I feel like I talk about hormones a lot these days… but honestly, they deserve it. Because once you reach this stage of life, you start to realise just how much they affect absolutely everything. Your mood. Your energy. Your sleep. Your body. Your patience (or lack of it!). And the thing is, it doesn’t always make sense. You can wake up one day feeling completely fine, and the next day feel like you’ve been hit by a bus — tired, achey, emotional, and just not quite yourself.
A lot of that comes down to oestrogen. And when we start to lose it (which we do in perimenopause), things can get a bit… unpredictable. It’s not like a switch flips overnight. It’s more like a slow, slightly chaotic shift where your hormones are up and down, all over the place, doing their own thing. And your body just has to try and keep up.
We all know about the more obvious symptoms — hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings (hello, Grumpy post), and disrupted sleep. And yes, those are very real. I’ve definitely had my fair share of night sweats, and they seem to come and go depending on where I am in my cycle — because yes, I still have one of those too, just to keep things interesting.
But there are also the less talked about symptoms. The ones that can catch you off guard a bit. The aches and pains, for one. Honestly, some mornings I wake up feeling about 90. Everything feels stiff and sore, and I haven’t done anything particularly strenuous to deserve it.
Then there’s the extreme lethargy. Not just feeling a bit tired, but that heavy, can’t quite get going kind of exhaustion that seems to come out of nowhere.
And the emotional side of things too. The unexpected sadness, the low moods that don’t always have a clear reason. I had one of those days just yesterday, actually — a lovely combination of feeling sad and grumpy at the same time. Winning.
And then there’s something else I’ve only really connected the dots on recently… For the past year or so (give or take), I’ve been feeling really ill just before or during my period. Some months it’s been so bad I’ve actually been sick. Other times it’s more like extreme nausea with headaches — that awful, can’t function properly kind of feeling.
For ages, I just assumed I must be picking up a bug every time. It didn’t even occur to me that it could be connected. But over the past couple of months, I’ve realised it’s completely cyclical. It happens at the same point in my cycle. Which means… of course. Hormones.
It’s honestly a bit mad when you think about it — how many different ways they can affect us, and how long it can take to realise what’s actually going on. It’s a lot. And I think what makes it harder is that it’s not always consistent. You can’t predict it properly. You can’t plan around it. You just have to… ride it out. And let’s be honest — only the best husbands survive this stage!
But in all seriousness, it does affect more than just us. It affects how we show up in our relationships, how we feel in ourselves, and how we move through everyday life. Which is why I think it’s so important to talk about it openly, rather than just brushing it off as “one of those things”.
Because when you really think about it… can you imagine going through this in a different time? When women didn’t talk about these things. When men certainly didn’t understand them. When there wasn’t the information, the language, or even the awareness to explain what was happening to your own body.
It honestly hurts my heart to think about women going through all of this alone. Feeling these shifts, these symptoms, these changes… and not knowing what it was. Not having the words. Not having the support. Even the previous generation didn’t really talk about it. It was just something you got on with. Quietly.
And it’s only now, through people like Davina McCall and others speaking openly about it, that things are starting to change. There’s more awareness, more conversation, and finally, more research happening around perimenopause and menopause. And that matters. It really matters.
Because the more we understand what’s happening, the less alone we feel. The less confused. The less like something is “wrong” with us.
For me, HRT has made a huge difference to my hormones. I’m on it, and I dread to think how bad things might be if I wasn’t. It hasn’t magically fixed everything — I still have off days, still get symptoms — but it’s taken the edge off in a way that makes everything feel more manageable. And I think that’s the key word really… manageable.
Because this stage of life isn’t about being perfect, or feeling amazing all the time. It’s about understanding what’s happening, being a bit kinder to yourself, and finding ways to support your body through it. Some days will feel fine. Some days won’t. And both are completely normal.
So if you’re going through this too — feeling a bit all over the place, wondering why your body seems to have a mind of its own — you’re not alone. Not even slightly. It’s just hormones.
This is something I touch on in my book too — that idea of tuning into your body, understanding what it needs, and not fighting against yourself all the time. If that resonates, you can find it on Amazon and if you google The Enchanted Midlife by Suzy Turner, you will also find it on numerous other online bookstores.
