Menopause can be a difficult time. Intrusive symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, painful sex, and sleep problems can create physical discomfort and emotional distress. Meanwhile, the transition out of your fertile years can be a time of introspection and give rise to complex feelings about your sense of self and your place in the…
Nearly every woman will go through menopause. Except for women who have had their ovaries removed before puberty, it is an experience as universal to womanhood as anything. But just as each woman’s personality and experiences are unique, everyone’s journey with menopause is profoundly personal. The deeply individual nature of the menopausal transition means there…
“You should get your hormones tested!” How many times have you heard that comment? We’re often encouraged to look closely at our hormones when we experience symptoms that hint at conditions like hypothyroidism, menopause, or low testosterone. Indeed, fatigue, depression, hair loss, weight gain, weight loss, temperature sensitivity, mood changes, sleep disturbances, and anxiety are…
Over the past several decades, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has become commonplace. The growing popularity of this innovative treatment is driven by a host of factors—the increase in mass media advertising, the discussion of HRT on social media platforms, growing accessibility—but the end result is that ever-increasing numbers of individuals are relying on HRT to…
Collagen seems to be all the rage these days. People are adding it to their smoothies or making bone broth and drinking it by the gallon. But what is collagen, and why do people seem so enamored with it? Collagen, which is the most abundant protein in the human body, makes up 25 to 35…
When you struggle to fall asleep at night due to racing thoughts, you might brush it off as just another side effect of stress. When you wake up every morning feeling dread for the day to come, you might think it’s just because of your tight work schedule. But when you start feeling anxious for…
When the topic of organs comes up, many people automatically think about their heart, liver, kidneys, etc—and would be surprised to learn that their skin is actually their largest organ. Skin is made up of seven layers of tissue that protects muscles, bones, ligaments, and internal organs. Because skin is the first defense against the…
Kim experienced the worst cramps of her life on the day she turned 46. She’d never really dealt with PMS before—only the occasional moody afternoon or minor breakout, nothing debilitating. But from that cycle onward, she had all the symptoms she’d watched her “unlucky” friends struggle with: bloating, breast tenderness, cravings, irritability, and severe menstrual…
It’s easy to be a partner during easy times. That’s a simple statement, but being long-term partners with someone is sometimes relatively straightforward. Things are normal, and you both know the rules and know how to behave. Things might not be “easy”, per se, but you know how to deal with them. The ups and…
Mood swings are some of the least-understood aspects of menopause—and the most misrepresented. While pop culture representations of menopause tend to center specifically on mood, they typically treat menopausal women as a caricature of irrationality and hysteria rather than capturing the variability and complexity of menopause-related mood disturbances. Not only does this trivialize the very…
