0:00
What's actually happening in the brain
0:01
and the nervous system during this
0:03
phase? Well, I'm not a hormone
0:06
specialist, but estrogen plays a major
0:08
role in serotonin regulation. Dopamine,
0:12
again, serotonin is our happiness
0:13
factor. Dopamine is our motivation
0:15
factor. So, all of these emotions are
0:18
are totally impacted by the hormone
0:20
changes because of estrogen change.
0:22
Sleep cycles are impacted by that.
0:25
temperature regulation, becoming too
0:27
hot, not being able to get cold,
0:29
affecting your stress response, and then
0:32
when estrogen fluctuates, the nervous
0:34
system becomes more reactive. It's up,
0:36
it's down, it doesn't know what to
0:38
handle. And so, it's just really
0:40
frustrating. And so, this means we've
0:42
got less resilience to stress. We have
0:45
increased overwhelm where normally would
0:47
have been able to handle certain things,
0:48
now I can't. More emotional intensity,
0:51
reduced tolerance to the overload. And
0:53
and a lot of women say, and I hear this
0:55
I hear this from clients oftentimes is
0:57
like, I used to be able to handle
0:59
everything and now I can't and I don't
1:01
know what's happened to me. And it's not
1:03
a personal failure. It's a physiological
1:05
shift. You know, the human body is only
1:07
capable of so much. And when that stuff
1:10
starts to change, we can't really do
1:13
anything about it really without
1:15
intervening medically. So perry
1:18
menopause lowers our nervous systems
1:20
margin of error. it doesn't have as much
1:22
capacity or room to tolerate the things
1:25
that it once was able to. And so, like I
1:27
talked about a little bit before related
1:29
to the panic and the anxiety, we can
1:31
have some identity loss and there's
1:34
emotional grief during berry menopause
1:37
that can happen. you know, this young,
1:38
vivaceious, potentially fit, able to
1:41
carry more muscle, more energy, better
1:43
sleep, all those parts of ourselves that
1:45
are different now because of hormonal
1:48
change can be something we have to
1:50
grieve and that can be really hard. And
1:52
so, one of the last discussed aspects of
1:55
perry menopause really is that grief.
1:58
We're grieving the body that felt
2:00
predictable and understandable and the
2:03
energy that we used to have, the
2:05
emotional regulation that you relied on
2:07
to handle life's stressors and that
2:10
version of yourself that coped more
2:12
easily and could handle things that now
2:15
create overwhelm. There's there's grief
2:16
in that. Fidel talks about this openly
2:20
and how pmenopause can feel like waking
2:22
up in a body that you don't recognize.
2:25
And then, you know, as that happens, it
2:27
triggers emotions in us like shame,
2:30
self-doubt, insecurity, fear of aging, a
2:34
sense of invisibility, you know, and and
2:36
as time goes on faster as we age because
2:40
of more of our lifetime being behind us.
2:43
I've noticed in myself that even
2:45
happens. I I'm like I look in the mirror
2:47
and I and I can't believe I'm like how
2:48
am I almost a half a century old? I
2:50
don't feel like I've done enough yet to
2:53
have had that be my story. Yet here we
2:55
are more than halfway through life for
2:57
most of us. And that's really strange.
2:59
It can be overwhelming. And for some
3:01
people there becomes as we age,
3:03
especially in women, kind of a sense of
3:05
invisibility. It's not vanity, it's
3:07
identity disruption. And so I think that
3:09
that's something that we really don't
3:11
talk about and we need to change that.
3:14
Now, we're going to talk about how all
3:15
of those things in the individual when
3:17
happening to women with pmenopause, how
3:20
it impacts our relationships. And I
3:22
think that this is something that's
3:24
really important to understand. It
3:26
doesn't happen in isolation. We are not
3:28
in a box when we're in relationships.
3:30
So, our changes individually do impact
3:33
the interconnectedness in a
3:35
relationship. And so some of the common
3:37
relational impacts that happen while in
3:39
pmenopause are reduced sexual desire.
3:43
Sometimes because of the inability for
3:44
arousal. Sometimes because of exhaustion
