There is still little awareness of the impact menopause has on the lives of women between the ages of 45 and 55, despite the fact that nearly half of the world's population has gone through - or still is - this biological shift, hitting the age group during which women are most likely to move to leadership positions. Alya was a fatal blow in their silence, fearing stigma and ridicule in the work environment.

How is it going with menopause?

In practice, menopause refers to the passage of 12 months without a menstrual cycle, but in fact it is a gradual process that develops over months or even years, during which a woman's fertility decreases, and it begins with a decrease in the number of eggs in the ovaries;

After there were about 200,000 competing eggs, the number decreases, the eggs become permeable, and the estrogen level drops sharply, causing symptoms of menopause.

The average age for a woman when this happens is 52, but about one in 100 women experiences menopause before the age of 40.

Symptoms usually begin a few months or years before the menstrual cycle stops.

The stage, known as "menopause", lasts on average about 4 years.

However, 1 in 10 women will experience symptoms for up to 12 years.

The most striking symptom is hot flashes, as it usually involves a high temperature in the upper body and face, sweating, possibly the appearance of red spots, and profuse night sweats.

About 80% of the women feel hot flashes and hinder 25% of them from working.

The age at which a woman experiences "menopause" symptoms is partly inherited from the mother and grandmother, and some clinics offer ultrasound tests aimed at assessing the ovarian reserve, so the tests see the most mature egg cells, but they do not see the tiny follicles that produce eggs.

So the tests are not accurate in predicting the date of menopause, and genetic tests have not yet succeeded in determining the age of menopause in a woman so far.

Hormone therapy relieves a woman's suffering during the menopause stage, but exposes her to the chances of developing breast cancer (Pixels)

Resign for fear of stigma and ridicule

Some symptoms of menopause cause difficulties for women to work. The most problematic symptoms are: poor concentration, fatigue, poor memory, irritation of the bladder, sleep disturbances, depression, low confidence, and an increased risk of osteoporosis and Alzheimer's.

But women do not want to reveal health problems related to menopause to those responsible in their work, especially if they are male or younger than them, which has negative effects on work.

Studies have indicated that certain work situations and environments increase the severity of menopausal symptoms, exacerbate the hot flash crisis, and affect women's perceptions of symptom severity.

It becomes even more stressful for those who suffer from extreme embarrassment and try to hide it for fear of stigma and ridicule.

A survey of data with more than 5,000 working women in Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy and South Africa revealed that women still suffer from the stigma associated with menopause in the workplace.

And in all countries - except Italy - a third of women who experienced menopausal symptoms reported that they hid them in the workplace and did not talk about their feelings to anyone, while more than half of Hispanic women felt ashamed of just passing that period in the workplace.

Women in South Africa seemed more comfortable when expressing menopausal symptoms in the workplace. Only 37% of women felt ashamed of this condition, while in Italy the percentage of women who concealed symptoms was less than 28%.

Attempting to deny or distract from the persistent symptoms of menopause in the work environment can be stressful and negatively affect self-confidence;

Therefore, shyness from seeking support in the workplace increases for those who suffer from menopausal symptoms before the age of 45 years, and the percentage reaches up to 63% of women who avoid seeking help, compared to only 43% of those who experienced menopausal symptoms after the age of fifty.

This raises some concerns that many women still leave the workforce because they struggle with strong symptoms such as hot flashes, anxiety and fatigue, and withdraw feeling unsupported in the workplace.

Among them was "Najat", who felt a bit strange when she imagined a work environment that supported women during that period, despite her belief in the necessity of that.

In her interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Najat recalled the feelings of "grievance" that she carried to fate, after her symptoms of menopause began at the age of forty, and she entered a cycle of continuous injections to calm her deadly back pain, and it continues even after 10 years have passed from the onset of symptoms.

Najat did not dare to justify her resignation from her job (a first professor of Arabic language) and a strong candidate for running a secondary school. She lasted for about 30 years, during which time she gave birth 14 times;

Fertility, "Najat" thought she would inherit some of it.

A survey of data reveals that more than 5,000 working women still suffer from stigma associated with menopause (Pixels)

Find support and solidarity

According to a study from the Endocrine Society, one in 4 women will suffer from serious symptoms of menopause, and they last between 7 and 14 years, and some of them resort to hormone replacement therapy, which makes them more likely to develop breast cancer, or replace it with alternative treatments such as acupuncture or Phyto-estrogen, and all treatments whose effectiveness has not been proven, and upon stopping them, the woman's suffering will return with "menopause" symptoms.

Surprisingly, some evidence has emerged of the positive effect of some psychological approaches.

So a team of researchers published a study that showed that when they helped women with cognitive behavioral therapy, and provided them with support on how to discuss menopause at work, 82% confirmed that the severity of their symptoms decreased, and when they followed up on their findings after 5 months, the women reported a decrease in the number of hot flashes. The severity of symptoms increased by a third, their sleep improved significantly, and the severity of symptoms decreased, and 37% of them spoke of their menopause to the line manager.

This had a good effect on "Mahasin". In her interview with Al-Jazeera Net, she confirmed that she shared her diaries with her colleagues in the work environment. Female employees in their fifties gathered in a spacious room to have breakfast and check on each other's health, and share feelings of depression and mood swings, which supported A feeling of "Mahasin" of solidarity. Mahasin went through menopausal symptoms at the age of 55, and is still dying to date for those sessions, in which she and her colleagues planned to follow a healthy diet, reduce daily caloric intake, increase their daily activity, and wear wide cotton clothes to reduce the impact of hot flashes, which affected On their health all in the affirmative.