How Hormones Hijack Motivation And How To Get It Back

What if your missing motivation isn’t a mindset problem but a hormone story your brain is trying to tell? In this week's episode I dive into how perimenopause impacts dopamine and cortisol, why tasks suddenly feel heavier, and how small, targeted changes can switch your drive back on without relying on willpower. I open up about nearly walking away from my practice, the fear that my spark was gone for good, and the science-based steps that brought it roaring back.

I break down the oestrogen–dopamine link and how fluctuating hormones can mute reward, fuel procrastination, and make starting the hardest part. Then I tackle cortisol and survival mode—why your brain seeks short-term relief when energy is low—and how that explains the “why bother” spiral. From there, I move into solutions that stabilise physiology: protein-forward breakfasts to build neurotransmitters and steady blood sugar, morning light to anchor your body clock, and strength training to increase dopamine sensitivity, reduce inflammation, and restore that “let’s do this” feeling.

Sleep gets a full, honest look, including the hidden costs of that nightly glass of wine. You’ll learn simple wind-down strategies, the power of consistency, and why even modest improvements change your brain’s readiness to act. We wrap with practical nervous system tools—breath, nature, clearer priorities, and saying no—so your body feels safe enough to pursue long-term goals again. If you’ve been judging yourself for not being as driven as you used to be, this conversation offers a kinder frame and a concrete path forward.

Ready to feel like yourself again? Book a free Peri Weight Loss Assessment via the link in the show notes, subscribe for new episodes each Tuesday, and leave a quick review to help more women find this show. What small change will you start today?

Are you a woman feeling stressed, flat and experiencing the challenges of perimenopause or menopause?

It’s time to reclaim your youthful energy, radiance and self-assurance (and your ideal weight).

I’m here to help with my proven method.

Here's how I can support you -

1. Hit your health and wellbeing goals this year, balance your hormones and lose weight with your own personalised protocol, based on your body's biochemistry. Sounds awesome right!! Book a free 30 minute Peri Weight Loss Assessment with me so we can discuss your health and wellbeing goals and also see how I might be able to support you. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book your call here. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@the.perimenopause.path

3. Join the waitlist for my innovative NEW 8 week group program, In Your Skin™️, for women in perimenopause and post-menopause who want effective  solutions to manage skin changes at this time of life.

