Latest / What The Peri? - With Kirsten Cooke / Brain Fog & Perimenopause - You're Not Losing Your Mind! (Ep 6)

Transcript

Brain Fog & Perimenopause - You're Not Losing Your Mind! (Ep 6) · What The Peri? - With Kirsten Cooke

0:07
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to What the Perry.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host Kirsten Cook, personal trainer, menopause coach, and a woman living it right alongside you.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast for women navigating perimenopause and menopause.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: The change you didn't ask for, but the conversations you need.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: There's a moment a lot of women hit in perimenopause where they realise they just don't feel like themselves anymore.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: They can't always put their finger on it or explain it properly.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: It's not one big dramatic thing.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a hundred small ones.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: But underneath it all is this quiet, unsettling sense of I don't quite feel like me.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And a huge part of that, the part we're talking about today, is what happens to your brain.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Because for me, it honestly felt like someone had completely invaded my brain overnight.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: This sharp, capable brain I'd relied on my whole life, suddenly wasn't there in the same way.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: I'd walk into a room and have absolutely no idea why.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I'd read a whole page of a book and reach the bottom having taken in not one single word.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: So I'd read it again and again.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that unsettled me the most wasn't those little slips.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: It was the moments my brain went, and honestly this is the only way I can describe it, completely offline.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean the normal kind of forgetting where a word slips away and then comes back to you a few seconds later.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: This was something else entirely.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I'd be mid-sentence, mid-conversation, and the whole thought would just vanish.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Not misplaced, completely got.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how hard I tried to retrace my steps to claw back what I'd been saying or where on earth I was going with it, there was nothing there, just a blank where a whole train of thought used to be.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: One of the many professional hats I wear is as a Pilates instructor.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So picture this.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I'd be at the front of a class, cueing everyone through movements, and in my head I'd be lining up what to say next, and then out of nowhere I'd think, hang on, did I just say that out loud already?
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Or did I only think it?
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Did that actually come out of my mouth or did I just imagine it?
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Standing in front of a room full of people, genuinely unable to tell what I had or hadn't just said.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: That's a profoundly disorientating place to be.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And then there were the names.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I could not hold on to people's names.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean someone I'd met once in passing.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean people who'd been coming to my classes twice a week for two years.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Faces I knew as well as my own families.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: I'd go to say hello and their name would have completely vanished from my brain, totally gone.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And the words themselves, not big complicated words, the simplest ones.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: The word for a banana, for a fork, or for a shower.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Ordinary words I'd known my whole life and use every single day, wiped clean out of my head in the middle of a sentence.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And the frustrating thing is, you know you've said the wrong word.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: You can hear that it's wrong, but for all the trying in the world, the right one will not come.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So you just stand there, grasping at nothing, feeling the silence stretch out and everyone waiting.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Or worse, people finishing your sentences for you or pointing out all the words you meant to say.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you about how that feels, because I suspect you already know.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: It feels like helplessness.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: It feels like frustration boiling up in your chest.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: It makes you feel stupid, or worse, like you sound stupid, like a bumbling idiot who can't get to the end of a thought.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Here's this capable woman who's juggled a family and a career and held it together for years, suddenly unable to string one coherent sentence together.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: And underneath all of it, something even harder to name.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: The feeling that your own brain has been invaded, that it's not yours anymore.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: You catch yourself and you don't quite recognise the person you've become.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: And for all your effort and all your trying, there's this awful, helpless sense that there's nothing you can do to control it or to make it stop.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And maybe the heaviest part is knowing it won't be the last time, knowing it's going to happen again and again and that there'll be stretches where it gets worse and drags a whole crowd of other symptoms in with it.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I understand now what those stretches are.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: When it comes for me like that, day after day, I know I'm in the middle of what I've come to call a hormonal crash.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: And it usually arrives with the full package, splitting headaches, bone deep fatigue, low mood, broken sleep all at once.