Perimenopause And Menopause, Demystified For Modern Women

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Menopause isn’t a list of symptoms to tough out—it’s a whole‑person transition that touches sleep, mood, metabolism, and identity. We pull back the curtain on what actually changes during perimenopause and menopause, why “I don’t feel like myself” is a valid signal, and how to turn overwhelm into a grounded, practical plan you can start today.

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We begin with a candid look at sleep, the hidden driver that shapes anxiety, pain, and focus. You’ll hear a striking patient story that shows how decades of poor sleep can ripple into later health, and you’ll get simple, evidence‑informed routines to protect circadian rhythm: cutting blue light at night, seeking bright morning light, creating a consistent wind‑down, and building protein‑forward, fiber‑rich breakfasts that stabilize energy and hormones. We connect these habits to nervous system regulation, sharing quick breath practices that fit inside a busy day.

From there, we move into mental health and identity. Hormone fluctuations influence serotonin and GABA, which can intensify irritability, low mood, or brain fog—especially if you live with depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. We talk therapy tune‑ups, medication reviews, and boundary setting that respects recovery. Then we tackle stubborn myths: that it’s all in your head, that normal labs mean nothing is wrong, that weight gain is laziness, or that you just have to endure. You’ll learn a three‑layer model—body, emotion, identity—to map what’s changing and choose next steps with clarity.

If you’re navigating hot flashes, sleep disruption, mood swings, or a shifting sense of self, this conversation offers compassionate guidance and actionable tools. Join us to reframe midlife as a portal to power, not a deadline. Subscribe for more grounded conversations on women’s health, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Transcript