Transcript

Welcome And Naming The Shame

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and Awesome Podcast. I'm an age-defying naturopath and clinical nutritionist and I'm here to bust myths around women's health and ageing so that you can be ageless and awesome in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. The Ageless and Awesome Podcast is dedicated to helping women through perimenopause and menopause with great health, a positive mindset, and outrageous confidence. Hit subscribe or follow now and let's get started. Hello, gorgeous one, and welcome to this week's episode of the Ageless and Awesome Podcast. I'm Susie Garden, your host, perimenopause naturopath, weight loss nutritionist, and proud perimenopause survivor. Yes, I made it through to the other side and I'm here to help. So today I'm talking about something I know so many women are quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, carrying some shame about. And this was totally me as well. And I'm gonna share my story as well. Low motivation. This comes up a lot when I'm speaking to people in my peri weight loss assessments. And this low motivation doesn't just feel like I don't feel like going to the gym, for example, but that deeper, heavier feeling of I just don't have the drive anymore. I used to be so disciplined and now I don't care, or I don't recognize myself. Why can't I just get it together? And if that's you, and I think it's a lot of the women that listen to this podcast, if that's you, I want you to stay with me because today we're gonna talk about why low motivation in your 40s and 50s is very often hormonal and not a personality flaw, and not that you just can't be bothered. And understanding this can completely change how you approach your health. So let's name the shame. I work with so many really capable, high-achieving women, women who run households, manage teams, have massive careers, support everyone else, and they sit across from me on the Zoom and say quietly, I just don't care like I used to. I can't seem to push myself anymore. I feel so flat. And underneath that is guilt, of course, because they remember being driven and remember being consistent and focused and capable of, you know, get doing all the things they needed to do and still feeling energized. So when that drive fades, they assume I've become lazy, there's something wrong with me, this is how my life is now. But here's what I want to say really clearly, and I really want you to hear this. You did not suddenly lose your character and your integrity. Your brain chemistry has shifted. And when your brain chemistry changes, motivation changes. And this happened to me a few years ago now, uh, when I was in perimenopause, and I remember, and I was working, you know, doing what I'm doing now, and I remember sitting at my desk some days, just not able to create anything. So just dragging myself through the days, just sitting here thinking, okay, I've got to record a podcast, what am I gonna do? And feeling this complete lack of motivation. And I thought it was brain fog, um, but I now know that it's actually more complex than that, and it is really common in women. And when I really committed to doing my own GLO protocol, that changed everything for me. And so I want to share that with you. And I I want to share that this it's a really real thing and it's horrible, and it's actually a little scary because you think this is who I am now, you know, someone who actually just doesn't care. And I nearly gave it the all of um my practice up. I nearly I just thought I'll go and work for another practitioner and I'll just do that because that's easy. I can see clients. I'm always motivated to see clients because I really love that work. Um, so I thought I would do that. I even considered going back into the pharmaceutical industry and I actually did interview uh for a position. Uh, I actually did get offered a role, which I turned down because I just kind of figured actually I don't know that this is the right move. Um so I want you to know that this is certainly not an unusual thing to be feeling, and it does feel really awful. So I want to talk about dopamine and the dopamine estrogen connection because yes, there is a connection here. Um, dopamine, you may have heard of it already. It's your your motivation, your reward neurotransmitter, and it drives your goal-directed behavior. It drives follow-through, it drives excitement, anticipation, that feeling of let's do this. And here's what many women don't know: estrogen directly influences dopamine signaling. Estrogen enhances dopamine activity in certain regions of your brain, particularly those involved in motivation and in executive function. So when your estrogen is fluctuating, which it does wildly in perimetopause, dopamine signaling becomes less predictable. And the result of that is tasks feel heavier. Starting, oh my gosh, starting feels harder. The reward doesn't feel as rewarding. You procrastinate more and you question yourself more. I tick every single one of those. Um, and it's not that you don't want the outcome, it's that this internal spark that you used to have that initiates action just feels dimmer or feels like it's not even there anymore. And some women, you know, can confuse this with depression, and sometimes maybe it is part of that, you know, you can't discount that. Maybe it is depression that's causing this lack of motivation, but this lack of motivation does stand on its own as well without being classified as a depression type or a mood type disorder. So, you know, and when you've got this low sort of activation, well, let's just say it's low dopamine activity, and then you add on top of that disrupted sleep. I can tick that box at the time, high cortisol, particularly a lot of us are in stress a lot in our 40s, particularly, blood sugar instability and chronic stress, you get a perfect storm for low drive. This is not weakness, this is neurobiology. So if this is you, please don't blame yourself, don't be hard on yourself. And a lot of the women that fit go into this category are type A personalities that absolutely put a lot of pressure on themselves. I'm one of them, I get it. And yeah, you can really beat yourself up about it. Um, but this is this is actually neurobiology. This is something going on in your brain that we can do something about, you know, this is not something you have to put up with. So I want to talk a little bit about cortisol and the why bother kind of feeling. Um, you know what I'm talking about, right? So let's layer in some stress. Perimenopause is often a cortisol-dominant kind of situation. And progesterone, which used to calm and buffer