The menopause transition doesn’t just change your body; it changes your brain. Many women enter this phase thinking something is wrong with them. Memory slips. Patience thins. Emotional reactions feel sharper, faster, and more difficult to contain and control. Relationships that once felt manageable suddenly feel heavy. Work that once energized them now feels draining.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “that’s me!” Let me be clear: NO, you aren’t losing your mind.

As estrogen and progesterone fluctuate and decline, the brain begins to rewire itself. A neurological transition is occurring. What feels like chaos is often clarity forming. What feels like loss is really a shedding, like a snake shedding its skin, or a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.

Is this transition easy? Far from it. However, there are ways to manage it. This article dives into the following:

• What is happening in the brain
• How to leverage the neurochemical shifts to your advantage
• How to look at and think about perimenopause and menopause positively

This article explores the impact of the menopause transition on the body, brain, and boundaries. It also provides tips on what you can do to help manage and navigate it, and embrace the opportunities for greatness on the other side.

The Perimenopausal Brain: What’s Actually Happening

Hormones have the biggest biological impact on emotion regulation. Estrogen plays a significant role in cognition, mood regulation, and memory. As estrogen fluctuates and declines, the brain must adapt. This impacts two types of intelligence:

• Fluid intelligence: speed, quick recall, multitasking. This naturally declines with age.
• Crystallized intelligence: wisdom, pattern recognition, insight, emotional intelligence. This increases with age.

Through the perimenopause and menopause journeys, the brain shifts and adapts from speed to depth. Crystallized intelligence becomes sharper, and you become wiser. However, this transformation isn’t always pretty and can be a little… bumpy (and that’s putting it lightly).

Here’s what that can look like from day to day:

• Brain fog (difficulty concentrating and focusing, or staying focused)
• Memory loss (difficulty recalling words, names, what you needed at the grocery store, where you put your sunglasses, or even why you walked into a certain room)
• Stress management (managing and regulating stress feels more difficult). You may also notice that things that used to never cause stress suddenly do, and it takes longer to “recover” from stressful events.
• Mood swings (Ahem… can you say rage?)

The Neurochemical Shift

Brain fog is one of the most misunderstood aspects of perimenopause and menopause. Improving sleep quality is the best “cure” for brain fog, or at least reducing its effects on our ability to work and function. That is frustrating since sleep disruptions begin during perimenopause. So it feels like a vicious, powerless, and impossible cycle.

The good news is that there are some things you can do to help improve sleep quality and, therefore, reduce the effects of brain fog. Here are several tips:

• Develop a consistent sleep routine. (Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, as often as possible.)
• Develop a “wind down” routine that allows your body to enter a relaxed state (read, journal, or meditate) 1-2 hours before bedtime (again, as often as possible).
• Avoid “screen time” right before bed. (The blue light projected from screens tricks our brain into thinking it’s daylight, which keeps our brains awake and active.)
• Try magnesium supplements (citrate or sulfate).
• Avoid eating at least 2-4 hours before bedtime (as often as possible).
• Avoid alcohol. (Alcohol keeps your heart rate elevated, preventing your body and brain from getting the true rest it needs.)

Poor sleep quality can have devastating effects. It leads to chronic stress. As a result, the brain struggles to retain information, solve problems, and regulate mood. Improving sleep hygiene and quality is not optional during perimenopause and menopause; it is foundational.

The Identity Shift

Now that you have a better understanding of the neurochemical shift that is taking place, let’s talk about the identity shift that occurs in many women. Early perimenopause often coincides with a deep internal reckoning. Suddenly, things that once fit no longer do, such as work, relationships, marriages, commitments, and expectations.

For many women, this also means their role as mothers is changing. Children are likely entering the young-adult stage, and the days of breastfeeding, changing diapers, soccer practices, and dance recitals are over. This can cause a huge identity shift in women.

Building Boundaries

The identity shift that many women go through, as uncomfortable and scary as it may be, is actually a great opportunity to rethink and rebuild boundaries. Boundaries create clarity. They show others how to love us better. They are also a reflection of how we should love ourselves better. Oftentimes, boundaries quietly illuminate relationships that need adjustment or that just no longer meet our needs.

Neuroscience shows that many of our attitudes, habits, and psychological traits are shaped by the people with whom we spend time. Sometimes those experiences highlight a person we have become over time and who we don’t want to be. That’s a good red flag, as any, to rethink the relationship and your role in it.

