Therapy for Midlife
Helping You Navigate the Midlife Transition & Beyond
Navigating Mental Health During Perimenopause: Support for Women in Transition
I Just Don’t Feel Like Myself
Do you find yourself saying this phrase in midlife? Perimenopause, the phase in the menopause transition leading up to menopause, is often marked by a range of physical and emotional challenges. The hormonal changes during this transition can significantly impact your mental health leaving you feeling like you are on an emotional roller-coaster. Physical symptoms like fatigue, hot flashes, heart palpitations and headaches can create significant emotional distress.
The Good News? Tools and support are available to help you navigate this transition and provide relief.
How Perimenopause Affects Mental Health
Hormonal fluctuations during Perimenopause can trigger a wide range of emotional and psychological symptoms, including:
Shifts in hormone levels can cause intense emotional highs and lows often resulting in irritability, frustration or emotional overwhelm.
Hormonal changes may trigger new feelings of anxiety or exacerbate existing anxiety sometimes manifesting as panic attacks or persistent unease.
Many women experience feelings of sadness, loss of interest in activities or hopelessness during perimenopause. These feels may be linked to hormonal changes as well as the emotional weight of midlife transitions.
Sleep difficulties, such as insomnia, wakefulness or non restorative sleep, are common in perimenopause. This lack of sleep can amplify mental health challenges.
You might be sleeping, but never feeling rested. The demands of midlife can intensify fatigue.
Difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness and “brain fog” can interfere with daily life leading to frustration and worry.
Physical changes like weight gain, hair loss and skin changes can lead to concerns about body image, self-worth and identity.
Symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats can happen in Perimenopause as well as later in the Menopause Transition. These symptoms can worsen depression and anxiety.
Therapy for Midlife Can Help You:
- Understand and manage the emotional impact of hormonal changes.
- Develop healthier coping mechanisms for anxiety, depression, and irritability.
- Improve your sleep and regain energy.
- Strengthen relationships and feel renewed connection.
- Learn strategies to address the emotional impact of physical symptoms like hot flashes.
- Uncover and resolve underlying emotional issues.
- Build resilience and self-compassion as you navigate this often difficult life transition.
Perimenopause Specific Expertise
Therapy for Midlife uses a combination of effective, evidence-based therapies tailored to your individual needs.
CBT is an effective way to manage anxiety, depression and even the distress associated with unmanaged hot flashes by identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns. It provides practical strategies for coping with the emotional challenges of Perimenopause.
CBT-I targets the specific sleep disruptions that commonly occur during Perimenopause. It helps you establish healthier sleep patterns, which in turn improves both your physical and emotional well-being.
ACT helps by encouraging mindfulness and self-compassion. It teaches practical strategies to embrace discomfort without judgment, reduce stress and foster a greater sense of emotional flexibility.
For women experiencing strained relationships or emotional disconnection during Perimenopause, EFT helps you rebuild emotional bonds with your loved ones, improving communication and mutual understanding.
Psychodynamic therapy allows you to explore how unconscious feelings and past experiences are affecting your current mental health. Deeper self-exploration can provide clarity and help resolve emotional issues that may arise during Perimenopause, promoting lasting emotional growth.