A healthy heart, strong bones, and a better chance for freedom from cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other debilitating and fatal illnesses are all persuasive reasons to start exercising at any time of life. But menopausal women have even more to gain from following a program of regular, sustained exercise. Physical activity has been shown to help tame many of the menopausal symptoms that women hate most, including insomnia, hot flashes, anxiety, and mood swings.

Getting You Through the Change

Women who adopt a regular exercise routine notice that besides the preventive effect on the diseases that start to come in middle age, it can also help reduce or alleviate some of the most troublesome of their menopause symptoms as well. Here's a closer look at some of the menopause symptom-management benefits of exercise:

• Exercise boosts your metabolism. As you exercise, your metabolism speeds up, and it remains elevated for a while even after you stop exercising. The more energetic and sustained your exercise, the longer the metabolic boost lasts. An elevated metabolism helps your body burn more calories, which can help you lose weight.

• Exercise may make you smarter. In research conducted at Duke University and reported in the January 2001 issue of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, regular exercise was shown to improve significantly the cognitive functions of individuals over the age of fifty. In the study, participants who completed thirty minutes of aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, bicycling) three times a week experienced significant improvements in cognitive functions such as memory, planning, organization, and intellectual multitasking.

• Exercise relieves depression. In the same Duke University study, researchers also found that the relatively modest exercise program gave participants significant relief from the symptoms of major depression. After sixteen weeks, researchers found that those participants who practiced the regular exercise program had the same level of symptom relief as did those taking antidepressant drugs.

• Exercise helps you sleep. Countless studies have shown that participating in a regular exercise program can help women go to sleep more quickly and experience fewer sleep interruptions. (Don't exercise right before going to bed, however; exercise leaves you feeling pumped up and can make it difficult to fall asleep right away.)

• Exercise — both aerobic and strength training — has been shown to decrease hot flashes by as much as 55 percent.

• Exercise improves your endurance and makes you feel like moving. Regular exercise strengthens muscles, builds endurance, and improves joint mobility and stability, enabling you to remain active and engaged in life.

Fitness as Menopause Therapy

Maintaining fitness is the most important component of your menopause management plan. Whether you intend to use hormone therapy or an alternative therapy, whether you have special risk factors for specific diseases or no personal or genetic-based risks, whether you experience all or none of the physical and emotional symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, staying fit is critical now and for the remaining years of your life. If you remain strong, active, and well nourished, you will experience fewer symptoms. You'll have greater resistance to any illness or disease, and you'll progress faster and more successfully through treatments for any condition that does develop.

But what does “fitness” mean? According to the American Physical Therapy Association, “a person who is physically fit has a properly aligned body structure; flexible and strong muscles; an efficient heart and healthy lungs; a good ratio of body fat to lean body mass; and good balance.” Obviously, this will be different for every woman due to the vast differences in individuals' genetic makeup. Heredity also plays a role in how individuals respond to exercise. But your heavy parents or grandparents have not doomed you to being physically out of shape or unresponsive to exercise.

Fitness is based on the following six factors:

• Cardio-respiratory performance or aerobic endurance

• Muscular strength and endurance

• Flexibility

• Body composition — the amount of body fat and its distribution

• Bone density and strength

• Metabolic balance (how the body metabolizes glucose and insulin, blood lipid levels, and other metabolic actions)