For yoga teachers to reflect on how they can better understand and support women navigating menopause.

Recently I taught a workshop called Women’s Midlife Transformation for yoga teachers. As I prepared, I kept returning to the koshas. They offered a surprisingly clear framework for understanding what many women experience during menopause.

As yoga teachers, we often notice the physical changes first.

A student who suddenly struggles with sleep. A woman who tells us her joints hurt. Someone who feels exhausted despite exercising regularly. A student who can no longer tolerate the same pace, the same intensity, the same expectations she once placed on herself.

It is easy to view these as isolated symptoms. What if many of the women in our classes are moving through a profound transformation that affects not only their bodies, but their energy, emotions, relationships and sense of self? What if midlife is not simply a hormonal transition, but a movement through layers?

In yoga, we have a beautiful map for understanding this: the koshas.

The koshas describe different dimensions of our experience, from the physical body to our deepest sense of being.

While they were never intended as a model for menopause, they offer a surprisingly helpful lens through which to understand what many women experience during midlife.

Annamaya Kosha – The Physical Body

For many women, the journey begins in the body.

Sleep changes. Recovery changes. The body may feel stiffer. Feet that never hurt before suddenly become painful. Muscles becomes harder to maintain.

The body that has carried us faithfully for decades suddenly asks something different of us.

Many women respond by pushing harder. Others stop moving altogether. Neither is usually the answer, rather adjusting, adopting to the new body.

Many women also experience weight gain during midlife, particularly around the abdomen. This can be frustrating, especially in a culture that tells women they should look the same throughout their lives. But from a biological perspective, the body is not necessarily working against us.

It is adapting.

Fat tissue is not simply stored energy. It is metabolically active and participates in hormone production and conversion. As ovarian hormone production declines, fat tissue can contribute to the production of certain forms of estrogen.

In that sense, the body is often trying to support hormonal balance in the best way it knows how. It invites a different perspective.

Perhaps the body is not failing. It is adapting.

As teachers, we can help women move away from self-criticism and toward curiosity.

Instead of asking: How do I get rid of this body?

We can begin asking: How do I support this body?

The goal is to have a strong, healthy and resilient body for the decades ahead.

As estrogen declines, women naturally lose muscle mass more rapidly than before. Bone density may decrease, connective tissue becomes less elastic, and recovery changes.

Strength therefore becomes increasingly important because it is fundamental for the decades ahead.

Strong muscles help protect joints. They improve balance. They support healthy bones. They reduce the risk of falls. They help maintain independence later in life.

Midlife is a time for women to become stronger.

As yoga teachers, we need to help women understand that acceptance and strength are not opposites. We can accept the body we are in while simultaneously caring for it well.

One of the more surprising complaints I hear from women in midlife is foot pain.

Many women suddenly develop discomfort in their feet despite never having experienced it before. Estrogen is closely linked to collagen production. As collagen decreases, connective tissue and fascia may become less resilient and hydrated.

Combined with years of restrictive footwear, reduced mobility and increasingly sedentary lifestyles, the feet often lose their natural strength and adaptability.

Yet many women are immediately offered more support. More cushioning. More orthotics.

While temporary support can sometimes be helpful, long-term foot health often requires something else: mobility, circulation, sensory awareness, and strength.

As yoga teachers, we can help women reconnect with their foundation.

Barefoot practices. Balance work. Foot mobility exercises. Simply bringing awareness to the feet, grounding them, spreading the toes and reconnecting with their natural strength and function.

Small practices can create surprisingly profound effects throughout the entire body.

Pranamaya Kosha – The Energetic Body

The next layer is often less visible.

Many women arrive in class believing they have a hormonal problem. During menopause, there can be significant hormonal shifts. But what often gets overlooked is the nervous system.

As hormonal shifts occur, many women become more sensitive to stress.

The same demands that once felt manageable can suddenly feel overwhelming. Sleep disturbances become more intense. Fatigue deepens. Anxiety increases.

Stress amplifies everything.

Two women may experience very similar hormonal changes and have completely different experiences.

Why? Because one nervous system is relatively regulated. The other is under constant pressure.

This is where yoga can benefit the body by regulating the system in which hormones operate. Breath. Rhythm. Movement. Strength. Rest. Awareness. These practices create conditions in which the body can begin to find balance again.

Hot flashes are one of the most common experiences during menopause. From a medical perspective, they are linked to hormonal changes and the body’s temperature regulation. From another perspective, they can be understood as accumulated or rapidly moving energy within the system. Energy asking to be expressed, directed or transformed.

Instead of asking only how to suppress the experience, we might also ask:

What is this energy asking for?

In yoga, we can relate the endocrine glands to the chakra system.

The glands that regulate our hormones are located in many of the same regions traditionally associated with the chakras.

When we work with movement, breath and awareness, we are not only affecting muscles and joints. We are influencing the nervous system and the environment in which our hormones function.

