Nonlinear Dynamics and Positive Health: The Case of Menstruation and Menopause

This paper is a theoretical journey through possible ways that complexity research can contribute to health promotion, especially for under-standing, encouraging, and facilitating positive health. The concept of 'positive health' regards health as an actual state or independent dimension, not simply freedom from physical disease or the absence of a problem. The subjective aspect of positive health is often described with the concept of 'well-being.' Nonlinear paradigms have implications for health because they direct attention to different facts, dynamics, theories, and basic assumptions, and also because language, in both its denotative and connotative aspects, has the potential to influence health-promoting or undermining attitudes, self-attributions and narratives, all of which impact positive health. This is explored specifically for perimenopause and menopause. Our previous research provided evidence that the menstrual cycle, before and during perimenopause, is the output of a nonlinear system in a chaotic trajectory. This article explores implications of a nonlinear paradigm for understanding the science underlying menopause, interpretations of variability and linear causality, importance of system structure, interpretations of perimenopause and menopause as senescence and disorder, and resultant self-attributions about menopausal experience and the nature of midlife.