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what nobody tells you: your hormones don't decline in a nice tidy downward line.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: They surge and swing and crash wildly and unpredictably, and they do it even when you're on HRT as I am.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: There's often no pattern to the chaos at all.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And when you don't understand that, every single crash feels like fresh proof that something is deeply wrong with you.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be honest about where my mind went with all of this, because I doubt I'm the only one who's been there.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: I went to a pretty dark place.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: I genuinely began to wonder whether I was developing early dementia.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: That's a terrifying thing to carry on your own, and I carried it quietly for a very long time before I understood what was really going on.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: So let me say this now, right at the top, because it's the thing I wish someone had said to me back then.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: If this is you, you are almost certainly not losing your mind, and you are almost certainly not developing dementia.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: What you're living through has a name, perimenopausal brain fog.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: It has a mechanism, it's real and physiological, and for the vast majority of women, it is temporary.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Understanding that lifted a huge weight off me, and that is what I want to hand you today.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about what this actually feels like in your real life, at home, at work, because that's where it does the damage.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Why it's happening in your brain, how you can tell it apart from something more serious, and the real practical things that genuinely help.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm right in it with you on this one.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to What the Perry.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm Kirsten Cook.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Last week we spent the whole episode on sleep, and I promised you then that this one was coming, because the two are joined at the hip.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: When you're not sleeping, your brain is the first thing to pay the price.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to the symptom that honestly frightens more women than almost any other: brain fog.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: The forgotten words, the walking into rooms, the reading the same paragraph five times, the quiet terror that it might be something more serious.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: But here's my promise for the next half hour.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: By the end of it, you're going to understand what's happening in your head.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be able to tell the difference between this and the thing you're afraid of, and you're going to walk away with genuine, doable ways to get your sharpness back.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: No jargon, no waffle.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with what it actually feels like, because I think you need to hear it named out loud.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I've told you how it was for me.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Now let me tell you how it probably is for you, because I hear the same story again and again.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: It's walking into a room and standing there completely blank.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: It's opening the fridge and forgetting what you came for.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: It's the mental load, the appointments, the permission slips, the invisible list in your head that quietly ran the whole household, starting to drop things it never used to drop.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: You double book, you forget the thing you never forget, and you start to feel like you're failing at a job you used to do in your sleep.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: You're not stupid and you're not careless.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Your brain is working overtime just to do what it used to do on autopilot.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And here's the part that almost nobody understands because it's completely invisible.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: The sheer exhaustion of it.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: When your brain is foggy, everything costs more.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Every ordinary task you used to do without thinking now has to be done on purpose, with concentration, with effort, with white knuckles, and that's a bone-deep kind of tire that's almost impossible to explain to someone who's never felt it.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a real day of mine, because I think some of you are going to recognise yourself in it.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: There were mornings I'd teach three Pilates classes back to back.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And to give my clients the experience they deserve, to cue every movement, describe every technique, time the flow from one exercise into the next so it's seamless, all while my brain was thick with fog, I had to pour every last drop of concentration and mental energy I had into it.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Stay sharp, hold it together, keep smiling.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And by the time that last class finished and it was time for me to move on to the next part of my day, I was so completely wiped out, mentally, not just physically, that I couldn't even drive.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: I'd make it to my car and I'd just sit there, starving, hungry, knowing I needed to eat or get to the next errand or class or client, and too exhausted to even open the car door, too exhausted to go anywhere.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: So I'd just sit in my car and cry.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Just cry from the sheer depletion of it all.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: And then once I felt like I'd gathered myself together enough, I'd drive myself off to the next thing on my endless list.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: And something as ordinary as the grocery shop could feel like climbing a mountain, because it was never just wandering around a shop.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: It was having to think, what do I need?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: What am I cooking for the family tonight?
