4 Myths keeping you confused about whether its perimenopause (or not)

Feeling exhausted, moody, and out of sync? It might not be stress or “just getting older.”

Many women dismiss perimenopause as being part of the cause of their symptoms, or are told it’s just part of being a busy Mum. But what if the real cause is perimenopause?

Key Takeaways
In this episode, we’re unpacking four common myths about perimenopause that are keeping women stuck, frustrated, and searching for answers. If you’re tired of feeling like your body is working against you, this episode is for you. Here’s what we cover:
• Why you might not be “too young” for perimenopause, and why so many women are misled into believing it’s years away.
• The surprising connection between perimenopause and regular periods. Hint: hormonal shifts start before your cycle changes.
• Why “normal” hormone blood tests might not give you the full story, and what to focus on instead to understand what’s really going on.

By the end of this episode, you’ll feel more confident in understanding your symptoms and what steps to take next to feel better.

Sneak Peek
“Here’s the reality, or what I think is the reality: If you’re feeling more tired, moody, and out of sync than you used to, it’s not just about being busy or being stressed—I think that’s such a cop-out. It could be your hormones specifically perimenopause. And you can do something about it. You don’t have to resign yourself to it.”

This conversation is packed with insights to help you recognise whether perimenopause is behind how you’re feeling, and to debunk the myths that might be keeping you stuck.

Tune in now to get clarity on your symptoms and practical advice you can use today.

Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode
•The Perimenopause Decoder – A free resource to help you identify whether your symptoms align with perimenopause and understand what phase you’re in (so you can tell how much longer perimenopause may last for).

Find out more about Sarah, her services and the Freebies mentioned in this episode at https://www.ThePerimenopauseNaturopath.com.au

• The Perimenopause Decoder is the ultimate guide to understanding if perimenopause hormone fluctuations are behind your changing mood, metabolism and energy after 40, what phase of perimenopause you're in, and how much longer you may be on this roller coaster for.
• For more, follow on Instagram at @theperimenopausenaturopath.

WORK WITH SARAH THE PERIMENOPAUSE NATUROPATH:

• PerimenoGO (because who wants to pause anyway?!) A self-guided program to help you reverse weight gain, boost energy, and reclaim your mood — without extreme diets or cutting carbs. Perfect for women who want a realistic plan that fits around kids, work, and actual life.
• The Chaos to Calm Method: A 1:1 personalised program for women who want a more personalised plan and support — especially if you’ve got 10kg+ to lose, other health issues, or feel like your body’s just stuck. Includes comprehensive blood testing and analysis, Metabolic Balance ...

Transcript

Have you noticed how the busyness of mum life seems to be hitting harder lately? The same things that you've been juggling for years suddenly feel really exhausting, overwhelming, just plain hard. Well, you're not alone in this. It happens to most women in their forties and fifties, which I think is the busiest phase of our lives.

Now it's probably the hormone changes of perimenopause at play. I'm just going to say that straight up. But some common myths or misconceptions about perimenopause might be keeping you confused about whether you're in perimenopause or not, and whether that's the problem. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

So make sure you stay tuned to the end because I'm going to share a free tool to help you figure out if perimenopause is behind how you're feeling. So you can start taking back your energy, your mood, and feeling comfortable and confident and in sync with your body again, because it can feel really discombobulating this time of life.

Like you're in someone else's body, like Jamie Lee Curtis in that movie where she switches bodies with her daughter. That can be kind of what it feels like in perimenopause, but if you've been told It's not perimenopause. It can be really confusing. Well, we dive into that. 

Hi, I'm Sarah, The Perimenopause Naturopath, and I've helped hundreds of women over 40 navigate perimenopause with confidence, feel great in their bodies and reclaim their mood and energy using what they eat, drink, and do to make the difference. So if you're over 40 and feeling like you're changing hormones or hijacking your mood, energy, and weight, and you want to change that in a holistic way, then this is the place for you. Each episode, I share my views on what's happening in your body, why you're feeling the way you are and how you can change that with actionable advice to help you move from chaos to calm and feel so much more comfortable in your body.

