The Role of Physical Activity in Managing an Underactive Thyroid: A Guide for the Perimenopausal Woman
Hey there!! If you're going through perimenopause and struggling with your thyroid health or maybe you know you’re just not feeling right, fatigued, irritable, experiencing weight gain and maybe even hair fall, you might be wondering about some of the best ways you can manage or even improve your condition.
Today, we're diving into how physical activity can be a key player in your health strategy.
Why Physical Activity Matters for improving your thyroid health, which in turn improves your overall health including your perimeno journey!
For those dealing with an underactive thyroid, staying active isn't just about keeping fit, it's about managing your symptoms and enhancing your overall health. Physical activity can improve thyroid health by reducing inflammation, improving blood sugar control, improving blood flow for reducing pain as well as increasing muscle mass for better thyroid hormone production. In turn, building muscle mass improves perimenopause by helping to manage our blood sugar better leading to less mood fluctuations, better energy and improved metabolism.
Best Types of Physical Activities for the perimenopausal woman with an underactive thyroid
Activity 1: Brisk walking
Why It’s Beneficial: It helps to reduce inflammation and metabolise cortisol, two large drivers of thyroid dysfunction and reasons why we become unstable during perimeno and meno! Even brisk daily walking helps to begin supporting muscle tone and mass, an area of important thyroid hormone conversion. It’s also an excellent way to start building an exercise habit. Further to this, when you’re starting your low thyroid function recovery journey, you often find you’re exhausted easily, so not overdoing it is crucial.
How to Get Started: If you’re not in an exercise routine, it can be hard to start. I often suggest committing to just daily brisk walking around the block. Usually we feel like doing more once we get started, but know you don’t have to right now. Right now we want to make a daily habit and carve out time that is going to work for us.
Activity 2: Resistance exercise
Why It’s Beneficial: Getting serious about working on muscle mass and function is excellent for thyroid health. I don’t mean you have to become a gym junkie! I mean we need to start actually supporting muscle health, mass and function to get that added benefit of T4 to T3 thyroid hormone conversion. Further to this, as muscle cells grow, you’re also increasing your number of mitochondria! Mitochondria are the powerhouses of every cell and our body. Given there’s usually a lot of fatigue with an underactive thyroid as well as perimenopause, boosting mitochondria numbers is important.
How to Get Started: There’s so many different ways to work on your muscle tone other than just lifting weights at the gym if that’s not your thing! Join a pilates class and build up to reformer pilates. Stream an aerobic session using small weights or any type of class online for free or paid from home, use small weights while walking, use some body weight resistance exercises EG squats, pushups, crunches, starting low and building up intensity.
Activity 3: Any form of low to moderate intensity activity right now, on the daily, is a great place to start your physical activity journey
Why It’s Beneficial: Movement gets the blood flowing which delivers oxygen and nutrients around the body, all helping to reduce a key complaint of low thyroid function - fatigue. If your muscle mass is too low, you’re making too little energy for your body, let alone missing a key area to improve active thyroid hormone production!
How to Get Started: Yoga, Tai Chi, gentle hill walks
Managing an underactive thyroid during your perimenopausal years can feel impossible. We’re so busy, usually running a household, a family and trying to work ourselves. But please know that even small amounts of more activity daily then you’re doing right now can make a difference. Once you build that habit in, all that’s left is to keep building on it as you get stronger, feel fitter and have more energy. Incorporating the right kinds of physical activities into your routine is the best place to start. Remember, the key is consistency and finding the right balance that works for you.
There’s loads more you can do to further support building muscle tone, improving energy and managing your thyroid and hormones back to health!
Get in touch!
Tash xx