9:38
SPEAKER_00: What was on that list I can't quite picture anymore.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Layered with the quiet dread that I'd bump into someone I knew and have to hold a whole conversation when I'd already lost my words for the day.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: A simple, mindless errand, suddenly overwhelming.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: That's what this mental fatigue does.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just tie you out, it shrinks what feels possible.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And it is such a lonely, isolating place to be.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Because from the outside, you look completely fine.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can see the effort it's taking, or the fog you're clawing your way through, or the tears in the car park.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: You're holding it all together in public and quietly falling apart in private, and you feel so utterly alone in it.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: So if that is you, please hear me.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: You are not alone.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: I have sat in that exact car park in those exact tiers.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I see you and I understand.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And over time, if nobody explains any of this to you, it does one more thing.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: It chips away at your confidence.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: You stop trusting your own brain.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: You pull back, you don't put your hand up for the thing.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: You go quiet in the meeting, you don't accept the social invitation.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: You start to wonder quietly whether you're past it.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just you, it's woman after capable woman, 20 and 30 years into work she's brilliant at, secretly wondering if she can still do it.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So before we go one step further, let me say this as plainly as I can.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: You have not become stupid, scattered, or lazy.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Something physiological is happening to your brain, something real and hormonal and temporary, and it's happening on top of a transition that almost no one around you understands.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: That is not a you problem.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Now let me show you exactly what it is.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: So let me explain what's actually going on up there, because the explanation itself is a big part of the relief.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Your brain is not some separate machine sitting up there immune to your hormones.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely covered in receptors for estrogen all through the areas that run your memory, your focus, and your words.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Estrogen isn't just a reproductive hormone.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: In your brain, it's more like a spark plug.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: It helps your brain cells make and use the messenger chemicals that let them talk to each other, and it helps your brain stay flexible and quick.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: So picture what happens as your estrogen starts surging and plummeting in perimenopause.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: That steady supply your brain has run on your whole adult life becomes erratic.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And the brain has to adapt.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: In fact, and I find this genuinely reassuring, here's what that actually looks like.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Your brain runs on sugar, on glucose, as its main fuel, and estrogen is part of what helps it take up and burn that fuel efficiently.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So as your estrogen dips, brain imaging studies show your brain temporarily becomes a little less efficient at using its energy.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: A bit like an engine that isn't getting a clean, steady supply of fuel.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: So for a while it runs rougher and slower than what you're used to.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be straight with you here because the science on this is still unfolding.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: There are real, measurable changes in the brain during this transition, including some shrinkage in certain areas and that dip in energy use.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: But here's the part I find reassuring rather than frightening.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: The researchers imaging women's brains right through menopause describe this not as the brain breaking down, but as the brain adapting, recalibrating, compensating, finding a new normal.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And when they scan those same women again on the other side, many of those changes have stabilized or even partly reversed.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't your brain being damaged, it's your brain adjusting to an environment it has never had to work in before.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out to be remarkably good at it.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's why it shows up the way it does.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: The most affected is your verbal memory, your words, your ability to grab a name or a fact on demand, which is exactly why the classic perimenopausal symptom isn't forgetting who your family are.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: It's the word on the tip of your tongue that just won't come.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: The information hasn't gone anywhere, the filing cabinet is still there, it's the retrieval, the reaching in and pulling the right thing out on demand that's gone temporarily slow and clunky.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Understanding that one distinction genuinely helped.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: It took some of the fear out of what was happening to my mind.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: And this is where last week ties straight in.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Remember I said sleep is the foundation everything is built on?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: This is what I meant.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: When you're not sleeping, and in perimenopause most of us aren't, your brain never gets the overnight cleanup and filing it depends on.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: So the fog gets dramatically worse.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Add the hot flushes we talked about that can knock your brain briefly offline as they hit, and you've got a brain being asked to perform while it's underfueled, underslept, and interrupted.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's foggy, it's not failing, it's overloaded.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Now if you take one single thing from this whole episode, I'd like it to be this, because I know some of you are carrying the exact fear I carried.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: This is almost certainly not early dementia.