(English Below)
子どもの頃、祖母の家は海から徒歩5分のところにあったので、夏休みになると、いとことよく海で遊んでいました。今でも海は大好きです。波の音や潮の香りには、とても癒されます。子どもの頃は自己流で泳いでいたので、学校の水泳大会では思うように速く泳げず、苦い思い出もあります。
大人になってからジムのスイミングに通って正しい泳ぎ方を教えてもらいました。平泳ぎはカエルのように手足を動かしていただけで、恥ずかしいくらい、フォームが全く違っていました。「どうりで進まないはずだ」と納得し、まさに目から鱗でした。
クロールも50m泳げるようになり、気をよくしていたら、もっと泳げる友達からスパルタ特訓され、プールを何往復もさせられました。その成果のおかげで、ずいぶん泳げるようになりました。
泳ぐだけでなく、ジムでは音楽に合わせて水中で体を動かすアクアビクスも大好きでした。水の中で思いきり体を動かせるのが魅力でした。
水泳にはそんな楽しい思い出がありますが、実は私にとっては、更年期を乗り越える助けにもなりました。
さやさんが更年期のことを知りたいとブログに書かれていたので、私自身の体験を書きたいと思います。
私は更年期を特別恥ずかしいことだとは思っていません。友達とも「最近どう？」と気軽に話せる話題の一つです。私は友達と話すことで、「自分だけじゃないんだ」と気持ちが楽になることもありました。みんなの話を聞いていると、ホットフラッシュの症状を話す人が多かった印象です。寒いのに急に汗が吹き出たり、そんな同じような体験を笑いながら話していました。
更年期は男女ともに訪れますが、人によって本当に症状は様々なようです。やる気がまったくおこらず、気分の落ち込みがひどくて、薬を飲みながら過ごしていた友人もいます。私の場合は、もともとの楽観的な性格のおかげもあってか、軽い方ではないかと思います。
しかし、私も一時的に貧血の薬を病院で処方されたことがあります。生理周期がどんどん短くなり、それに伴い出血量も増えたためです。卵巣の働きが弱くなると、脳はもっと女性ホルモンを作るよう卵巣に強く働きかけるそうです。 私はこの貧血の薬が大嫌いでした。これを飲むと副作用で吐き気を催すからです。これを飲む友達も同じようなことを言っていたので、私たちは冗談半分でこの薬のことを「毒薬」と呼んでいました（笑）
私はちょうど更年期の動悸やホットフラッシュの症状が、水泳やアクアビクス、そして水泳仲間との時間のおかげで和らいだように感じています。
動悸は何年も前から続いていました。最近になって、更年期とは別の不整脈が見つかりました。もしかすると、その不整脈が動悸の原因だったのかもしれません。でも、今となっては本当のところはわかりません。身体の不調を運動で紛らわし、克服した気になっていただけなのかもしれません。気になる症状はきちんと病院で診てもらうのも大事です。
ジムを退会して以来、この夏何年かぶりに恐る恐る泳いでみたら、クロールと背泳ぎで25m泳げました。泳ぎって忘れないものなのですね！体がちゃんと覚えてくれていました。手続き記憶、最強です（笑）
水泳は、私に心と体の健康だけでなく、たくさんの仲間や前向きな気持ちも与えてくれました。しかも生理周期を気にせず好きな時に泳げるのは最高です。これからも無理せず、自分のペースで楽しんで続けていきたいと思います。
長年付き合ってきた生理から解放されたら、ぜひ盛大にお祝いパーティをしましょう！
私の体験が、少しでも誰かの参考になればうれしいです。
When I was a child, my grandmother’s house was just a five-minute walk from the sea, so every summer vacation, my cousin and I spent all our time playing at the beach. I still love the sea even now. The sound of the waves, the scent of the tide, everything is just so soothing. Back then, I just swam in my own way, so I have some bittersweet memories of not being able to swim as fast as I wanted during school swim competitions.
It wasn’t until I became an adult and joined a gym that I finally learned how to swim properly. Before that, my breaststroke was just me flailing my arms and legs like a frog. My form was so completely wrong it was almost embarrassing. It was a real eye-opener, and I finally understood, “No wonder I wasn’t moving forward!”
Once I managed to swim 50 meters doing the front crawl, I got a bit confident. That was until a friend, who was a much better swimmer, put me through some “Spartan” style training, making me swim back and forth across the pool countless times. Thanks to that intense effort, my swimming improved significantly.
Beyond just swimming, I also loved aqua aerobics at the gym, where you move your body in the water to the music. Being able to move your body freely in the water is just so fascinating.
While swimming brings back so many fun memories, the truth is, it also helped me get through menopause.
Since Saya mentioned in her blog that she wanted to learn more about menopause, I wanted to share my own personal experience.
I have never viewed menopause as something to be particularly ashamed of. For me and my friends, it is just one of the casual topics where we ask each other, “How have you been lately?” Talking with them always made me feel lighter, as I realized, “I’m not the only one going through this.” From everyone’s stories, I got the impression that a lot of people talked about hot flashes. We would laugh and swap stories about suddenly bursting into a sweat even when it was freezing cold.
Menopause happens to both men and women, but the symptoms seem to vary wildly from person to person. I have a friend who completely lost all motivation, suffered from severe low moods, and had to rely on medication to get through the day. In my case, perhaps thanks to my naturally optimistic personality, I think my symptoms were on the milder side.
Even so, I was once prescribed medicine for anemia at the hospital for a while. This was because my menstrual cycle became shorter and shorter, and along with that, the bleeding became much heavier. I learned that when the ovaries become less active, the brain signals the ovaries even harder to produce more female hormones. I hate the anemia pills. Whenever I took it, the side effects made me nauseous. A friend who took the same medication said the exact same thing, so we half-jokingly nicknamed those pills “the poison” (haha).
Looking back, I truly feel that my menopausal palpitations and hot flashes were eased thanks to swimming, aquabics, and the time I spent with my swim mates.
The palpitations had continued for many years. Recently, doctors discovered an arrhythmia that is completely unrelated to menopause, so that might have been the real culprit behind the palpitations all along. But now, I will never know for sure. Maybe I was only distracting myself from my physical discomfort through exercise and simply felt as though I had overcome it. It’s a good reminder that if you have concerning symptoms, getting them checked properly at a hospital is so important.
This summer, for the first time in years since quitting the gym, I tried swimming again, feeling a little nervous. To my surprise, I was able to swim 25 meters in both freestyle and backstroke. You really don’t forget how to swim, do you? My body remembered it properly. Procedural memory is the strongest. Haha.
Swimming has given me not only mental and physical health, but also many friends and a positive mindset. And best of all, I can now swim whenever I want without worrying about my menstrual cycle. I plan to keep enjoying it at my own pace from now on, without pushing myself too hard.
Once we are finally freed from the periods we have lived with for so many years, let’s definitely hold a grand celebration party!
I hope my experience can be of some help to someone, even just a little.
(Translated by Thanh Van)
Read with Furigana & Key Vocabulary