Welcome to episode 77 of Chaos to Calm today. We are tackling that big question. Is it perimenopause behind how you're feeling? Now, you might be thinking, no way, I'm way too young for perimenopause. Maybe you're thinking, Oh, my periods are still regular. So it can't be that because perimenopause and menopause is all about no periods, right?

These are really common misconceptions that hold women back from finding answers and feeling better. And may even get said to you by your doctor, if you go and ask them, or say, I've been having these symptoms or I'm feeling not quite right. I'm in my forties or my early fifties, is it perimenopause?

So in this episode, we're going to unpack some of those myths and I'll help you figure out what's really going on with your body. Is it perimenopause? But first let's talk about why I think this topic matters so much. Now lots of women that I work with have been told by doctors, friends, or even their own inner voice, that feeling this way is just kind of normal.

Because we're busy mums. But here's the reality or what I think is the reality. If you're feeling more tired, moody, and out of sync than you used to, it's not just about being busy or being stressed. I think that's such a cop out or getting older as well. It could be your hormones and specifically perimenopause and you can do something about it. You don't have to resign yourself to it. And I want to dive straight into the first myth because I just listened to some research and I'm really, it's like confirmed what I've been saying for ages. So I'm feeling really passionate and excited about sharing that information with you.

So the first myth that I want to talk about is I'm too young for perimenopause because most, well, Lots of people think perimenopause doesn't start to your late forties or fifties. And I think because we think menopause, it's like, that's it. I forget about this time of perimenopause, although it is being talked about a lot more lately.

And, I was, I've have been here myself at 42. I was, my health was really poor. I was really struggling with mood swings. I was irritated, impatient, angry and I had gained a lot of weight, even though it wasn't really like I wasn't doing anything different. But that had happened.

So even though my blood, I had hormone blood tests done, the whole, thyroid tested, iron levels, all the common causes of why I was feeling super tired as well. And even though my hormone blood tests came back low, like my estrogen was really low and in that sort of menopausal range, I was told I was like, I was too young for perimenopause and I was still breastfeeding.

So my doctor was like, well, it's not perimenopause, it couldn't be perimenopause. So I just got left feeling really frustrated by the lack of answers. I didn't have any answers and nothing actually to do. So I had to go figure that out myself, which is lucky for all of us, isn't it? Because here I am today.

That's what spurred me to become the perimenopause naturopath and start talking more about this phase of life. Because our culture often equates menopause with being old. And we put up with feeling old because we think, Oh, well, I'm in my forties or fifties. And did this is the research I was just listening to is that.

How long we live, we will live seven and a half years longer if we have a great attitude about aging and we don't see it as like the end and just resign ourselves to feeling crappy and that aging menopause being older is associated with disease. And like you think about all the advertising, all the things that we see in society, that all tell us that we're getting older and aging is about breaking down, disease, dysfunction, pain, suffering.

But I want to tell you, I want you to know that doesn't have to be the case. So that's what's really important about understanding. Is it perimenopause for you? Because you've got the opportunity to change and influence how you age and how you feel as you get older. And perimenopause is a key time to do this because there is so much change in our body.

So, yes, our culture often equates menopause with being old and also irrelevant and past our purpose and all of those things. So, if we're even thinking about the journey leading up to it with perimenopause, we're kind of in the back of our minds subconsciously, we're hoping that's still a long time away because we don't want to be old and, irrelevant because that's what society tells us we're going to be.

But the thing is that perimenopause can start two to twelve years before menopause and the average age of menopause is 51. So that means you could be beginning this journey in your late 30s. And if you're in your forties, the rumblings of change are probably already starting for you. And that's okay. And it doesn't have to be a horror show.