One of the most valuable practices we can offer women in midlife is Yoga Nidra.

Many women arrive in this phase exhausted yet unable to rest. Yoga Nidra teaches the nervous system how to soften. How to recover. How to access rest without needing to perform.

The same is true for breathing practices. As teachers, we can give women something they can take home and use independently. Something simple, such as box breathing, a 4–4 breath, or a 5–2 breathing pattern. A breathing excercise she may remember that helps her fall asleep, calm anxiety or navigate a difficult day.

Perhaps one of our most important roles as teachers is not simply guiding a class. It is helping students develop tools they can carry into everyday life.

Manomaya Kosha – The Mental and Emotional Body

This is often the layer that surprises women the most. Old thoughts return. Old frustrations. Old emotional patterns. Stories they thought they had already worked through.

Many women wonder: Why am I reacting like this again? Why is this coming back now?

But this is not regression. Midlife is simply making visible what has never been fully resolved.

Many women experience this period as if life is pulling them backwards. Things that once felt settled suddenly ask for attention again. It can feel as though progress has been lost. But perhaps something else is happening.

I often think of midlife as the moment when a bow is being drawn back. A bow is never pulled back to stay there. It is pulled back to create direction.

To gather energy. To take aim. And perhaps that is what this phase is asking of us.

To pause. To reflect. To see more clearly what is no longer aligned. What still needs healing. What is ready to be released. The drawing back is not the end of the journey. It is preparation for what comes next.

Another shift many women experience is the strong need for space. Their own space.

There is a biological component to this. Estrogen and oxytocin work closely together throughout the reproductive years, supporting bonding, nurturing and caregiving behaviours. As estrogen declines, many women notice a shift, a growing awareness of their own needs. The need for rest. The need for honesty. The need for boundaries. The need for time alone.

The need to ask: What do I want? What do I need?

As teachers, we need to understand that women may arrive in our classes carrying much more than physical symptoms. They may be carrying grief. Anger. Confusion. Longing. A need to reconnect with themselves. And sometimes the most important thing we can offer is not another achievement. But a space where they can hear themselves again. Where they can safely meet what is within. Encourage them to talk openly with the people closest to them.Not complain, but show honesty where they are and what support they need.

Vijnanamaya Kosha – The Wisdom Body

If we stay with the process long enough, something begins to shift. Clarity emerges. Many women in Menopause begin to recognise what no longer fits. Relationships. Habits. Expectations. Ways of living that once felt necessary.

And in their place comes a quieter form of knowing. Many traditions describe menopause not only as an ending, but as a beginning. A shift from creating life outward to cultivating something inward. A deeper relationship with wisdom. Meaning. Purpose.

In Taoist traditions, the ovaries are referred to as the keepers of the golden eggs.

During the reproductive years, these eggs represent potential life. The body’s energy is naturally directed outward — toward creating, nurturing and sustaining life.

Whether through pregnancy, motherhood, relationships, work, creativity or caring for others, much of a woman’s energy flows outward into the world. But as the reproductive years come to an end, Taoist teachings describe a subtle shift. The golden eggs return to the heart. The life force that was once directed outward becomes available for something else. For self-discovery. For wisdom. For purpose. For a deeper relationship with ourselves.

In this way, menopause can be understood not only as the end of fertility, but as the beginning of a different kind of creation.

The creation of a wise woman. A woman who has gathered experience. Who has lived through joy and loss. Who knows something about life. Who no longer needs to prove herself. Who begins to trust her own inner knowing.

In some indigenous traditions, menopause marks the emergence of the wise woman — the one who sees further, carries perspective and dreams for seven future generations.

Whether we understand these ideas literally or symbolically, many women recognise something in them.

A desire to live more honestly.

More intentionally.

More truthfully.

Because menopause is not only the end of fertility. It may also be the beginning of wisdom.

Anandamaya Kosha – The Layer of Being

Beyond the body. Beyond the nervous system. Beyond the stories of the mind.

There is another layer. The Anandamaya Kosha. The layer of connection. Presence. Being.

Resistance softens. A different relationship to life becomes possible. A little less doing. A little less fighting. A little less performing. A little more being.

And this can feel very unfamiliar at first. Because many women have spent years, sometimes decades, in constant movement. And now, in Menopause, life asks something different – a deeper presence in life itself.

Many women discover that this phase is not only asking them to change. It is asking them to become more whole.

This is where the deepest teaching lies, in allowing ourselves to become who we are now.

What This Means for Yoga Teachers

As yoga teachers, we do not need to become menopause experts.

But we do need to recognise that many women are moving through far more than hormonal changes.

They are moving through layers.

The body.

The nervous system.

The emotions.

The identity.

The emergence of wisdom.

And perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can offer is not another posture. Not another achievement. But a space where women can hear themselves again.

A space where strength and softness are both welcome.

A space where they do not need to perform.

A space where transformation is allowed to unfold in its own time.