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you the ways to tell the difference, because they're clear and they matter.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: The first is the pattern.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Perimenopausal brain fog fluctuates.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: It comes and goes, often worse in the days before your period or after a shocking night's sleep, and then noticeably clearer at other times.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You might have good days where your brain is right there.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Dementia doesn't do that.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: It's a steady one-way progression that gradually worsens and doesn't bounce back.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: If you're having genuinely sharp days in amongst the foggy ones, that fluctuation in itself is reassuring.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: The second is the kind of forgetting.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: This is word finding and retrieval.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: The name that won't come, the word on the tip of your tongue, walking in and forgetting why.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not the forgetting how to do things you've always done or getting lost somewhere familiar or not recognising the people you love.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Those are different and those do warrant a proper look.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Losing your words is the hallmark of hormonal fog.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Losing your way home is not.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And the third one is the one I want you to hold on to most because it's the hopeful one.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: For most women, this lifts.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: The research that followed women right through the transition found that the specific perimenopausal dip, that sense of not retaining things, of your brain not sharpening the way it used to, tends to recover as your hormones settle on the other side.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Your ability to learn and hold new things comes back.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: So this is not the beginning of a long slide.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: For the vast majority of it, it's a rough passage through a transition, not a destination.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm a coach, not a doctor, so here's the honest safety net.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: If your memory changes are severe, if you're steadily getting worse rather than fluctuating, if they're frightening the people around you, or if something just feels genuinely wrong with you, please go and see your GP and get it properly checked.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: That's not me hedging, that's me wanting you looked after.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: But know as you walk in that perimenopausal brain changes are extremely common, extremely normal, and very rarely the thing you're afraid of.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, while we're being honest about the brain, there's one more thing I think you deserve to hear.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Not to frighten you, but because knowledge is power, and I'd rather you heard it from someone who'll pull it all into proper context.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: You may know that women are more affected by Alzheimer's than men.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Around two-thirds of people living with Alzheimer's are women.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Part of that is simply that we live longer, but researchers increasingly believe that losing estrogen's protection through menopause plays a part too.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you that to scare you because risk is not destiny.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: This is not your fate, but because of what comes next, which is genuinely good news.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the biggest, most recent research on dementia is telling us.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Nearly half of the risk, up to about 45% of it, comes down to two things that are within your control.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Not your genes, your daily life.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And one of the most powerful things you can actually do is exercise, especially the strength training we're about to talk about, which is one of the best evidenced ways to protect an aging brain.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Add to that looking after your heart and blood vessels, your blood pressure, your blood sugar, your cholesterol, your weight, not smoking, going easy on alcohol, protecting your hearing, staying socially connected, keeping your brain engaged in learning, and getting good sleep.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Every one of those meaningfully lowers your risks.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And here's the beautiful part.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: They are the exact same things that lift the fog you're living with right now.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: So everything I'm about to give you does double duty.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: It clears your head today and it protects your brain for the decades to come.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: So that's what the fog is and what it isn't.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, because there are things making it so much worse that you can actually do something about, let's get practical.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Brain fog has amplifiers.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: The hormonal shift is the cause, but these are the things pouring petrol on it.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: The biggest one, by a mile, is sleep, which is exactly why we did that episode first.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Broken, shallow sleep is the single biggest thing that turns a manageable fog into a can't think straight day.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Then there's the chronic stress and high cortisol, which literally makes it harder to lay down and retrieve memories.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: There's low iron, and this is where I want you to remember what I said last week.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Get your ferritin checked because low iron and low B12 both hit your energy and your focus hard, and they're common and completely fixable.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: An underactive thyroid does the same and often gets missed.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: And then the usual suspects.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Too much alcohol, a diet running on ultra-processed food and sugar spikes, and not moving your body.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: All of them thicken the fog.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not listing those to give you homework or make you feel guilty.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm listing them because every single one is a lever you can actually pull.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: You can't click your fingers and refill your estrogen, but you can protect your sleep, get your bloods checked, and move your body.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: All those move the needle much more than you would think.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: So what actually helps?