That's the other thing I like to talk about a lot as well is perimenopause and menopause. It does not have to be a horror show. Not at all. So let's move on to myth. Number two, I could be here all day talking about that. I did actually talk a bit about that last episode. Didn't I have had accepting feeling rubbish and talk about it a lot because it's true and the message doesn't seem to, well, maybe if I just keep saying it enough, it will get out there, but I feel like it, we're still normalizing feeling, aging with feeling decrepit and in pain and being unwell and taking lots of medications and perimenopause and menopause by virtue of people thinking that that happens when we're old is the same.

So maybe that's another myth I should have thrown in today, but anyway, just remember you're not necessarily too young for perimenopause. And if we don't ignore it, if we acknowledge that it can happen in your late thirties and forties, we have the opportunity to influence how we feel by tweaking what we eat, drink, and do, and really supporting and nourishing our body to give it the best opportunity during this time of great change.

So myth number two or misconception number two, well, my periods is still regular, so it can't be perimenopause. Yeah, I get it because we think menopause, well, we know menopause is the end of periods. So we think that perimenopause is all about that, the lengthening of your cycle and a longer time between periods.

But what actually, the hormone fluctuations of perimenopause start at a long time before your periods might change and before your periods get long further apart. So if we think about our hormone production as a, like an orchestra playing together, playing a symphony, and for most of your life, your hormones and so the instruments. It's in the orchestra.

Keep that steady rhythm and they're all playing along together and creating a beautiful harmony. I know for some of you, you might not have that regularity or that regular cycle as well, but it's important for us to help support our bodies so we can have that for most of our life. When perimenopause begins, the pitch starts to shift.

So some notes sound a bit off key or some instruments are playing just a little bit off key. So it sounds a little bit different. But, overall it, if you tune into one of the instruments, they sound a little bit different, but overall that, the symphony, the orchestra, it sounds pretty much the same.

So your periods might still be regular, but you're starting to feel a bit different, more tired, moody, overwhelmed, less patient, maybe having a little bit of trouble sleeping. Maybe you've got more headaches. Those are the kind of the earlier, early perimenopause symptoms that. I see in most women. So myth number three, and this is kind of what happened to me.

Although my blood tests were normal, you might convince your doctor to give you blood tests and, and they do them and you're, they're normal. Your hormone levels are normal. So hormone levels fluctuate dramatically across the day, week, the month, right? So a single blood test often doesn't tell the whole story.

It's like just taking like a snapshot or one single moment, one beat in time, of that symphony, the music sheet, and then assuming that's what it's all like. And it's not, it's not like that at all. And that, that those normal ranges used by the labs is so broad and they don't always reflect what's optimal for you.

And you might have trouble convincing your doctor to give you the hormone blood test because the gold standard for diagnosing perimenopause at this time in Australia is through symptoms. And unfortunately, age and symptoms, so that's often why, we talked about myth one, that's often why you might get told you're too young because that age criteria, even though we know it goes for two to twelve years, seems to be more like that late forties, early fifties that doctors are thinking about.

That's been a bit slower to change. So, yeah, like if we're looking just at one snapshot and I do with my clients, with my one to one clients in the chaos to calm method, I do extensive blood tests with them, but I always say it is just one snapshot in time. So it is great to test multiple times, but that can get expensive and that can get tricky to get your doctors to agree to if they're the ones referring you.

But we do need to see that history. It is just a snapshot, one snapshot in time. It does, don't get me wrong. They can bring really useful information, especially if we look at them functionally and we're using ranges that are optimal for your health. But it is a snapshot in time.

We need to take it in the context of what we know about you, your health history, what's going on for you, phase, where you're at, what stage of life you're at there. You, your genetics, your family health history, if that. So, yeah, so you, you might have normal blood tests but still feel that something is not right.

And you could still be in perimenopause, even if those hormone tests tell you you're not. So myth number four, it's just stress or burnout. You're a busy mum, these are easy culprits and don't get me wrong. They are often very involved. Like I said, at the start of this episode, it is the busiest phase of life.

