Handling menopause with grace can be tricky. The ability to laugh and put humor into it will go a long way toward getting you through an uncomfortable, but normal, life stage. Staying distracted, averting hot flashes and dizziness, reaching out to post-menopausal women, reading books on menopause, and more can help pull you through. If you’re in menopause and want to know how to handle it more gracefully, read on for tips and tricks.

Identifying Triggers

A big part of handling menopause with grace is learning how to identify things like a hot flash trigger. For many women, this could be as simple as avoiding direct sunlight. For others, it could be about diet or how much water they’ve had to drink. Spicy foods, caffeine, soy, and glutton can be triggers, too. Knowing triggers for night sweats, mood swings, and even hot flashes will help a lot.

Maybe you work full time as a teacher. Maybe you fear having a hot flash in the middle of a science lecture. If you know that standing too long in the same place is enough to give you a hot flash, change how you’re teaching. Move around the classroom during the lecture. Lecture from a chair or podium. Have ice water by your side while giving the lecture. These tiny tricks are a good idea for someone like you who’s identified triggers.

Maybe you sell home equity loans and spend your days talking to online lenders. If you’ve had trouble staying focused when talking about second mortgages, out of nowhere, take a deep breath and consider triggers. How much caffeine was in your coffee? Did you have sleep disturbances? Did you go out for spicy foods last night?

Staying Distracted

A big part of handling menopause gracefully is pretending that it’s not happening. It’s not something you can stop, so the best way to ignore minor symptoms is to get on with your regular life rather than fixating on side effects of something you can’t control. If your symptoms are mild, focus instead on other things like financing large home renovations or planning that big trip.

Maybe you suffer from night sweats but do okay with symptoms during the day. In taking your daytime hours while you’re free of menopause symptoms to focus on things like refinancing your car or working with the bank on your credit history, you’ll feel more productive and better about your overall situation, too. It may sound silly, but worrying about loan type, closing costs, loan options, or even unsecured personal loans, might be better than fixating on the severity of hot flashes.

Being productive during the day could indirectly help your menopause symptoms, too. If you aren’t up all night with insomnia worrying about competitive rates or a refinance loan, you’ll wake up more rested and better able to handle side effects of menopause.

Getting Educated

For as common and natural as it is, menopause isn’t something people talk about as much as they probably should. For this reason, it’s important that menopausal women do their homework. If you’re going through menopause, look for books that will teach you more about menopausal transition, vaginal dryness, medications, hormone replacement options, tips and tricks, and even the perks of this normal life stage. The more you know, the more control you’ll have over your moods and overall symptoms.

While most women aren’t exactly running to the store or internet for books on menopause, if you can find ways to see the humor in this awkward life phase, you’ll be better off. Reading up on hormone replacement, estrogen, hot flash triggers and a good time to call your doctor will be not only empowering but help you to manage symptoms more gracefully, too.

Asking for Support

If you’re suffering through sleep disturbance, waking up with night sweats or nausea, wondering if caffeine is a trigger, or more, don’t hesitate to reach out. Talk to postmenopausal women in your life. Contact your healthcare provider about things like hormone levels, symptoms of menopause you’re experiencing, if you need more estrogen, and more. You could also consider a support group if you’re really suffering and don’t want to feel alone. A good option for those who are new to menopause is having an understanding group of women around you who are going through this themselves.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing fun about a hot flash while you’re experiencing it. The ability to look back on a sticky situation later and laugh, though, will go a long way in helping with the bigger picture. Eventually, menopause will end, and the more gracefully you handle it now, the happier the memories will be later.