stress, it's declined. It's, you know, it declines quite early in the perimenopause sort of journey. Cortisol can become more influential, and chronic cortisol elevation is does something very important. It shifts your brain into survival mode. And when you are in survival mode, your brain prioritizes immediate relief, immediate relief, energy conservation and short-term safety, not long-term goals. This is a very primitive sort of system. It has not evolved into the kind of tasks and things that we do now in our daily life that cause us stress. This this is still about, it feels like an unpaid bill is a life or death situation. So there's no long-term goals when you're in a life or death situation, right? So when you need, sorry, when you look at something like I need to use lose 12 kilos or 25 kilos, um, or I should start exercising consistently, your brain doesn't see opportunity there, it sees effort. And when you're already tired, effort feels threatening. So the thought becomes, what's the point? I just can't do this. And that isn't apathy, that's a nervous system fatigue. And this kind of leads into why willpower doesn't work anymore. Because in your 20s, in your early 30s, you could override fatigue. I mean, I was a nurse, I was a shift worker, and it would be nothing for me to work uh with what we called an eight-hour break. So I would finish a shift at 11:15 and I would be back at work at 7.15 because that was the minimum sort of time that they had to allow between shifts. So eight hours, you're definitely not getting eight hours of sleep if you're finishing at 11.15. And that's if you're left on time. Um, and then yeah, you're getting to work, you're not, you know, walking in at 7.15. You gotta get there, you've got to park, you've got to walk to the ward, etc. So that was just normal life for me when I was that kind of shift worker. And I didn't, I didn't get long-term fatigue at all. I could I easily kind of go out at 11:15. And I remember doing this, you know, one of the nurses had a tarago, and we would all, like any of us that were around at like 11:30 at night, that were bored and thought, oh, you know, let's do something. You just jump in the tarago. We used to go down, I was placed in Brisbane, we'd go down to the Gold Coast to the casino because that was the only place that was open, and we'd go dancing in the nightclub till four and then come back and get ready to have like an hour or two sleep and get ready to go on shift. So, and that was manageable. So, in your 20s, sorry, that's pretty hardcore, and your early 30s, you could override fatigue, you could push through, you know, your hormones buffered stress better, your sleep was deeper, your insulin sensitivity was stronger, but now the margin is smaller. So when women try to discipline themselves into motivation, they often make it worse because restriction and intensity raise cortisol. Cortisol suppresses dopamine. So the harder you push, sometimes the flatter you feel. And many of you may have experienced this. I have certainly experienced this. Not so much in that exercise situation, but just pushing through from a work point of view. And this is why so many women in perimetopause cycle between brief bursts of effort, followed by burnout, followed by guilt, followed by starting again. And it is exhausting. And it reinforces this narrative that something is wrong, and it restarts that negative, an inner talk, that negative self-talk, telling you you've got to push harder, don't be lazy. You know, you can do this. What's going on? Why aren't you doing the things that you need to do? You're just being lazy. So now we know what the problem is. How do we rebuild this motivation biologically? And this is the really hopeful part. You know my how my podcasts work. I tell you the, you know, all the things that that are happening, and then how we can support them, how we can turn it around. So this is the hopeful part of the podcast today. Motivation absolutely can return. I I have been through this whole journey. Motivation can return, but not through pressure, through physiology. And here's where we start. And believe it or not, nutrition plays a huge role in this because dopamine and any of our neurotransmitters are built using nutrients. You know that old saying, you are what you eat, that is absolutely the truth. So when you're eating, particularly protein, is a really important part of any of our neurotransmitters or brain chemicals. Protein is super important. Uh, so protein at breakfast, super important. Protein stabilizes your blood sugar and supports dopamine production. It reduces that mid-morning crash. It helps to reduce brain fog. And this single shift can change how your brain feels within weeks. I'm talking just a couple of weeks. I get this feedback all of the time with women on the GLO Protocol is like within a couple of weeks, their energy goes up, but also their clarity of thought goes up and their motivation improves. Number two is morning light exposure. And you may have heard this before, but getting natural light within 30 minutes of waking regulates your circadian rhythm and supports dopamine signaling. And even 10 minutes outside will make a difference. So if you're in a position where you can get 10 minutes outside, I have two dogs, so I don't get away with not doing a walk as soon as we wake up. So it's that's really easy if you have that external motivator like a dog. Um, but if you can get outside, even if it's eating your breakfast outside, if it's too cold, uh looking through a window where you're seeing the natural light, preferably an untinted window, then that will help. Okay, so even 10 minutes will make a difference. Strength training. I know exercise. Now I've learned I don't love exercise. I'll be honest. I've said that many times, but I love strength training. Love it. I feel so good, I feel so strong, like I could just take on the world. Muscle contraction increases dopamine sensitivity. Here's your biology. I'm gonna say it again. Muscle contraction increases dopamine sensitivity. It also improves insulin sensitivity and reduces inflammation. How good is that? So, strength training, even twice a week, preferably three times a week, super powerful for this. And I think this was a real game changer for me is getting really regularly into the gym. And again, when you're not feeling motivated, that can be really hard. But for those of you who are longtime listeners, you may recall I did a pod and I talked about the 10-minute rule. And I've had, you know, clients, etc. say to me, I really remember that 10-minute rule and it works. Um, is that you give yourself absolute permission to just do the task, whatever