My Semi Sorted Life
A gentler kind of check-in
This isn't another thing to get right. It's five minutes to notice where you're at, in your mind as much as your body. Rhythm over motivation, always becoming, never all or nothing.
Oestrogen doesn't just affect your metabolism, it also buffers your stress response. As it declines through perimenopause, cortisol tends to run a bit hotter, and the long-running SWAN study (Study of Women's Health Across the Nation) has tracked exactly this rise in cortisol across the menopause transition. That's not a personal failing, it's biology. It's also exactly why stress support belongs next to any conversation about energy and food, not separate from it.
A 2022 meta-analysis of 19 randomised controlled trials (over 1,600 women) found mindfulness-based programs meaningfully improved menopausal symptoms, sleep quality, anxiety, depression and quality of life. One well-known 8-week trial found an eight-week mindfulness course cut hot flush and night sweat bother by 21.6%, roughly double the improvement seen in the control group.
It doesn't need to be a whole practice. A few slow breaths before you get out of bed, or a couple of minutes of noticing what's actually in front of you before you react to it, counts.
Decades of research building on psychologist James Pennebaker's original studies show that writing about your thoughts and feelings for as little as 15 minutes, a few times, is linked to lower anxiety and depression and better physical health markers. A well-cited clinical review and a more recent meta-analysis both back this up, and it works whether you write beautifully or badly, this is not a performance.
What did my body need today that I didn't give it? No judgement, just noticing.
Who did I connect with today, even in a small way?
What's one thing in my space that would make tomorrow a bit easier?
What's one soft rhythm I want to return to this week, not a rule, just a rhythm?
On a worst-case to best-case spectrum, where am I today across Home, Heart, Body and Soul, and can that be okay for now?
- The menopause transition and women's health at midlife: a progress report from SWAN (PMC)
- Effects of mindfulness-based interventions on anxiety, depression, stress and mindfulness in menopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Frontiers in Public Health (2022)
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or Psychoeducation for the Reduction of Menopausal Symptoms: A Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial, Scientific Reports
- Mindfulness for Menopausal Women: Enhancing Quality of Life and Psychological Well-Being Through a Randomized Controlled Intervention, Journal of Nursing Scholarship (2025)
- Baikie & Wilhelm (2005) "Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing", Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
- Efficacy of expressive writing versus positive writing in different populations: systematic review and meta-analysis (PMC)
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