reply and tell me. I read and answer every one.
With love and steady flow from the Orange Bloom Homestead,
Luciana
Sources
Maharana, S. & Jayaprakash, M. (2023). Effect of Bhramari Pranayama on Menopausal Women. SBV Journal of Basic, Clinical and Applied Health Science, 6(4), 73–78. https://doi.org/10.5005/jp-journals-10082-03202
Liu, H., Cai, K., Wang, J. & Zhang, H. (2023). The effects of mindfulness-based interventions on anxiety, depression, stress, and mindfulness in menopausal women: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, 1045642. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1045642
Systematic review and meta-analysis of yoga interventions for menopause (2024): 24 studies, n=2,028. Published in Menopause (The Menopause Society).
Barnard, N.D., Kahleova, H., Holtz, D.N., Znayenko-Miller, T., Sutton, M., Holubkov, R., Zhao, X., Galandi, S. & Setchell, K.D.R. (2023). A dietary intervention for vasomotor symptoms of menopause: a randomised, controlled trial. Menopause, 30(1), 80–87. https://doi.org/10.1097/GME.0000000000002080
Meta-analysis of mind-body exercise in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women (2024). Menopause, published by The Menopause Society. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11465887/
Quoidbach, J. et al. (2020). Imagining a positive future reduces cortisol response to awakening and reactivity to acute stress. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32344176/
About the author
I’m Luciana, Master Life, Transformation & Mindset Coach, creator of the B.L.I.S.S. Framework™, and The BLISS Workbook Collection, for 360º transformation.
I work with women in midlife, around 40s and 50s, who are exhausted from spending years building careers, businesses and families. I help them reconnect with their purpose, reclaim their health, and finally feel like themselves again.
Originally from Brazil, I have lived across five countries and now write to you from the Orange Bloom Homestead in Portugal, surrounded by nature, only 40 minutes away from Lisbon. Here is also where I host personalized 1:1 immersive experiences for women searching for a sanctuary where they can start rewriting their story.
My work is about helping you remember who you are and building a life that actually feels like yours.
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