Additionally, building—or rebuilding—boundaries around relationships is one aspect, but it also involves building boundaries around our needs. As we fully enter the menopause transition, our bodies have different needs. This might mean adjusting our routines, diets, sleep habits, and so on. Building and adjusting new routines to our bodies’ needs is one step, but we need to guard them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.

Rewiring Resilience

As mentioned briefly above, emotional resilience declines during the perimenopause and menopause transition, leaving many of us feeling “not like ourselves”. We might even be grieving the younger version of ourselves. Grief is not just emotional; it is neurological. The brain sheds outdated patterns and rebuilds and rewires itself for greater focus and better decision-making.

Beneath it all, something miraculous is taking place: the transformation of a stronger, wiser, more confident, and beautiful woman. The suffering we experience in the meantime helps us connect with our best qualities.

Neurochemistry and Neuroplasticity

So what can you do to better manage the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause?

Two words: self. care.

Self-care practices look different for each person. They might involve spending time doing your favorite activity, exercising, or getting the occasional massage. It’s important to make time for those things.

Believe it or not, one of the best forms of self-care is learning. The cognitive process of learning is scientifically known as neuroplasticity. When your brain learns new things, it builds new thought patterns and neural pathways. This process boosts acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter associated with focus, memory, and purpose. It also stimulates glutamate production, another neurotransmitter that supports brain function and memory. As estrogen declines, acetylcholine and glutamate also decline. However, purpose-driven learning can help boost these chemicals, leading to improved moods and cognitive performance.

In short, here are just some of the benefits of learning:

• Slows cognitive aging
• Creates flow states
• Builds confidence and momentum
• Improves memory
• Regulates emotion
• Beats brain fog and restores clarity and focus

In summary, if you’ve ever wanted to learn how to paint, a second language, a musical instrument, or carpentry, menopause is a great time to do it.

Julie’s Story

In 2024, I lost my father after years of watching him decline and suffer from a neurodegenerative illness. Nine months after his passing, I began experiencing odd symptoms, namely severe sleep disruptions, brain fog, an extreme lack of focus, disinterest in the activities I used to love, memory issues, and severe mood swings. I thought they were all a result of grief. And I’m sure that was true to some degree; however, I later learned that perimenopause was beginning to amplify what grief had already exposed.

As a result of my symptoms, I began struggling with work. For the first time in my career, I passed up long-term opportunities, cancelled work trips, and “fired” clients I no longer had mental or emotional energy for. I also distanced myself from personal relationships that were mentally and emotionally draining and toxic for far too long.

However, beneath it all, I worried I was becoming impatient, intolerant, and difficult, all of which felt very unlike me. These decisions put me in uncomfortable and unstable financial territory. I felt like I was self-sabotaging the career and stability that had taken me decades to build.

Desperately seeking concrete answers, I spent the better part of a year researching perimenopause and menopause to better understand what my body was going through and how to manage it naturally. I discovered several natural adaptogens and supplements that helped me a great deal. Here are my own personal experiences with them:

• Maca root: helped stabilize mood swings, reducing frequency and severity
• Ashwagandha: helped reduce and control severe bloating and water retention (and reduce weight gain, as a result)
• Rhodiola rosea: helped reduce brain fog and cumulative stress (cortisol)
• Magnesium citrate: helped improve sleep quality

These supplements really did wonders for me. After taking them consistently for several months, I saw a noticeable difference in my emotional stability, patience, stress levels, sleep quality, and my weight, all of which left me with a “feel-good” feeling overall.

In addition to experimenting with adaptogens to see how my body (and kidneys) would react to them, I also scheduled more time for outdoor walks and spending time in nature, engaged in more social activities and interactions, volunteering, and learning new skills. Combining these activities along with adaptogens helped me boost estrogen, oxytocin, dopamine, glutamate, and acetylcholine naturally, which helped me manage perimenopause symptoms more easily.

I am not a licensed medical professional; I’m merely sharing my own personal experiences. What worked for me doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Always research and consult professionals before adding supplements to your daily routine.

Fighting Negativity Bias with Courage, Self-compassion, and Cultivating Joy

As estrogen and oxytocin decline, irritability, pessimism, and negative self-talk can increase. The brain’s natural response to any form of threat detection is often negative. This is known as the negativity bias, and nothing sparks it more than change.