Framing Perimenopause And Menopause

Beyond Hormones: Whole‑Person Changes

Sleep Disruption Through The Years

Why Reflection Now Shapes Later Life

Emotional Health And Mental Wellness

Three‑Layer Model: Body, Emotion, Identity

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Hello and welcome back to the Art of Healing podcast. This is Dr. Charlize. If we have met before, good to see you again. And if we have not met before, so nice to meet you, and I'm glad that you are here. We just finished up with an amazing webinar that we had last week called The Apology Tour with Dr. Lakeisha. Dr. Lakeisha really explained to us where we are in women's health in such a relatable and modern way right now. If you missed us, unfortunately, that won't be something we're going to play on the podcast. To hear Dr. Lakeisha's Apology Tour stop, you'll have to sign up for the Hormones Hermony Summit. She will be a part of our panel of esteemed speakers. She is going to be contributing so much along with intuitive healers, health coaches, other functional medicine doctors. If you want to sign up for the event and you want to secure your early access, you can buy your ticket now in the show notes. I'm so excited that we are launching this event February 19th to February 22nd, 2026. So check your show notes for more info. You can sign up for your free access, your hormone all access pass. Make sure that you get the lowest price to have the recordings to listen and re-listen and take your notes later. Alright, so let's get into our episode today and let's talk about this period of life called perimenopause and menopause and what it means to you and how we approach this when no one has prepared us for it. And for so many women, that question is why don't I feel like myself? And today I want to make sure you're aware of a resource that I have that helps you explore this topic. And you know, it's so interesting. This is something that I've heard women say in the 20 years that I've been in practice in medicine, and the eight, nine years that I've practiced Reiki is this shift that's not just the body, it's the mind, it's the spirit, it's huge, it's identity, and how to feel about this, the stress around it, really changing into a new person. For so many of us women, the time of perimenopause, which we learned some nuggets of true wisdom from Dr. Lakeisha, which you'll hear more in the summit, of how long perimenopause lasts, the transition into menopause, and what it means. It's a big topic, and it's something that depending on where you are, you almost have to address it in parts and pieces, maybe just looking at where you are now and reflecting on where you were a year ago or five years ago. I have an e-book called Awakening in Midlife, a grounded roadmap that helps you when you're overwhelmed and really helps you break down the layers of this period of your life and how you want to adjust. So we really want to see this differently. Although we may think of it as simply just changes in the hormones of reproduction, there's many changes happening. There's changes in the chemistry of your brain, there's changes in your nervous system, there's changes in how you sleep, your metabolism, your propensity to have chronic inflammation, and even your response to stress. The hormones fluctuating and the physical changes, the obvious ones we think of hot flashes and vaginal joinus, those are just the tip of the iceberg. Sleep disruption, which can occur in a number of flavors, and maybe waking up way too early, not being able to go to bed at night, or a mix and match of those. One of the most common, and the more I'm learning about this transition and going through this transition along with you listeners, is that the sleep disruption part can change, that it may start one way, and then depending on where you are and your stress levels, it may actually begin to change. Recently, I was working with a patient in clinic, and she's in her late 70s, and she had recently been diagnosed with a neurological disorder that's similar to Parkinson's, but not quite Parkinson's. It's devastating what it's doing to her because it's affecting her ability to use her hands. She has a tremor, her memory is coming and going. And during her visit, she wanted to talk about her sleep disruption. So we're reviewing her medications, and out of curiosity, I asked her, Well, how long has it been since you actually slept well? And she thought, got really quiet for a few minutes, and she said, It's probably been 35 years since I've slept. Well, and I was forward. I thought, wait a minute, what? 35 years? So she did the math in her head. She said, Yeah, probably starting back in my 40s. I can recall that about the time that my periods were stopping, my sleep became terrible. And, you know, I tried to talk to my doctor about it, and they told me just live with it. So I really haven't slept well since then. So that sleep disruption not being addressed, other than prescription medications, my poor patient just learned to adapt and surround, just to live around this. And the more we talked, she decided that probably her ongoing neurologic disorder related to her inability to get a good night's sleep for the past 30 years. Reason why I'm sharing that story is that if you are in this phase of your life where you have questions about what's happening, the importance of reflecting on it and really thinking about this because it means the way that you enter perimenopause is how you will live in the later stages of your life. Emotional changes. So for women, anxiety, feeling irritable, feeling short, fused, having mood swings, and if that doesn't feel like you, this might even be more difficult if you're already living with mental health challenges. If you've already been diagnosed with depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder, the changes that come on with perimenopause and menopause are very, very serious. And you need to be even more aware than other people because your mental health could be even more affected. It may mean that your medications need to be changed. You may need to get back into therapy, consider additional healing modalities if you're in this period of time. And then, of course, the physical changes, which those are the ones we think of the most, are the hot flashes and the brain fog, weight gain that we're not wanting. So all of these things that are happening in perimenopause and in menopause can be frustrating. But again, I want us to talk about these experiences not as something we've done wrong or something we need to do more of, but our mind, our body, and our spirit asking us for something. So let's approach this change with a three-layer model. So we'll wanna think about where we are in three different layers. The physical layer or the body layer, and that's where we might be thinking of the sleep disruptions, the changes in our appetite, our changes in insulin sensitivity, which can lead to changes in our metabolism, inflammation, so having more joint pain, muscle pain, fatigue, some of the things like the hot flashes, the skin changes, either dry skin, acne, combinations of both. So those are the physical things that would come with the body layer. Then there's the emotional layer, and that's where the changes in the hormones fluctuating sometimes rapidly, erratically, change our serotonin receptivity, can change something called the GABA or GABA in a way that's disruptive, which can lead us anxious or nervous or feeling overwhelmed. It can lead to the brain frog, which could be part of the body layer, or it could be part of the emotional layer. Then the third layer is the identity and the spiritual layer. And this is where we might notice our intuition is stronger and realize that we are wiser than we think, but that might be uncomfortable, especially if you didn't necessarily want it. Or sometimes knowledge is coming to you that you really didn't feel ready for that could actually be very uncomfortable. But also that identity of who you are, the way you show up in the world, who you are in your relationships. And because we're preparing for the summit, I've been interviewing these amazing speakers, that identity conversations come up so much about showing up even as a different person, and how this can be disruptive to the people around you. So the key with this is that perimenopause and menopause, although we mostly associate with the hormone changes, all of these layers are changing all of the time.