There's a lot going on. There's a lot of stressors, a lot of busyness. And that is, stressful for your body, that busyness, but stress or your stress response, your stress resilience doesn't exist in isolation. So during perimenopause, your body produces less progesterone and that, that's one of the first things to change.

And progesterone is like a Zen hormone. It keeps us calm. It helps us sleep. It keeps our immune system in order. Does, keeps your hair, skin, and nails lovely. But one of the things that it does that's really relevant here is that it helps modulate our stress response. It gives us stress resilience.

So with it, as it's declining and its decline is quite rapid, your ability to handle stress naturally declines. So everything feels harder. You feel more overwhelmed. You feel irritated, impatient, moody. Of course, if you're getting less sleep. Then, basically just a full grown toddler, but, yeah, it, it's important to think about that.

It's just writing things off as just stress or busyness is not helpful because it makes us feel powerless. Like we can't, maybe you can't change that, saying, Oh, just get rid of your stressors is not the answer. Yeah. Because also that feels impossible for most of us, most of us have kids, how do we get rid of our kids?

We can't, can't sell them on eBay. That's not allowed. And why would you want to waste of the time when they're not bickering? I know that's not me. Thankfully, I've been feeling lately that just my younger kids bicker all the time and it must just be me and I'm doing something wrong, but talking with my friends, I realize it's not.

Anyway, addressing the root cause is really key. So not just writing it off as it's stress and busyness. Oh, well, can't change that. Or saying, I'll just get rid of some stressors but actually supporting your body to build your stress resilience so that you can handle those stressors better in the way that you used to.

So we need to nourish our nervous system and adrenal glands to help with that too. There's a lot to be done with what you eat, drink, and do, to help you nourish your nervous system and your adrenal glands and, and address that root cause, which is that loss of progesterone and help your body learn or better adjust or adapt to that change.

Cause I think that's what it's really all about in perimenopause and menopause is helping your body better adapt and adjust to the changes. The changes are inevitable. Eventually we're getting to the stage where we have minimal estrogen. It's not no estrogen because our adrenal glands make some for us and, and so does our fat cells as well, but it's helping our body better adapt and adjust to it.

Cause we're a long time without them. And we managed when we were kids, just fine. We didn't have estrogen and progesterone then we can do it again, but we just have to help our body remember that it could do that. So that's really the key addressing the root cause what's underlying it. Yes.

The hormone changes is the cause, but it's not necessarily the answer to just bolster that up with hormone therapy. You can do a lot of other stuff. If hormone therapy is not suitable for you or you don't want to do it. Yeah, like I said, there's a lot you can do with what you eat, drink and do. So if you're wondering whether it perimenopause is behind how you're feeling.

And I guess if you're here listening to me, you're probably thinking that, but I, you might not know that I have a free resource to help you. It's called the perimenopause decoder. You can download it. The link is in the show notes wherever you're listening to this podcast. It breaks down, it helps you work out whether the symptoms that you're feeling, are they, could there be perimenopause and that, and then you can also pop it together, those symptoms and see the different phases of perimenopause so that you can go, Oh, all right, I'm going to be here for five more years or ten more years. So it breaks down what happens in the different phases of perimenopause to help you see where you're at, how much longer to go. on the rollercoaster. So you can grab it in the show notes, but also the link for you is www.theperimenopausenaturopath.com.au/decoder. 

So thank you so much for tuning into today's episode is perimenopause behind how you're feeling. If you found this helpful, make sure that you follow the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. And while you're there, I would really appreciate it if you would.

Please rate the podcast, maybe even leave a review and let me know what you'd like to hear more about. Ratings and reviews help more women find the podcast that they had the chance to transform their perimenopause from chaos to calm. Next time I'm going to be talking about those phases of perimenopause, what happens when and how long it's going to take, how long to get off that rollercoaster.

I do hope you'll join me then. Until then, keep transforming your perimenopause from chaos to calm.