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Friday, June 20, 2025

Sleepness nights? Forgetfulness? You might be perimenopausal

by

20100724

No, you're not go­ing crazy. The Tas­man­ian-dev­il rage, sleep-de­priv­ing night sweats, un­pre­dictable pe­ri­ods, and for­get­ful­ness – it's re­al, it's nor­mal, and it's called per­i­menopause, a phys­i­o­log­i­cal stage when your body be­gins its tran­si­tion in­to menopause. Dur­ing this time, es­tro­gen lev­els fluc­tu­ate, caus­ing ir­reg­u­lar men­stru­al cy­cles, as well as a flur­ry of oth­er more sur­pris­ing symp­toms. Here, the truth about what to ex­pect–and sim­ple steps you can take to feel like your­self again.

It's un­pre­dictable.

You and your best friend like­ly won't ex­pe­ri­ence it the ex­act same way, from when symp­toms start to their fre­quen­cy or sever­i­ty. Most women en­ter per­i­menopause be­tween ages 45 and 55, but for some it starts as ear­ly as the 30s. Ex­perts can't pre­dict how bad your symp­toms will be or when they'll end – per­i­menopause can last any­where from a lucky two to an ex­haust­ing 10 years. You're of­fi­cial­ly in menopause when you've gone 12 months with­out a pe­ri­od. One sign menopause is close: You miss your pe­ri­od for more than 3 months–that in­di­cates you'll like­ly stop men­stru­a­tion al­to­geth­er with­in a year.

Symp­toms, such as hot flash­es and in­som­nia, al­so get more in­tense a year or two be­fore and af­ter menopause due to the rapid de­cline of es­tro­gen. With time, most women adapt to low­er lev­els of the hor­mone, and symp­toms ease up. Feel-bet­ter fix: There's no way to post­pone menopause, but stud­ies sug­gest cer­tain fac­tors, such as smok­ing, may bring it on ear­li­er. Al­so, ask your mom when she start­ed go­ing through "the change." There's a ge­net­ic link, so yours will like­ly be­gin around the same time.

It's like PMS–on steroids.

You ac­ci­den­tal­ly burned the piz­za in the oven: The pre-per­i­menopausal, you may have mut­tered a curse and tossed it in the trash. You-in-the-throes-of-per­i­menopause, how­ev­er, as­sault the oven door, burst in­to tears, and blame your hus­band, kids, and cock­er spaniel for dis­tract­ing you. One minute lat­er, you're to­tal­ly fine. Okay, maybe you don't ac­tu­al­ly at­tack your stove, but the rest pret­ty ac­cu­rate­ly ex­em­pli­fies the toll rag­ing hor­mones take on your emo­tion­al state. Re­search shows that near­ly 40 per cent of women ex­pe­ri­ence mood swings as­so­ci­at­ed with hor­mon­al dips–from sud­den anger to in­tense mood­i­ness, anx­i­ety, or de­spair. Feel-bet­ter fix: It's hard to avoid mood swings en­tire­ly, but there are ways to al­le­vi­ate them. Stud­ies sug­gest too lit­tle vi­t­a­min B12 may be linked to mood swings and de­pres­sion, so up your in­take of B12-rich foods, in­clud­ing shell­fish, salmon, lean beef, low-fat or fat-free milk, and eggs.

You're sweat­ing, then you're freez­ing.

About 80 per cent of women in per­i­menopause ex­pe­ri­ence hot flash­es, of­ten fol­lowed by a chill. Though re­searchers don't know the ex­act cause, they sus­pect fluc­tu­at­ing hor­mone lev­els may send mixed sig­nals to the hy­po­thal­a­mus, the part of the brain that reg­u­lates body tem­per­a­ture, and that cre­ates a hot flash. It can last from a few sec­onds to 10 min­utes, caus­ing a flushed face, in­tense sweat­ing, or even heart pal­pi­ta­tions. Those that oc­cur in your sleep–typ­i­cal­ly ac­com­pa­nied by heavy per­spi­ra­tion–are called night sweats.

Feel-bet­ter fix: If you sus­pect your spicy Mex­i­can lunch brought on a flash, take note, and avoid that trig­ger next time. (Cof­fee and wine are oth­er com­mon cul­prits.) Stud­ies show that deep breath­ing for 15 min­utes twice a day can re­duce the fre­quen­cy of hot flash­es by 39 per­cent. Herbal sup­ple­ments such as black co­hosh may al­so help–if on­ly be­cause you think they will. Sev­er­al stud­ies show that it's no bet­ter than a place­bo in re­duc­ing hot flash­es, but the ef­fect is still sig­nif­i­cant.

You may go up a jeans size.

While per­i­menopause is not to­tal­ly at fault for an ex­pand­ing waist­line, it cer­tain­ly con­tributes to the cause. Be­fore menopause, many women store fat in the hips and thighs (bet­ter for preg­nan­cy); when es­tro­gen lev­els dip, how­ev­er, testos­terone in­creas­es, caus­ing ex­tra weight to set­tle in your mid­sec­tion. Plus, the stress of hor­mon­al fluc­tu­a­tions can cause your body to se­crete more cor­ti­sol–and high lev­els stim­u­late the stor­age of fat around the bel­ly. Hor­mones aside, me­tab­o­lism slows about 5 per cent per decade, which means that at age 45, you need 75 less calo­ries per day than you did at age 35 to stay the same weight.

Feel-bet­ter fix: Amp up your work­out rou­tine–add two or three strength-train­ing ses­sions in your week­ly reg­i­men to help fight age-re­lat­ed mus­cle loss, which slows down me­tab­o­lism, and in­clude fast-paced in­ter­vals to your dai­ly walk to burn more calo­ries. Your goal: Keep your waist size to un­der 35 inch­es; more than that is linked to an in­creased risk of heart dis­ease and di­a­betes.

Thingy is a per­ma­nent part of your vo­cab.

You try, you re­al­ly do–but for the life of you, you can't re­mem­ber the word for that thing you write with, the name of your best friend's kid, or what you ran back in the house to get. This sud­den for­get­ful­ness can be fright­en­ing, but it's al­so quite com­mon: One study showed that 60 per­cent of per­i­menopausal women ex­pe­ri­ence short-term mem­o­ry loss and have a hard time con­cen­trat­ing. The ef­fect seems to be tem­po­rary, how­ev­er–af­ter menopause you'll re­turn to your usu­al sharp self, say re­searchers. Feel-bet­ter fix: While your brain's on the blip, make an ef­fort to con­cen­trate and be more mind­ful of your ac­tions. When you walk in­to your house and put your cell phone down, for ex­am­ple, say out loud, "I'm putting my phone on the kitchen ta­ble."

Avoid mul­ti­task­ing–don't talk on the phone while you scan e-mails be­cause try­ing to do too much at once can lead to for­get­ful­ness. And feel free to re­ly more heav­i­ly on Post-its and to-do lists to keep im­por­tant tasks top of mind.

– pre­ven­tion.com


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