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Perimenopause brings real changes to how your brain and nervous system function.
Hormonal shifts can heighten stress responses, disrupt emotional regulation, and make everyday life feel heavier than it used to.
You’re not imagining it and you’re not alone.
This is biology, not weakness.
Full video here: https://youtu.be/tpk3rsAM_VY
#PerimenopauseAwareness #WomensHealth #BrainHealth #AdaptableExplained
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0:00
There's emotional and nervous system
0:02
issues because remember emotions are
0:05
chemical and hormones affect emotion
0:08
tremendously and the nervous system is
0:11
now reacting to the emotional shifts and
0:13
so it's it's taxing. It's it's
0:15
overwhelming and so there can be
0:17
increased anxiety or even panic which
0:20
for those of you who are unaware panic
0:22
is part of the grief and loss system. So
0:24
I think part of that panic is like
0:26
what's happening to me? Where am I
0:28
going? and and I'm losing myself. And I
0:30
think that can be part of that panic. Of
0:32
course, irritability or rage. This is
0:34
the one that most likely impacts
0:36
relationships. But then it's the up and
0:38
down, the mood swings that you might
0:40
experience as these hormones become so
0:42
unpredictable. And that feels so
0:44
frustrating when it's happening to you,
0:46
but also to the people around you.
0:49
Again, we have these emotional
0:50
sensitivity, things that would normally
0:52
bother you or wouldn't bother you,
0:53
perhaps start to bother you, and just
0:55
feeling really unlike yourself. I talked
0:58
about sleep, difficulty falling or
1:00
staying asleep. That's something I
1:02
noticed too. I started waking up around
1:03
2 or 3 in the morning, even when I
1:05
wasn't having a hot flash, and I'm like,
1:07
I don't have to pee. I was super tired.
1:10
Why am I suddenly awake? Early waking is
1:12
another thing that shifts nighttime
1:14
anxiety where normally you wouldn't have
1:16
necessarily been worried and now you
1:18
start having more anxiety. Nighttime
1:20
specifically
1:21
sexual and relational changes due to
1:24
decreased libido, desire, uh vaginal
1:27
dryness or discomfort starts to happen.
1:30
Reduced arousal or more difficulty to
1:32
achieve arousal. Sometimes pain with sex
1:35
is one of the symptoms that people will
1:37
experience. And you know many people are
1:38
then diagnosed with anxiety disorders or
1:41
depression or ADHD without anyone asking
1:45
about hormones or checking what's
1:47
happening in the body. And so I think
1:49
this is important and I hope that if you
1:51
didn't know this about pmenopause, your
1:53
interest is peaked because we've got to
1:55
check the physiology as well. So what's
1:58
actually happening in the brain and the
2:00
nervous system during this phase? Well,
2:02
I'm not a hormone specialist, but
2:04
estrogen plays a major role in serotonin
2:08
regulation. Dopamine, again, serotonin
2:10
is our happiness factor. Dopamine is our
2:12
motivation factor. So all of these
2:15
emotions are are totally impacted by the
2:17
hormone changes because of estrogen
2:20
change. Sleep cycles are impacted by
2:22
that temperature regulation becoming too
2:25
hot, not being able to get cold
2:27
affecting your stress response. And then
2:29
when estrogen fluctuates, the nervous
2:32
system becomes more reactive. It's up,
2:34
it's down, it doesn't know what to
2:35
handle. And so it's just really
2:38
frustrating. And so this means we've got
2:40
less resilience to stress. We have
2:42
increased overwhelm where normally we
2:44
would have been able to handle certain
2:46
things now I can't more emotional
2:48
intensity reduced tolerance to the
2:50
overload and and a lot of women say and
2:52
I hear this I hear this from clients
2:54
often times is like I used to be able to
2:56
handle everything and now I can't and I
2:58
don't know what's happened to me and
3:00
it's not a personal failure it's a
3:02
physiological shift you know the human
3:04
body is only capable of so much and when
3:07
that stuff starts to change we can't
3:10
really do anything about it really
3:12
without intervening medically. So, perry
3:15
menopause lowers our nervous system's
3:18
margin of error. It doesn't have as much
3:20
capacity or room to tolerate the things
3:23
that it once was able
#Mental Health
#Anxiety & Stress
#Women's Health