Is Yoga Good for Fatigue During Perimenopause?
Perimenopausal fatigue can be exhausting and persistent. Find out how yoga helps restore energy, regulate your nervous system, and reduce the tiredness that comes with hormonal change.
Why Fatigue Hits So Hard in Perimenopause
Fatigue during perimenopause is not ordinary tiredness. It tends to be deep and persistent, not fixed by a good night's sleep. Disrupted sleep from night sweats, fluctuating oestrogen, increased cortisol, and blood sugar instability all contribute. Many women describe feeling wired but exhausted, or completely drained with no clear reason. Understanding this helps explain why yoga, which works on the nervous system as much as the body, is such a useful tool.
How Yoga Supports Energy Levels
Yoga does not boost energy the way caffeine does. Instead, it helps restore the body's natural energy regulation by calming the overactivated stress response. When cortisol stays chronically high, energy crashes follow. Regular yoga practice, especially styles that include breathwork and relaxation, bring cortisol down over time. This means your energy becomes more stable and predictable across the day rather than peaking and crashing.
Restorative Yoga Is Particularly Effective
When you are exhausted, vigorous exercise can actually worsen fatigue by adding more physiological stress to an already overloaded system. Restorative yoga takes the opposite approach. Supported poses held for several minutes activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-repair mode your body needs. A 30-minute restorative session can leave you feeling genuinely refreshed rather than depleted, making it ideal on low-energy days.
Gentle Flow for Better Sleep
Poor sleep is one of the biggest drivers of perimenopausal fatigue, and yoga consistently shows up in research as a helpful sleep aid. A gentle evening yoga routine, even 15 to 20 minutes, signals to the nervous system that the day is winding down. Poses like legs up the wall, supine twists, and child's pose combined with slow breathing can reduce the cortisol spike that often prevents women from falling asleep or staying asleep.
Tips for Practising When You Have No Energy
The challenge with fatigue is finding motivation to exercise at all. Start small. Even a 10-minute seated or lying-down practice counts. Keep a yoga mat visible and accessible so the barrier to starting is as low as possible. Try to practise at the same time each day to build a habit. If you notice your energy levels changing after sessions, logging that in a symptom tracker can help you see the cumulative benefit over time.
Knowing When to Go Beyond Yoga
If fatigue is severe and affecting daily function, yoga alone may not be enough. Anaemia, thyroid problems, and sleep apnoea are all worth ruling out with your GP. HRT can also significantly reduce fatigue for many women by stabilising the hormonal swings that disrupt sleep and energy. Yoga works best as part of a broader approach to your health, not as a standalone fix for severe symptoms.
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