The Foundations of Feeling Great in Perimenopause Start Here:

The first time I heard the L O N G list of symptoms you can experience in perimenopause I got a little stressed. Have you ever seen it? If you haven’t, let me enlighten you..

Yeah.. its a lot!

But this doesn’t have to be our destiny, in my opinion these symptoms are all optional.

I want perimenopause to feel empowering, not frightening. I want this stage of life to be about understanding my body, supporting it, and taking my power back and I want that for other women too.

In my work I have found that all of these symptoms come from only a hand full of hormonal imbalances, its like a domino effect, once the first domino falls the rest will follow. My job is to help women pick up that very first domino so the cascade of symptoms will not hit them.

Its called the hormone Hierarchy, and this is (in a nutshell) what it looks like:

Lets start with Cortisol, its more than just a “stress hormone” it helps us to wake up in the morning, gives us energy, helps our bodies respond to stress, and even helps regulate things like blood sugar and inflammation. The issue is that with our modern day lives our bodies are feeling a LOT of stress! We’re juggling work, kids, aging parents, poor sleep, overbooked schedules, under-eating, over-exercising, caffeine overload..social media..the list goes on and on.

We’re all dealing with so many of these stressors, and while some of them are unavoidable, there are still so many ways we can support our bodies through them. When we start nourishing and supporting this incredible hormone instead of constantly running ourselves into the ground, it doesn’t have to lead us where it so often does…straight to burnout.

Lets talk about Insulin. Insulin is our blood sugar hormone, and its job is to take the sugar from the food we eat and move it into our cells so our bodies can actually use it for energy.

Sounds simple enough, but in perimenopause this can become a huge issue for so many women. Between stress, poor sleep, constantly being on the go, skipping meals, living off coffee, not eating enough protein, and the hormonal shifts happening during this stage of life, our blood sugar can start looking like a roller coaster. And when that happens, insulin has to work overtime trying to keep up.

This is when women start feeling exhausted in the afternoon, craving sugar all the time, waking up hungry at night, gaining weight around the midsection, or feeling moody, shaky, anxious, and hungry all at the same time.

The good news is there are so many simple ways we can support both cortisol and insulin naturally. Things like eating enough protein, balancing blood sugar, building muscle through strength training, getting quality sleep, managing stress, and slowing down enough to actually support our nervous systems can make such a huge difference.

When cortisol and insulin are constantly stressed, the rest of our hormones tend to struggle too. But when we start supporting these foundational hormones first, everything else starts working better alongside them. Energy improves, cravings calm down, sleep gets better, hormones become more balanced, and little by little…you start feeling more like yourself again.

And this is exactly why I believe perimenopause support has to start with the foundations.

Before we obsess over supplements, extreme diets, or trying to “fix” every symptom individually, we have to look at what our bodies are trying to tell us underneath it all. So often, it comes back to stress, blood sugar, nervous system support, sleep, nourishment, and learning how to work with our bodies instead of constantly fighting against them.

This is just the beginning of the conversation, but understanding cortisol and insulin is one of the most powerful first steps because these two hormones influence so much of how we feel during perimenopause.

The beautiful thing is that our bodies want to heal. They want balance. They want safety and support. And when we start giving them that support consistently, things can change in a really powerful way.

If you’re in this stage of life and feeling overwhelmed, please know you are not broken, and you are definitely not alone. There are answers, there is hope, and there are ways to support your body naturally through this transition.

And I can’t wait to keep sharing more of these foundations with you.

If you would like support with your hormone health and navigating perimenopause naturally, I would love to work with you. You can reach me anytime at hello@sandraadamswellness.com