Myths That Keep Women Stuck

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And so, of course, you don't feel like the same person. So let's address a few myths, and we actually do this in the ebook.

Four Practical Steps For This Week

SPEAKER_01 12:51

We talked about some myths, I think, in the last podcast. First myth is that it's all in your head. So the practice of medicine has been gaslighting women for decades. Yes, it is in their head because their brain is changing, but they really are experiencing something. So maybe there's nothing that's becoming positive, like an abnormal CT or even abnormal labs, but no, it's not all in your head. Speaking of labs, another myth is that your labs are normal, so you're fine. Women often go to the doctor asking for a thyroid level, check the hormone levels. They want to know if their progesterone's too low or their estrogen's too low, and they get the results back and they're actually coming back normal. So, what does this mean? It means that according to the lab, which is based on statistical analysis and evidence-based medicine, it may truly be normal. Does that mean that you're not going through the change? Doesn't mean that you're not feeling differently. You are, you may find out that this phase, you may want to do something differently in six months or a year. So although the labs are normal, doesn't mean that it's not important information. The next myth is that you just have to go through this. There's nothing that you can do. There really are things that you can do, but in order to figure out what's the next steps, you really have to reflect on where you are now. It can be overwhelming, especially if you're trying to think about how you're feeling. You haven't slept in weeks, and your brain's foggy, and you're overrun with an appetite, and you know, so it's hard to piece all that out. But starting with even the smallest step is worth it. The next myth is you're gaining weight because you're just not doing enough and you're lazy. The weight gain can come from so many places, current medications, sleep that's disruptive or ineffective, and all the metabolic changes that come with the shift in the ovaries going to retirement and the adrenal glands picking up the mantle of being your primary hormone generator. And the last myth is that menopause is like the end. For many women, this is the uptick in who they really are meant to be in this lifetime. And it's a phase of true empowerment. It's a phase of growth, and growth is uncomfortable. So really, menopause is a time of stepping into yourself. So if this is you, and or you wonder if it's you or even someone that you love, this is them. Three things to do this week. Really, four, which is one I would encourage you to download the book that I'll put in the show notes, Awakening in Midlife. Next is working on the sleep routine. So even if you're having disrupted sleep, we can always do a few little things. Check the light exposure. We want to limit it, getting close to bedtime. We want to limit blue screen exposure or limit screen exposure as much as possible. You want to get bright natural light if you can in the morning. Try to have a good bedtime routine. Even if you're getting to your bedtime routine on time, make sure you've got something that can help you decompress, such as journaling, meditating. One of our speakers, Brandy Gibson, gave some really great tips. She'll give those in the summit about things that you can do to slow down at bedtime, and also things that you can do in the morning to help set you up to have a good nervous system day and sleep well at night. Making sure your breakfast has plenty of protein. So we want to get in fiber and protein. My personal new favorite breakfast is lentils, eggs, and vegetables. A lot of the traditional breakfast foods, especially in the American diet, are not the best for those of us that are going through this change. So you may have to get a little bit more creative. Greek yogurt with chia seeds, that's a good way to get some protein in. I really am a fan of getting the vegetables in. So mixing them in omelet, that's a good way to do it as well. One of my favorite things to do is during a busy day, I challenge myself to stop and breathe five times. Five breaths takes up about a minute or two. And especially if I feel like I need to check myself before I break myself, the five breaths during the day really helps me to be set.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

In your show notes, I would encourage you to get a copy of Awakening in Midlies.

Event Details And Closing

SPEAKER_01 17:48

It's an ebook that you can have on your phone. You can gently read it or read it with your journal and reflect on it. And it's also a good way to start framing the questions that you might need to take to your physician. And it also is a good way to explore all of this before the summit, which you are, it is totally free during the time of the summit. And if you would like to have recordings, you actually want to purchase the access now because the tickets are at their lowest price to have access to the recordings, the downloads, everything our speakers are going to offer. But of course, you can join us free during the summit, February 19th to February 22nd. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Show notes have a lot of important info. If you missed some of this, sign up for my email list because I'll also be making announcements there. Thank you so much, and I will see you next week.