it is. For me, it's going to the gym, just do it for 10 minutes, and then you can stop and it's all good. But you've done it for 10 minutes. And more often than not, certainly for me and for most people I talk to about this, after that 10 minutes, you're kind of enjoying it. You're kind of in a groove and you're just like, yeah, okay, I'll keep going and get the task done. So if you just give yourself, okay, I only have to do this for 10 minutes, sometimes that can make it easy. Now, for strength training, generally you will need equipment and preferably advice. So whether you go to a class, whether you go uh some PT, you may be able to find something on YouTube or something if budget is an issue that can help. But generally, you will need something heavy to lift. Um, and you'll need to learn to do it in a way that keeps you safe. All right. So I'm definitely not saying just go out and start lifting heavy things. You need technique. Okay, you don't want to end up with an injury that then slows down this process for you. The fourth thing is sleep consistency. Even modest sleep improvement improves your motivation. And that's so that could mean earlier nights, even going to bed half an hour earlier. If you have to be up at an early time, try to get to bed earlier. Try to allow for at least eight hours in bed. That will increase your chances you'll get, you know, close to eight hours of sleep. Having less alcohol. And this is something that I honestly have struggled with at times because I like a wine, you know? And it it certainly in the past, um, particularly in my 30s, I would probably drink almost every night, just one glass. And that's that comes from growing up. Any of you guys that grew up in the 70s, you know, your mum and dad always had a cask in the fridge, and every night you would go, like that was a fun thing for us kids to do, would be to go and fill up mum and dad's glass of wine from the cask. And many of you will know this feeling, and it was kind of fun. So I think that really sets up a bit of an expectation that you drink every day. So I've really had to really drop back my alcohol, and it's a definitely a good thing, by the way. Definitely a good thing. It improves skin, it improves your hormone balance, it improves your sleep, so many good things. Um, but also having a better wind-down routine. So if you're feeling going to bed and you can't sleep, you need a better wind-down routine. So whether that is um taking away your screens earlier, turning off the TV earlier, whether it's doing something like reading, something that brings you joy, um, anything. There's no real set thing that's better than others, except maybe doing breath work or meditation or sauna, actually. Um, I should do an episode on sauna because that is um very good for sleep as well, particularly if you're struggling. So um, yes, even modest sleep improvement improves your motivation. I wanted to have another separate point on alcohol because alcohol actually temporarily increases dopamine. So you may notice if you're really happy when you when you have a glass of wine, uh, if you get really energized and really fun and all of that, that's just most likely going to be this temporary increase in dopamine that you get with alcohol. But then the downside is it depletes it. And when you're in perimetopause in particular, recovery is slower. So reducing alcohol often improves motivation significantly, even if you aren't a big drink drinker. Uh, the last thing I'm going to talk about is uh nervous system regulation. Breathing, walking, spending time in nature, reducing urgency. Reducing urgency is an important one. And often, if you can think of all the different tasks that you need to do, it can feel overwhelming. And when you actually write them all down and prioritize them, you really can reduce that sense of urgency and stress by doing that. And I really encourage you, if you're someone that feels overwhelmed easily, I really encourage you to write things down and prioritize them and really actually look at it and go, actually, it's not as bad as I thought. Um, saying no more often, that's a big one. And as women, that can be really hard. If you're a people pleaser, it's even harder. I'm a reformed people pleaser. I'm getting much better at saying no, uh, and I'm getting much better at standing up for myself. Um, but calm bodies create motivated brains. So nervous system regulation or stress management is a massive opportunity for many women. So, you know, if you've been judging yourself for not being as driven as you used to be, please let that soften. Honestly, low motivation in perimenopause is really, really common, even post-menopause. It's biological, it's not something you can necessarily control. It's reversible with the right support, but it does require a different strategy. That's exactly the kind of support I provide inside the GLOB protocol. We don't rely on willpower, we stabilize physiology, we provide structure, and we support your hormones because when your hormones are supported, your clarity improves, your drive returns, consistency feels easier, and you start to feel like yourself again. And that's a really good feeling. So if this episode resonated and you're ready to stop blaming yourself and you're ready to start embracing a new path, I would love to support you. You can book a free peri weight loss assessment where we look at what's really driving your symptoms, whether they're motivation, whether it's sleep, whether it's weight. Whether it's mood, whether it's hot flushes, whatever's going on, and map out your next steps. The link is in the show notes. And I want you just to remember if this is something that's going on for you right now, I really truly feel for you. You're not lazy. You are not weak. And this is not permanent. This is your brain adjusting to your new normal, your new hormonal picture. And with the right approach, your spark comes back. So take care. Um, any questions or feedback, feel free to message me at the Perimenopause Path or email me hello at susygarden.com. I love hearing from you. Uh so yeah, take care and I will see you next Tuesday for some more fresh content. Thanks so much for joining me on the Ageless and Awesome Podcast. If you would like this episode, please make sure you click the little plus button if you're on Apple Podcasts, or the follow button if you're on Spotify, so that you get each new episode delivered to you every single week. If you feel like writing me a five star review, you would absolutely make my day. If you found this episode resonated with you, head over to my Instagram and DM me at the Perimenopause Park. I would love to connect with you.