But for Karen Strong, 56, hitting the court is a year-round habit – one that’s changed the way she manages her menopausal symptoms
How I get fit done
Tennis season is in full swing.
Imagine walking on to a tennis court, picking up a racket and emptying all your worries out of your brain and into a ball. Now, imagine that your worries stay there until your session ends. That’s how playing tennis makes me feel. It’s a meditative, almost ritualistic experience. And my mood isn’t the only part of my health that my weekly sessions have served.
I’ve always loved team sports. As a child, I played tennis before moving on to netball in my teens, even playing for a club. I loved it but left when I fell pregnant with my first child at 24. I went on to have two more children and, with limited time to exercise, I had to swap team sports for classes I could fit in when I could; first aerobics, later salsa. That is until 2020, when my life was upended –and the pandemic was only part of the story.
When my GP told me I was menopausal, I wasn’t surprised; besides the hot flushes, I’d been feeling lethargic and had a period that was near constant. Now with a prescription for HRT, I felt positive I’d begin to feel better. I hadn’t considered how much my exercise habits had changed, though – the only movement I was getting was my daily walk. I could have signed up to online classes, but without the accountability of a teacher and classmates, I didn’t feel motivated. The HRT helped somewhat, but my symptoms persisted.
Reluctant to waste the NHS’s time when people were dying, I waited until a year later, when restrictions had eased, before booking an appointment. It was only then that a different GP told me that aerobic exercise and HRT should have been prescribed together. Doing this, she explained, can have more of an impact on your symptoms, according to research*.
Wimbledon was well under way, and watching it every day, I recalled how much I��
