← Oxford Brookes Unscripted
Oxford Brookes Unscripted
Moving Through Menopause: How Exercise Supports Health, Confidence and Community
00:46:26
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Oxford Brookes Unscripted, the podcast where we dive into the stories, discoveries, and people behind the research at Oxford brookes university. I'm Dr. Ellie beaman, public and community engagement Coordinator here at Brookes, and today I'm joined by Dr. Anne Dell, Extra, senior Lecturer in Sport and exercise science, and Dr. Adam Beerbe, Associate professor of Sport and Exercise psychology. Together, Anne and Adam are exploring how exercise can support women through the menopause. From Zumba goal classes that boost strength, mood, and social connection to workplace programs that make movement part of everyday life, we'll be talking about how their research is helping women to navigate this stage of life with confidence, community, and energy.
- [00:48]
B
Hello, Anne and Adam, thank you for joining us today. It's lovely to have you here.
- [00:52]
C
Hi.
- [00:53]
D
Morning. Hiya.
- [00:55]
B
Good morning. Brilliant. Okay, so let's start by hearing a little bit about yourselves. Anne, I'd love you to go first, please.
- [01:03]
C
Yeah, sure. I'm an exercise physiologist and I work as a senior lecturer here at Brookes, and my background is exercise physiology, as I said, and my research was previously on physiological adaptations to training and prevention of sports injuries. And more recently, maybe in the last three to four years, I'm moving to public health and I'm working on a menopause now and the effect of exercise
- [01:29]
B
on menopause, an incredibly important topic. Thank you, Ann. That's brilliant. Welcome. And Adam, let's hear from you.
- [01:37]
D
Yeah, hi. So I'm a charter psychologist, have a background in psychophysiology, particularly looking at stress and cardiovascular reactivity. So my work in terms of being a psychologist, supplements and physiology background, which we'll hear a lot more about a little bit later on.
- [02:00]
B
Thank you, Adam. I can see this is a beautiful pairing and the work is just going to complement each other so well. So to start off, can you tell us a little bit about the research and what got you interested in studying exercise and menopause? Anne, let's. Let's jump straight to you.
- [02:17]
C
Sure. So, as I said, I move into public health probably because when you look at the media and you listen to the radio, there's a lot more talk about the menopause. It used to be a bit of a taboo, I think, and people were not talking about it. So I think I got into it and thinking, oh, that's something maybe to do and to help women going through that phase. And in terms of exercise and public health, I had done a little bit on younger individuals to increase confidence and maybe remove some symptoms you can have when you're a Teenager or people who have mental health issues, but on the physiological side. And I worked on Zumba, which is something we will talk about later, but I thought this population would be really interesting because of the greater awareness and then at the same time, like it's a coincidence. But Maxine Fletcher from the menopause group at Brookes Here contacted us to say she wanted to do a bit more into exercise, because she's a psychologist and they were doing something on, I think, mental health and other aspects of life, but she said the exercise one is missing, so she wanted to look at that. So it was a really good coincidence. And then we started working together.
- [03:30]
B
Yes, because, I mean, mental health and exercise are absolutely natural partners, aren't they? And then, as you said, bringing in menopause, which has been traditionally such a taboo topic. And I love that Brookes, we have this, this forum now where it's being so much more talked about. That's really wonderful and important. Adam, did you want to mention anything in this point?
- [03:53]
D
Yes, again, as I said, I mean, from a psychologist background, with a bit more kind of mixed methods research, I see the benefit of exercise per se, and obviously menopause can present certain challenges. So obviously you wanted to marry up the two and see if actually exercise could be really beneficial in that area as well.
- [04:17]
B
Brilliant, Brilliant. So, for listeners who might not know what is menopause, why can it be so challenging for women? As you said, it's a taboo topic. I feel like there's not a lot of literature out there that is for public consumption, to get everyone to understand what's happening.
- [04:39]
C
So if you look at the definition of the menopause is the natural hand to a woman's reproductive years and is marked by the permanent stopping of the menstruations. And this is due to the decrease of two hormones. So the main one is estrogen and the other one is progesterone. So that's physiologically what it is in terms of age. It occurs between the age of 45 and 55. I think the average age in the UK is 51 years old, but people don't really understand that it could happen a lot before for women who have surgery. So it's called the surgical menopause. If for some reason the ovaries have to be taken out or any other reproductive organs, then your menopause could happen as early as 30 years old or even earlier. And that's something people don't know at all. It can lead to a lot of potential issues, social issues, in people not knowing someone is going through the menopause. So why is it so hard? Again, physiologically, when estrogen decreases, it affects your menstruations, but a lot of other things, and you'd be really surprised to see, holy oil. The aspects that estrogen is responsible for. So you can take like two examples. One of them is with your bone mineral density, so how strong your bones are. Estrogen has some receptors in the bones that make you build bone tissue. And when estrogen is not here, obviously, well, your bone tissue decreases, and then it can lead to what we know as osteoporosis. So a decreased bone mineral density, which happens usually later in life, but it starts around the age of 50 years old. And on the mental health side, estrogen also maintains your mental health because it influences some neurotransmitter. So people have heard probably of serotonin or dopamine, which are your happy neurotransmitters. So when you decrease this, then it creates potentially some anxiety, potentially depression symptoms around that age as well.
- [06:34]
B
Oh, my gosh. It affects so much. And this is just something that wasn't being talked about. And all this horrible stuff is happening. That's really frightening, isn't it? Oh, my gosh. Okay, so this is amazing. Now that we're talking about it, we're looking at an intervention. So why is exercise an important factor to look at for women going through the menopause? Adam, I feel this would be great for you to jump in.
- [06:58]
D
Yeah. So as I kind of alluded to, exercise by itself has many benefits. So looking at relatedness of been in a similar space sharing same experiences, we know that exercise per se can increase bone density. They're one of the aspects which alluded to a little moment ago. And also, exercise can release endorphins. So linking back to what I mentioned, obviously there's a lot of things there which is going to address what happens during the menopause. In terms of our actual research, there is research out there which does demonstrate that exercise is beneficial for the menopause. However, there are kind of limitations or areas of research which are limited. And that's where we've kind of focused our own research, Particularly looking at individuals from lower socioeconomic statuses and also looking at the workplace based interventions as well.
- [08:02]
B
Very good. Very exciting. I mean, workplace interventions work, helping you out with your mental health. That is absolutely what it should be doing. Okay, so one of your recent studies focuses on Zumba Gold classes for postmenopausal women for those unfamiliar. What is Zumba Gold? I mean, tell us Anne, I'd love to hear.
- [08:24]
C
Oh, that's an amazing workout. Everyone is making fun of me when I talk about Zumba and Zumba Gold, but I love it. So Zumba people know about Zumba because he's been here for at least 20 something years. So it's Latin American music, basically a mix of fitness and dance moves such as tango, merengue, salsa, these type of things, but a bit higher rhythm. So it's a fitness class. It still is quite demanding, but the, the fun bit is the Latin American music. So that's Zumba. And then the Zumba company created Zumba Gold for people over 50 years old. That's the definition, which is the same, but less intense, maybe a bit less jumping, a bit less squatting, easier on the joints and higher, lower intensity to make sure everyone can do it. And there are people in their 80s who are doing Zumba Gold because I've been to classes. So it is a really fun workout, but still a workout which makes you fitter.
- [09:24]
B
I mean, it sounds awesome.
- [09:26]
C
You should try. I mean, you should assume that maybe not Zumba goals.
- [09:30]
B
Not quite yet. I mean, I love that it's kind of low impact. It's kind of taking into account, well, why can't women still partake in something that's really fun and is a social thing? It's great for your mind, for your body. Why not adapt it so everyone can take part in this? It sounds brilliant. So you worked with women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in the study. Why was this an important group to focus on? Adam, please do come in here.
- [09:58]
D
Sure. So, as I've kind of alluded to before, it's one of the areas that was understudied in terms of this particular population. Obviously you want to reach out to these populations who maybe aren't part of the mainstream research. Also looking specifically at that population of individuals, there might be caring responsibilities, there might be potentially financial constraints, there might even be health kind of concerns that come along with that as well. So we really wanted to do that. And obviously looking at the local environment in Oxford as well, we want to give back to the community.
- [10:37]
B
So important. I mean, I would say that's quite across the board for the Brookes research. We are very much embedded in our community and I love that we are able to, to help those that are a part of Oxfordshire. For those that want to know more and that they would be interested in this research, is there a place that we can send them if they want to? If they're in Oxfordshire, how do they find out more about this and how can they get involved.
- [11:11]
C
In terms of doing zumbagod or in terms of finding out about our research?
- [11:15]
B
Well, both, but I'm definitely thinking Zumba Gold.
- [11:17]
C
Oh, Zumba gold. So it's very easy. If you put Zumba gold classes on Google, then you'll find in your area, you can put your postcode and then you've got your, like a whole geographic thing. So there's some, from what I know in Oxford. There's probably 10 classes in Oxford, so there's some in Barton, some in Central Oxford, Ifley, Rose Hill, from the ones I know, and there's plenty of others. Ifley. Did I say Ifley?
- [11:41]
B
I can't remember.
- [11:43]
C
So, yeah, a lot of classes. It's actually more common than people think. And for the research, I think later we can mention the link. We got a link to send for our paper.
- [11:53]
B
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Anne. So it sounds to me like everyone should be getting involved with this. It sounds brilliant. And it's just on the doorstep, so please do check it out. So what are some of the main benefits you found from the program, both physically and mentally? Anne, I'll come back to you today. Start with.
- [12:09]
C
Yeah, so on. On the physical aspect, we did. So the program was 12 weeks long. We did some tests just before and immediately after the program, and we looked at a lot of things. So we found improvement in muscle mass. So people. Women were getting stronger, obviously, and then that translated into a greater performance in terms of lower body strength. We did a test to assess that as well as better endurance. We did a walking test and we looked at the distance covered and the distance covered after the study was greater, which is really good in terms of daily life. It means you could walk faster, maybe walk longer if you go on a walk or even going to the shops, you know, like you'd feel less out of breath. I guess that'd be the sort of translated benefits of our tests. So that was the main physical aspects.
- [12:57]
D
And then, yeah, in terms of the psychological outcomes. So we did a range of questionnaires and these were pre and post. Um, and we also had a control group as well, which allows us a little bit more. We can claim that the benefits of the class per se, if we have a control group who didn't actually engage in the Zumba. So some of the main outcomes for that. We saw a significant improvement in mental health in the Zumba group, but not in the control group. And we also saw a significant reduction in fatigue in the Zumba. Only groups that was general fatigue, physical fatigue and also mental fatigue as well. Looking at motivation to exercise, there is a concept called amotivation which essentially means no motivation. And we saw that this was a reduction in the Zumba only group. So essentially that individuals who had little or no motivation actually reduce feelings of that in the Zumba group. So it's a kind of a positive direction for motivational improvement. We also saw significant improvements in social connectedness too. And that's obviously something which we also picked up when we actually spoke to the individuals in the study. So alongside doing the questionnaires, we also did some semi structured interviews and we asked how was the, how were the classes. We asked about logistical challenges and we got kind of four key themes that came out of that. So the first one was belonging. So kind of building those friendships, being in a shared space. We also had a non judgmental space as well. So people spoke about having a more positive body image. They also spoke about mistakes being allowed. So I'm sure if I was to do Zumba gold, there would be a lot of mistakes. So I think that is the crux of these classes is that mistakes are fine. It's not about a performance, it's just about engagement. You also saw a positive influence on psychological aspects as well. So people felt more confident, they generally felt happier. And also that mind body connection, so felt as though coordination improved from the actual dance moves itself and also improved energy levels too.
- [15:24]
B
I mean it's just incredible when you're laying out all the positives from the intervention. It's had such an impact. I mean, is that something you were expecting?
- [15:35]
D
I think Anne might agree with that. He engages with it.
- [15:39]
C
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I think for, for personally I didn't expect that many improvements and I sort of. The improvements that happened don't surprise me, but I didn't expect that many. So it's really good. I'm really happy. But that's sort of what I feel when I do Zumba. But I didn't know everyone else or most people would feel the same. So that's, that's great.
- [16:00]
B
Incredible. Incredible. I mean it's making me want to try Zumba. You also spoke directly with participants like Adam just said, which is brilliant. What did they tell you about their experiences in their own words? Adam, I'd love to hear some of these because I'm feeling they're going to be amazing.
- [16:17]
D
Yeah, sure. So as I spoke about kind of belonging, so one individual said a new community, like a therapy space. So obviously they develop that community within the actual Zumba classes themselves. One individual alluded to happiness. So the quote was, it makes you happy, right? Exercise is like an antidepressant. And then also which is really great is that tended to have a lasting impact. So a further quote was feeling good factor lasts into the evening.
- [16:52]
B
I mean that's insane, isn't it? It's sounding almost like a cure, A cure for life. Everyone needs to take part in exercise because it has so many positives. Incredible. Anne, is there anything you'd like to bring in there?
- [17:10]
C
Yeah, I guess I had a lot of chats with these women because my student was collecting the data. So I was there almost for every testing session. And it's interesting to talk to them outside when they just finish. And a lot of them were going for coffee actually after a class and not knowing people in the class. So a new person would come and say, oh, do you want to go for coffee with us? Three of them were going for coffee because usually those classes are in leisure centers. So there's usually a coffee place not far. So that was really good, I thought. And because you go with a group, you don't feel like you're. Even if you're new, you don't feel like outside a big group of people, you just have exercise with them. And the other fun thing is they were saying about the non judgmental place, they were saying if they got the steps wrong, they were actually all laughing about it, including the instructor. The instructor would get steps wrong sometimes, but I remember this woman bumping into another one while she was doing the steps the wrong way and they both like started laughing. No one said, oh, you know, it doesn't look great. And then they carried on. I think the instructor got it wrong a few times as well and were laughing, oh, sorry, you're doing it right. I got it wrong. And it's all a really nice atmosphere and people laugh about their mistakes if you want. So it's quite, it's really fun, really fun.
- [18:16]
B
That sounds incredible. That social element feels so instrumental to helping both the cohort that I suppose are in the same life point and perhaps going through the same things, having that real safe space where you can just engage in something that might not be your cup of tea, you know, you don't think exercise is for you especially I think in women and girls it has always been quite, quite difficult to get into exercise. So I think this feels like a great environment to be able to do that and have like minded people. So you also ran the study in workplaces, which is blowing my mind Giving women the chance to exercise during the workday, which I think we should all be doing. What did that look like in practice? Ann, please do tell us.
- [19:06]
C
All right, so I'm going to tell you from the beginning, it was actually quite difficult to put into place. But now that I've done it once, it will be easier to do it again. In terms of logistics, we had to send a survey to all staff at Brookes saying, if you're in this age group or if you've experienced the menopause, would you be interested to take part? First question, and then what activities would you do? And a lot of questions about what they would prefer. So we did that and we had a lot of answers. I think. Well, when I say a lot, about 100, I think had an answer saying, potentially I'd be interested. Then from their preferences in terms of activities and our knowledge of the benefits, we chose four activities, which I'm going to tell you in a minute. But when we chose the activities and then we had to pick a day and a time, obviously to. To them with the instructors, it was a lot of communication. Then we lost three quarters of our participants just because either they were not free on that day, they were not on campus, they didn't like the activity that we had chosen for them, even if it was the majority. So that was that. Then we had about, at the end, 28 participants, which is, you know, enough to do a study. And then we had to approach the line managers to say, are we okay to take them out of their workforce? But we said three hours. I'll explain the three hours later, which was really good because like 99% of them approved, which is great. But it could have been that they said no. And we would have to say, actually it's their choice. And then the study was the following. The exercise was done in a normal week doing work time. So not lunch break, not early morning, not evening. And we selected four days. So on the Monday morning, they had the body conditioning class, which is weight with music, whole body weight with music. On the Tuesday they had Zumba Gold. Obviously I had to squeeze that in. On the Thursday, they had Pilates. In the afternoons, we had two mornings. Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Thursday afternoon, Pilates, and Friday morning again, I think we had HIIT training, high intensity interval training. So they had to pick two of those classes they could change every week if their timetable changed and they couldn't attend one. And that was for a duration of 12 weeks. And in addition, we gave them a free gym membership at Brookes. So they could exercise in their own time. And we advised to try to do two additional sessions. So that was two sessions as part, like with the instructor, plus potentially two sessions. But we asked them to keep a record of it, as in a diary, to say, this week I couldn't do those two sessions in the gym, I did something else or I did nothing. And then we recorded what they did. So what we asked the line managers is because the sessions in the classes were two hours long in total, so one hour each day. But you have to take into account maybe preparing, walking to the venue, showering, doing your hair and your makeup, et cetera. We asked for three hours of their time to do that and we did some tests before and after to check similarly to the other study. Would there be any benefits of that? So it was quite a big study, quite long to put in place, but really satisfying when it actually works.
- [22:19]
B
And so brilliant to hear that the line managers were positive about it, that so many people were interested that they wanted to take this time out of their workday. I imagine they went back to work feeling a bit more excited to get going and doing something feeling a bit more uplifted. I can see it being fabulous and I think we need to. I want to be part of this. Can we run it again? How did employers and workplaces respond to this idea? Because I imagine it's taking away from work time.
- [22:50]
C
Right.
- [22:51]
B
So Adam, please tell us.
- [22:53]
D
Yeah, sure. So, as I mentioned, actually the line manager is brilliant. We only conducted it at Brookes and we'll allude a little bit later on in terms of our future plans of taking it elsewhere. But. But yeah, fantastic that they gave individuals the opportunity to actually take time out of the work day. And as you kind of alluded to earlier, the benefits of that. Classes then actually went into their, their work days. And we'll, we'll talk about that a little bit later on when we talk about the actual results. One thing that would be really interesting, particularly if we try to upscale these projects, is to actually get the views of the line managers post intervention. So did they notice any changes in their employees when they came back to the workplace to really kind of get the different stakeholders views of the benefits of the actual program itself?
- [23:52]
B
Yeah, I can see that would be incredibly important because it just makes sense, doesn't it, that doing something like this, most likely with people that you work with, would just be such an amazing bonding opportunity and you could just see how that would lead to so much better working environment. But it'd be great to like actually get the data on that for sure. What kinds of improvements did you see for women who took part both in their health and their day to day lives at work? I mean, I can already imagine, Anne, that this is going to be good stuff, but tell us what happened.
- [24:27]
C
Yeah, so I'm going to talk about the physical side and then Adam will talk about the psychological side. So quite similar improvements to the other study if you think about it. So we didn't show anything in terms of muscle mass, but we had an improvement in the lower limb strength or lower body strength with the same test, again, an improvement in the endurance. So the walking test was better. So that's good to see that it's a consistent result when you do some exercise for 12 weeks. And in this group we found a decrease in body fat as well. So I guess they were exercising more than the other group who was doing one or two Zumba sessions. This one is four hours a week potentially. So decrease in body fat, which is really good for women around the menopause, is something that we hear quite often, I want to lose weight, you start accumulating fat around your hips, et cetera. So that's always something nice. And the last thing on the physical side was we did a questionnaire for the menopause symptoms. So the menopause symptoms can be classified into three categories. The first category is called Somato vegetative. It's something like the hot flushes, for example, or the sleeping problems. So that got better. I'm not sure what aspect exactly, but this family of symptoms got better. Another category of symptoms is called urogenital, which is all the vaginal dryness and things like that that the women might be experiencing, together with bladder problems that went down as well. And the last category is psychological symptom, which is mood related. And this one did not change. I expect you would need probably a longer duration and there might be things outside of the exercise session maybe going on in people's lives that could actually be quite strong and not, you know, not be able to be corrected. If you want, by exercise in 12 weeks, you might need a longer period, but I'm not sure.
- [26:19]
B
That's incredibly interesting, isn't it, that the muscle mass didn't increase in this particular cohort, perhaps relating to the variety of different exercises that were on offer in this program. Is that something that you are looking further into?
- [26:36]
C
So we're looking into that exactly. Because we have Pilates, which is not necessarily very intense. We had Zumbagold, which again is low impact. But Another reason why maybe this didn't happen is when you recruit participants for exercise, you need to be careful about your recruitment bias. So you may be able to recruit people who are quite active anyway and say, oh, I want to do more exercise. So I think these women in our group were quite active to start with. And when you're more active and you do exercise, it's a bit harder to increase your muscle mass because it's already high enough if you think about it. So a single job for the next study will be to look at those people who don't want to exercise and force them into coming to our program. Not force them, you know, motivate them to go, to encourage them. Yes, encourage them to go to our program because I think the benefits will be greater for them. Actually.
- [27:23]
B
That's incredibly interesting. Thank you for sharing that, Anne. Adam. So I will move over to you. What were the benefits, psychologically speaking?
- [27:31]
D
Sure. So as we kind of mentioned with the December Gold group, we also saw an improvement in motivation in these individuals as well. In particular, we saw that their motivation became more intrinsic. So essentially means that we're not kind of motivated through guilt of not going to exercise classes or other external reasons. So intrinsic motivation is seen as one of the better forms of motivation. So you go because you enjoy it, you want to learn more about it, and that is often a lot more enduring. So even post classes people might feel more intrinsic motivation towards exercise. And that is actually something that we saw. So we did a questionnaire around general physical activity levels at baseline and at follow up and what we saw in the group as a natural significant increase in the amount of physical activity. So really good in terms of not just the classes increasing the physical activity, but also them potentially having a transferable effect to time outside of the classes where people will do more movement as well. Other kind of questionnaires that we saw an improvement with despite on the menopause symptoms, not seeing an improvement in mood, we did see a significant improvement in mental health. So again, it's kind of offering some benefits in terms of that kind of sphere as well. Likewise to Zumba study, we also did some qualitative semi structured interviews and again some crossover with the previous study. So we saw obviously very specific ones to this study. So we had some responses around kind of positive work culture. So people enjoyed the fact that it was organized by work, it was supportive, it was flexible, there was support from the line manager. And also as you alluded to earlier before Ellie, it was seen to improve work performance. So I've Got a couple of quotes and we'll go through these in turn. So one of the quotes was because I feel like I came out with more positive attitudes, a more positive attitude towards exercising. It made me feel really good and got on with my work a lot better. So hopefully that gives some substance to line manager support as well. If you're returning back to your office, delivering lectures to students or working in non academic roles, obviously increasing productivity is great. We also asked about kind of physiological outcomes and again we saw physical benefits. And also one which was really interesting was around coping with pain. So again, another participant mentioned, I noticed less pain going to the classes. I know that's what has helped. So fantastic in terms of the physical outcomes. Additionally, we saw improvements in psychological outcomes. So speaking about human connection, confident growth, also relatability. So again, one of the quotes from the individuals was I was speaking to my other colleagues about it. So it kind of opened up conversations about exercise and menopause. And then the final theme that we found was kind of, we asked about improvements and growth for the, for the actual project itself. Some of the individuals mentioned green space. So although we offered a range of different types of exercise classes, they're predominantly conducted indoors. So again, moving forwards, we could potentially consider outdoor space and getting the benefits of being outside as well. Individuals really appreciated the protected time and also tailored one to one to the individual. So as we've mentioned before, mistakes are fine, it's okay. And then again, just a final quote, they tailored it to each thing that we had to do. They were saying this to us. You can do it this way, this way, this way or this way, depending on how we wanted to do it, how advanced we were and how fit we were. So hopefully that kind of reduces any barriers that people might feel about taking the next step to do exercise is that it's really important to ensure these classes are tailored to the individuals themselves.
- [32:07]
B
That's wonderful. It sounds like it took away a lot of anxieties about doing something like this. And the comment around it felt less pain for me. That's incredibly surprising when you just said it. But then I thought about it and I was like, you know what? Yes. Because you're changing your whole perspective. Everything seems a bit lighter and happier and it just sounds like such a boon. Were there any other, other surprises in the results that you didn't expect? I will throw that out to anyone.
- [32:39]
C
I guess my main surprise is not to do with the benefits, but at the end of the study we just ask. And also as part of the results we asked the women to say, what's your favorite exercise from the four classes? And I was expecting that they would say Pilates or maybe Zumba because it's a bit low impact and easier. But they actually chose the hardest class, which is the body conditioning, the weights class. And I was very surprised by it. And they asked me to put up a class after the study. They said, could you organize a class for us in lunchtime because it was easier outside the study. And that class has been Running now for 18 months. Every Thursday, lunchtime at half, no quarter past 12, until 1. If you're a menopausal, if you're listening to this podcast and you work at Brookes, you can join the class. It's in the strength and conditioning suite in the sports center. And they do that. And there's about 20 women every week. And that was, for me, that was the most surprising. But when I talked to them, I understood. They said, we want to do that class because we wouldn't go to another class with younger people, for example, so that we want to be able to do that. With women of our age, the weight is adapted, is not too hard. The instructor is also a woman in her 50s, so that helps as well to have someone to relate to. And I said, that's the exact reason we chose it, because the other ones, we are motivated enough to go to a Pilates class. It's not demanding too much motivation, you know, leaving your house and going there. But this one was the one they said, we need to be pushed into it and doing it at work is the great way because they don't have to commute, is there. And they've been doing it before they know the instructor. So that was, for me, the most surprising result. There's also the decrease in body fat. I was quite surprised because we didn't impose any diet on them. We didn't say, you know, watch your diet. So usually to lose body fat, you would need to exercise and follow some sort of weight loss diet. But that happened. I don't know if they did it unconsciously. They sort of decreased a bit the energy intake and we didn't control that. So that probably that could be something to look at for another study to make sure that either we tell them, do not change anything, or if you do change it, we record it. We look at. But that was quite surprising for me.
- [34:51]
B
I mean, very interesting. It's just finding so many positives. I love that they recognize that this is a challenge, but some of the barriers have been taken away because it's at work, so I don't need to travel anywhere. It's with a group of people that I feel safe and secure and it's led by someone who I can relate to. All of a sudden it's like, yes, I want to do this. I love that all the barriers were removed and this is now something where they might, well, they're continuing with. And that, that's the bonus, right? That is something that's sustainable. Adam, was there anything that you didn't expect that kind of surprised you?
- [35:29]
D
Yes, I think, as I mentioned, the kind of decrease in body fat. But I think that might be due to, as I've already kind of alluded to, it wasn't just that these individuals then attended the class, but we saw a significant increasing their actual physical activity overall. And we know that kind of positive health behaviors often lead to more positive health behaviors. So it might have been actually engaging in the classes. They felt the benefit of that they had increased motivation not only to attend the classes, but also to then maybe change their diet, as I mentioned, kind of increase in their potential walking, et cetera, outside of the classes. So this is something that we didn't necessarily ask directly, which would be something that we could definitely do moving forwards. But yeah, I think once people start to feel better, it creates that snowballing effect. If people are experiencing less pain, maybe they're more open to do more exercise. So, yeah, lots of benefits which maybe we didn't even pick up. Which is great to hear.
- [36:37]
B
Really great to hear. And it sounds like so many different avenues for you to explore more as well. I loved as well that Ann mentioned that they requested more outside spaces or it might have been you, Adam. Green spaces. For me, that's already thinking, oh, how could the program be scaled up? For example, community spaces, more green spaces. What could that look like? Anne, I'll come to you first.
- [37:02]
C
Yeah. So we're actually looking to expand the program and doing it elsewhere. So I think our first step is to do it in another university. University to see would it be the same if we did it. We're talking with people from Liverpool, John Morris University also, because in a university it's slightly easier to put in place because usually there's a gym, there's a sports center next door, so that's easy. So I think another constraint we haven't talked about is the facilities. If you do it in another university, the chances that the facilities are in place are quite high. If you do it in nhs, maybe we talked about it as well. Potentially there will be some sort of gym or something close to the hospital. If you do it in a company, it really depends where they are. If they're in town, you may have to partner with a gym and try to find something low cost or a free membership for a certain time. If your company in the middle of nowhere, then it's a lot harder because obviously you need to be able. But that's where the green space could come and say, we're going to go outside, do an exercise class. I think the other thing you need to have is a qualified instructor. You can't just send people do exercise on their own because there are some safety issues. But actually if you're in the countryside who are not using green spaces, you're not going to bother anyone with your music. And it's quite nice. And it's nicer if the weather contributes as well. So that's what we're doing at the moment. We're trying to expand, basically replicate the study in different places and say, is it working? Is it feasible before we look at the benefits on a wider group? And obviously we need some money. So if anyone's got some money to give us, we're applying for funding at the moment. And that's the hardest part, I would say, because it's quite competitive to try to get funding for a research study. But hopefully, fingers crossed, we will get, we will get something.
- [38:50]
B
I mean, my fingers are crossed as well because the benefits just seem like so many. Not just for the individuals, but for the employer. They seem. Why wouldn't you want your employees to be happy and to be healthy and to be taking part in something that brings everyone together? It seems, it seems like such a good thing. So what would you say to women going through menopause who feel nervous about starting exercise? I mean, even now me exercise, it feels like, oh, I don't know if I can do it. I'm not sure. What would you say, Adam? What is the thing that's going to get us out there?
- [39:28]
D
Sure, I think it's just taking it a step at a time and very much at your own pace. Don't see exercises that it has to be a large lifestyle change. We know that some individuals maybe don't haven't done exercise for a few years or maybe have drifted away from that or maybe had injuries or started to experience menopause symptoms, which has actually reduced their physical activity. So I definitely see the exercise as an area to explore. But as we've already kind of alluded to, there's lots of other benefits around relatedness. So just being in the same environment as other individuals that might be experiencing menopausal symptoms or have been through the menopause, having that relatedness, I think was one of the real kind of key benefits that we, we saw from the study. Also thinking that the actual type of exercise is important to consider. So as I mentioned, you don't have to go out, get really fully involved for an hour. If you just want to go and do 10 minutes, just explore more green space, increase your walking. It doesn't have to be a full on high intensity class. And that's something obviously we were consciously aware of in our study in the workplace was that we might have had individuals who are already motivated to exercise. So if you aren't feeling motivation to exercise, just maybe just increase it, Just take it at your own pace, obviously introduce other things around the exercise. So as Adam mentioned, maybe go for coffee, just having a chat, developing that therapy space, which one of the individuals mentioned from the Zumba study as well.
- [41:19]
B
I think for me the thing that's coming through is the community element. So there's so many wonderful things like the couch to 5K app, you can go off and do your own directed exercise. But I think for me it feels like all the benefits are coming from that community that's created and having that safe space and doing things together and being cheered on by others almost. So is there something that you would say that is kind of where you're focusing rather than saying, oh, go download the app, go, go off and do whatever you need to do. You can engage this way. Do you feel that, that this is kind of the way that there are so much more benefits that can be gained from doing exercise together as a cohort?
- [42:01]
D
Yeah, for sure. And, and it is that relatedness, as you mentioned, the community spirit. And that's something which we saw in both studies, which is fantastic. We know that relatedness is one of our kind of key, kind of indicators of well being along with autonomy. So having choice and control over what we do and then also competent, so feeling confident in what we do. One of the best ways to increase confidence is just to start, have accomplishment, develop those accomplishments. So there's lots of things that exercise itself can develop, but equally it's around that community, that relatedness to other individuals as well.
- [42:46]
B
Amazing. Thank you, Adam. So finally, if you could bust one myth about menopause and exercise, what would it be? Anne, give us the one liner. What is it?
- [42:57]
C
I guess from talking to women, they were scared of hot flushes, you know, like getting really red and sweating. And when you think of exercise, it leads to the same thing. When you exercise, you get red and you sweat. So I think a lot of women say, I don't want to do that because I'm going to go back to work sweaty, I'm going to get red, and people will make fun of me or these type of things. And actually, in the long term, it's the opposite. And what people don't know is exercise improves the way your thermo regulates you regulate your temperature. And at the end, if you do like two or three months of exercise, it might be that you have less hot flushes because your circulatory system, your blood vessels are more efficient and you sweat less and the quality of your sweat is different. So when you exercise, when you sweat means you're trained, your sweat is made a bit more of water and less minerals. You will lose less minerals when you're more trained than when you're less trained. So there's a lot of little things people don't know about that makes actually a good way to have less hot flushes, which is completely something that people are like, no way, can't do that. It's just not possible. But that's something we've trained to explain to them, to sort of say, do not be scared, you will sweat less, but it's going to take a while.
- [44:10]
B
I think that as well is another crucial point, isn't it? It's the. All the unknowns. You know, we get scared because we're like, oh, this is going to happen. That is going to happen. Having all of this information and understanding the benefits and what is actually going to happen. I think that is such a. An important point that really opens the door for people wanting to engage with things. So I can see that being an absolute other element that really is kind of ticking the box for why people can actually get involved with these things. So how can listeners find out more about work? We know that there's Zumba gold classes people can check out in Oxfordshire, which is brilliant. But for the research, how can people find out more about this fabulous project and what has been done and talked about today?
- [44:53]
C
So we've got our two studies we mentioned. One of them has been published already. The journal is called Healthcare. The paper is available free online. I've got a link here. I don't know if it can be shared in the podcast or. Yeah, okay, so the link can be shared and as I said, it's free to download. And then the other study is being under review in a journal called Menopause. And I guess as soon as it's published we can share the link with ULI or with the university in general. So that's how you can find out more.
- [45:25]
B
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Anne and Adam, it's been fabulous talking with you today, hearing about this amazing project. I truly hope that it continues, that we go in new directions. There is so much potential, but from what has already happened, I think it's amazing. And so thank you for sharing.
- [45:43]
C
Thank you very much for having us.
- [45:45]
D
Yeah, thanks, Ellie.
- [45:47]
A
You've been listening to Oxford Brookes Unscripted, a podcast supported by the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Enterprise at Oxford Brookes University. If you'd like to learn more about today's discussion, you can find links to Ann's and Adam's recent publications and staff profiles in the show notes. And to discover more about research and innovation at Brookes, visit brookes.ac.ukrie until next time, thank you for listening and take care.