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is the two most powerful things are free, and you already have them.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: The first is sleep, full stop.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: If you take one thing from today, protect your sleep.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: The way we talked about last week, because nothing sharpens a foggy brain faster than a proper night's rest, and nothing clouds it faster than a broken one.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: It is the number one lever.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: If your sleep is wrecked, that's where you start.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: The second is movement, and here I'm going to climb onto my favourite soapbox.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Because this one is close to my heart and the science is undeniable.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the easy one, aerobic exercise.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Getting your heart rate up, a brisk walk, a bike ride, whatever you enjoy, actually helps your brain grow new connections because it releases a substance that behaves like fertilizer for your brain cells.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So even a daily walk is doing more for your foggy head than you realize.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: But I want to talk to you properly about strength training, because this is the part almost nobody tells women, and it's the thing I'll bang on about forever.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Lifting weights is not just for your muscles, your bones, your balance, and your shape, though it is essential for all of those.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the best things you can do for your brain.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: When you work your muscles hard, they release little messengers that travel up to your brain and switch on that same fertilizer, growing new connections, sharpening your focus and your decision making.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And there's even research showing that strength training helps protect the actual physical structure of an aging brain.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And it targets exactly the verbal memory, the words and the names.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: That takes the biggest hit in perimenopause.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And here's why it matters even more for us specifically.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Remember, estrogen was one of your brain's great protectors, and as it drops away, you lose some of that protection.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Strength training is one of the most powerful ways to step into that gap.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: But, and this is important because it's where a lot of women go wrong, it has to be genuinely challenging, not the little pink dumbbells.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: The researchers and experts leading this field for women in our stage of life are clear about it.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: We need to lift properly heavy, in a way that actually challenges us, and ideally add a bit of power jumping, hopping, explosive movements, because that's the stimulus that speaks loudly.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: To your muscles, your bones, and your brain all at once.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: So please don't shy away from getting strong.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Two or three proper sessions a week.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: For your body, yes, but also for your memory, your focus, and the brain you want to still have in 30 years.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: The third is food, because you cannot think clearly on a diet that's working against you.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the biggest levers you've got.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to hand you a rigid meal plan.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you the foods to lean into and why.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: The overall pattern with the best evidence for your brain is a Mediterranean style way of eating.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Lots of colour, lots of plants, good fats, oily fish.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Let me make it concrete.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Prioritize oily fish, salmon, sardines, mackerel, a couple of times a week for the omega-3 fats that literally help build your brain and calm inflammation.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Eat the rainbow, berries, leafy greens, brightly coloured vegetables, and extravergent olive oil because the natural compounds in them help protect your brain cells.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Get enough protein at every meal, both for your muscles and because protein is the raw material your brain uses to make its messenger chemicals.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Lean on legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, chickpeas, lentils, flaxseeds, sesame.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: And here's a nice bonus: a lot of these plant foods, soy especially, contain gentle plant compounds that have a mild estrogen-like effect on the body.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And there's some evidence they support memory and ease symptoms.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And keep your blood sugar steady.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Build your plate around protein, fibre, and healthy fat, and go easy on refined sugar and ultra-processed food, because those spikes and crashes make the fog noticeably worse.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Same, I'm afraid, goes for alcohol.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: It is not kind to a foggy brain.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And drink your water.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Even mild dehydration clouds your thinking.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And I want to single out one thing because it gets completely overlooked and it matters enormously right now.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Fibre.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Aim for around 25 to 30 grams a day.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And here's the sad truth: most of us are getting barely half that.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Fibre does three big jobs for you in this stage of life.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: It feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut, and your gut and your brain are in constant conversation, so a well-fed gut is genuinely part of a clearer head.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: It steadies your blood sugar, which as we said keeps the fog at bay.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lovely bonus, certain gut bacteria actually help your body process and clear estrogen properly, and fibre is what keeps that whole system running smoothly.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: You get it from vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: So if you're building your plate around the foods I just described, you're most of the way there already.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: If you add one thing this week, a couple of tablespoons of ground flaxseed or simply more veg and legumes is an easy win.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And two quick extras.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Creatine, which you've heard me mention, has emerging evidence for mental sharpness, especially when you're running on broken sleep.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And it earns its place both for your muscle and your brain.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: I'll do supplements properly in their own episode rather than rush them here.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And as always, run anything past your doctor or pharmacist.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: And keep your brain busy in ways you enjoy, learning something new, reading a proper puzzle, because your brain genuinely works on a use it or lose it basis.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And then the hormonal piece.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Kept brief and honest because it's a conversation for you and a knowledgeable practitioner, not a recommendation from me.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Because estrogen is so involved in all of this, replacing it, HRT, which we covered back in episode three, can help cognition for some women, and the evidence is strongest when it started earlier in the transition.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: So if the fog is genuinely affecting your life, it's absolutely worth raising with a practitioner who understands menopause alongside everything else we've talked about.