Negative self-talk is unproductive and ineffective, leading to fixation and rumination. Unfortunately, female biology predisposes women to rumination because our stress system takes longer to regulate, making it easier to get stuck in a cycle of sadness, self-degradation, and depression. According to author Dr. Jen Gunter in The Menopause Manifesto, “women who have negative attitudes towards aging and menopause, and those who experience more negative emotions (such as worries or pessimism or anxious thoughts) are at a greater risk for depression.”

The good news is you can control the curve of negative self-talk—not by suppressing feelings, but by consciously choosing to shift your mindset toward the positive. It just requires practice and mental energy. Remember, rumination requires more mental energy than reframing.

What does this look like in practice?

The 3 Anchors

1. Acceptance: Accept that your body is changing, your mind is changing, and your life, as you know it, is changing. It doesn’t mean failure, or that things are falling apart (even if it feels that way). Things are shifting for the better. Be kind to yourself in the process. Give yourself some grace. Resisting the change only leads to suffering.

2. Gratitude: Gratitude reduces stress, boosts serotonin, and halts negativity bias. Start a “gratitude” journal, do daily affirmations, and write three different things you love about yourself each day.

After developing gratitude habits, you will find that the negative self-talk becomes less frequent and confidence increases. Additionally, when negative thoughts do creep into your brain, you are quicker to recognize and correct them before rumination and negative downward spirals occur.

3. Self-Care: If you have repeatedly put your self-care activities or routines on hold for others or for work, those days are over. If you haven’t prioritized self-care before, use menopause as an excuse to start doing it now.

Self-care can also mean solitude. And that’s okay. Solitude isn’t the same as loneliness; however, an excessive amount of solitude can be harmful to mental health. Social connections are intrinsic to who we are as humans. Social connections and engagement boost oxytocin and serotonin, which are our “feel-good” chemicals. They also reduce inflammation and improve cognition and immune functions. As a result, we become more motivated to adopt healthy habits and practice self-care.

When we think of “self-care”, we often think about restful activities. However, self-care can also mean movement, such as participating in our favorite physical activities and exercising. Movement activates the cerebellum and helps cultivate joy.

Finding Purpose and the Power of Congruence

In our patriarchal society, menopause has been historically treated (or mistreated) as inevitable, a fact of life, and the “failure” of our ovaries, and the “death” of our younger selves, as we know it. Women are also judged because of their hormones. If you ask me, those are antiquated beliefs. With all the innovation and advances in modern medicine and technology over the decades, there’s no reason to look at menopause through the same lens. (And, for the love of God, society must stop comparing us to men!)

What’s more, society has instilled a rather incorrect belief in perimenopausal and menopausal women: When motherhood is over, we no longer produce eggs, and we no longer provide value. We lose our purpose. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A lifetime of experience has brought us wisdom. And that is a very powerful, beautiful, yet incredibly overlooked opportunity. This should be a life milestone that should celebrated rather than dismissed.

In fact, several published authors have already begun championing the societal shift in how we as individual women think about menopause. Dr. Jen Gunter, author of The Menopause Manifesto refers to menopause as “a sign of strength, not weakness”. Additionally, author Louann Brizendine refers to menopause as “The Upgrade”. The point is that rather than focusing on the negative aspects of menopause, or treating it as a “taboo” topic and leaving countless women to suffer in silence, we look at it as the beautiful transformation that it really is.

All in all, the menopause-and-aging transition is inevitable; it’s also temporary. However, we all have the choice to embrace the opportunity for congruence. Congruence is when thoughts, behaviors, and values align (which also boosts dopamine and serotonin). Congruence is also an opportunity to find or even redefine our purpose. And, in turn, purpose refuels resilience and fights off depression.

Underneath it all, a new, better, and more beautiful version of YOU is forming. It’s an opportunity to redraw your own road map. It’s your journey and yours alone to make it whatever you want. Visualize your future. If you don’t, who will?

Where to Find Support

Although perimenopause and menopause offer the opportunity for you to rethink or restart your own journey, that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

The Peri-pause Package is a small, supportive space for women navigating perimenopause and menopause with curiosity, honesty, and compassion. We talk about the brain, the body, boundaries, and real life without shame, pressure, or medical jargon.

If you’re craving clarity, connection, and tools that actually help, this space is for you.