All young girls meet puberty, the onset of periods and most of them pass through this period with out having any problems. But some other young girls meet a series of problems in this period of adolescent and the psychologist would call it as a life stress.

In the same way all normal women who live long life experience the menopause (cessation of monthly periods completely or fully).surgical menopause occurs in some women before they reach the natural menopause. This is done by removal of uterus or even with ovaries by surgical measures and it is called hysterectomy. The menopause is considered to be life stress. And everyone’s response is not the same and it varies from individuals. About 25 percent of women hardly notice that they have had a menopause at all; another 25 per cent women experiences severe symptoms that leads to have a visit to the doctor. But the rest of the women have only moderate symptoms for a shorter time. But they do not have any severe symptoms to approach a general practitioner.

The human history reveals that average life span of women was only 23 years in the period of Roman Empire. It was then up to 30 and even during the Victorian times it was only 45 years. Now usually the menopause (which is now strictly speaking only refers to the time of the last period) occurs at the age of about 50 years. Almost most of the women belonging to previous era avoided any distress related to the loss of periods and it was only because of the reason that they died earlier and their life span was much shortened one. But, now about 95 per cent of the women experience the menopause and their life expectancy is at least 75 years. Hence, most women therefore will live one-third of their lives after the menopause, when their ability to have babies is gone and the hormones that were present to help with this are reduced. This may produce a series of debilitating symptoms in some women.

When a woman does not able to release any more eggs and fail to produce enough hormones (oestrogen and progesterone and a small quantity of male hormone testosterone to stimulate the endometrium( the lining of the womb is called the endometrium), then naturally the menopause occurs. Before the stage of menopause, this lining thickens once a month and it prepare itself to receive a fertilized egg and finally the egg is implanted. Thus it supports the fertilized egg and allows growing in to a baby. And if no implantation occurs, then the endometrium prepares itself to shed and it is called the monthly period. Whereas during menopause, there is nothing to shed each month and therefore periods cease.

The climacteric describes the longer time from the beginning of the decline in the activity of the ovaries. This goes on for several years before the last period, and the symptoms it produces may last for many years thereafter. It is not uncommon for some patients attending menopause clinics to describe their 80 years old mothers as still complaining of hot flushes. This is the extreme, as only about a quarter of women have these sorts of severe symptoms and they rarely persist so long.

It is not possible to know when your menopause is due, as it cannot be diagnosed until you have actually lived through the time of the last period and then you can look back to this event. In fact, medically the menopause cannot be confirmed until you have had no periods for at least a year.

Theoretically the menopause should be advantageous to you, since everything in nature is said to have its purpose. Most women agree that the menopause is a welcome relief from periods and fertility and it certainly eliminates the very real hazards of having a baby late in life. Most men can father children successfully until very old age, and the only practical hazard is that the father may be quite elderly when the baby is born and the child will be unlikely to have him as a father when he starts school. Whereas, if women try to reproduce after the age of 40, they find they are more likely to produce abnormal babies (such as those with mongolism, Down’s syndrome) than younger women.

By the time women reach the menopause, they have usually brought up their children and are then at a stage when they can pass on their acquired wisdom and skills and be respected for this knowledge. Since it is women who usually care for children, the menopause ensures that children are born only to those women most likely to live long enough to rear them.

There are then good biological reasons for having a menopause but, in the middle of hot sweats and insomnia, increasing irritability and depression, it might be difficult for you to acknowledge these good points. Your husband and others close to you also suffer, making the menopause a family problem. It can also be very difficult to handle because it is mostly tied up with ageing in as society where youth is stressed, and you may feel a great lack of support or that you have become less attractive.