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's one more thing that might be the most powerful of all, and it costs you nothing.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Reduce the load your brain is carrying in the first place.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: your brain only has so much room to hold things at once.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And most of us, especially women, are running an enormous invisible list in our heads at all times.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: The appointments, the shopping, the permission slips, who needs what and when, the whole household humming away in the background of your mind.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And when your brain is already foggy, that constant background load makes everything so much worse.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: So the single most freeing thing that you can do is get it out of your head and into a system you trust.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: One calendar the whole family runs on.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Lists, alarms and reminders on your phone, a notebook you brain dump into at the start of the day.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Stop using your tired brain as the hard drive.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Let the phone and the paper hold it so your brain has room to actually think.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: A few more that genuinely help.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Cut down the sheer number of decisions you have to make.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Have a rotation of go-to meals.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Plan the week once.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Build a few routines so your brain isn't deciding everything from scratch every single day.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Share the load, and I mean the mental load, the remembering and the organizing, not just the doing, because in most households it falls disproportionately on us, and you are allowed to hand whole jobs over, start to finish.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Do one thing at a time instead of five, because switching back and forth is exhausting for a foggy brain.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Use your lists and reminders without one ounce of shame.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: A capable woman using a system isn't a woman who's lost.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: She's a woman being smart about a temporary problem.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, give yourself permission to let some things go and to say no.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Protecting your mental space is not laziness, it's strategy, and it's essential.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest with you, this mental load conversation runs so much deeper than a to-do list.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Because in perimenopause, for a lot of women, carrying everyone and everything for so long starts to catch up with them, and they begin to quietly question a great deal about their lives.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: That is a big tender conversation, and it's one we're absolutely going to have properly down the track.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: For today, just start here.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Get it out of your head and let something other than your poor tired brain carry it for a while.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to actually do with all of this.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Three things.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Step one, protect your sleep.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Go back to last week's episode if you need it.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Pick the one change that fits your life and start tonight because it's the single biggest thing you can do for a foggy brain.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Step two, move your body this week.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Both ways.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Something that gets your heart rate up and something that makes your muscles work.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's two or three short sessions.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: You are not doing it to shrink.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: You're doing it to think.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Step three, if the fog is really affecting you, book a checkup and ask for the basics to be looked at, your iron and ferritin, your B12, and your thyroid.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And have the honest conversation about your options, including HRT, with a practitioner who understands menopause.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, get everything out of your head and onto paper with no apology.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And please don't file any of this under nice to have.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: A clear mind isn't a luxury.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: It's yours and it's absolutely worth fighting for.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: As always, everything I've shared today is backed by research and I've linked it all in the show notes.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to read it yourself or take it to your doctor, it's right there for you.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Here's where I want to leave you today.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: If you've been quietly terrified that you're losing your mind, you are not.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Your brain is not broken and it's not slipping away.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: It's recalibrating on less fuel than it used to in the middle of a hormonal upheaval nobody warned you about.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And for the vast majority of us, the sharpness comes back.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: You are still in there.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Your clever, capable brain is still in there.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just having a hard season, and a hard season is not forever.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: You can help it too.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Protect your sleep, move your body, get your bloods checked, take the pressure off by getting it out of your head and onto a list or on your phone, with zero shame.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And have the conversation about your hormones if this is stealing your days.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Layer by layer the fog lives.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thread I want to pick up next week.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: I opened today by saying brain fog is a huge part of not feeling like yourself.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: But it isn't the whole of it.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Because for so many of us, this transition doesn't just cloud how we think.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: It changes how we feel, our mood, our drive, our joy, whether we still feel like ourselves at all.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big tender conversation, and it deserves its own episode.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: So next week we're going there, the emotional side of perimenopause and what it does to your mental health.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: If today was about your mind, then next week is more about your heart, and it might be the most important one I record.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: If today's episode helped you, please share it, send it to the woman you know who's quietly scared she's losing the plot because she needs to hear that she isn't.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And please subscribe and leave a review.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: For a show like What the Perry, it's the single best way to reach the women who need it.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Everything I've mentioned today is referenced in the show notes along with all the links.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: And you can find me at Kirstencookcoaching.com.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Just a reminder, though, this is education, not medical advice.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: So take these conversations to a practitioner who will actually listen to you.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being here and for listening to the What the Perry podcast.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: The change you didn't the conversations you need.