Struggling With Menopause Brain Fog? How Menopause Impacts Your Brain

How menopause changes your brain

Some of the menopause symptoms you experience start in your brain! In some women, there can even be as many changes in the brain as happen in one’s ovaries!

Lisa Mosconi, PhD, a neuroscientist and director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medicine, describes this amazing phenomenon in a TED Talk.

Did you realize these menopause symptoms are neurological: hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, memory lapse, depression, and anxiety? As Mosconi explains, the brain and ovaries talk to each other as part of the neuroendocrine system.

Estrogen levels fall dramatically during the menopause transition. Given the role it plays in brain function – facilitation of cognitive functions – it’s no wonder you may be experiencing “brain fog.”

Symptoms of menopause brain fog

What is brain fog? It’s not an actual medical term but does describe a constellation of symptoms which can include:

• Forgetfulness
• Loss of concentration
• Short-term memory loss
• Memory lapses
• Inability to retain information or learn
• Lack of clarity
• Inability to focus

It can impact your ability to do basic things like having a conversation or giving a presentation. You may find you can’t find the right words or can’t recall or have difficulty learning new information.

In the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, 31% of premenopausal women complained of forgetfulness. The numbers increased as menopause progressed, jumping to 44% in perimenopause and 41% in post–menopause.

It can be alarming because a woman in her 40s and early 50s may well be at the pinnacle of her career or reaching a major stage of career advancement. And then boom! Menopause hits, and once razor-sharp mind falls into a mental fog.

In a pausitive health survey, a Ph.D. professor who experienced early menopause recalled the unexpectedness of brain fog and other menopause symptoms which began at age 40.

During a lecture with familiar slides, “…this slide came up, and I didn’t recognize it. And, I thought, ‘I wonder what the hell I am going to say about that.’”

She laughed off the moment with her class, but deep down, it bothered her.

“Afterward, I went to my office and cried. Just thinking about it now brings some tears. Because I pride myself on knowing what I’m doing and doing a good job, and suddenly my brain didn’t work like it used to,” the professor explained.

Throughout the menopause transition, she’d remember faces and names but sometimes forgot what she was talking about in the middle of a conversation.

Mind-stimulating tasks

Besides menopause, what other external factors could be clouding your brain?

Is it stress from an endless list of tasks or the inability to sleep or find time to exercise?

Find a way to clear your mind and focus on the present moment, whether with mindfulness, yoga, listening to music, or physical activity. Even something as simple as walking outside can help clear your mind.

And in addition to its positive impact of physical health, gardening has been shown to have mental health benefits, including reducing stress and anxiety. When done with others, e.g., a community garden, it also provides the type of social connection that can be a vital source of support.

The professor started using daily notes, and she wrote so many she referred to them as her diary.

She also started doing yoga, other exercises, and mind-stimulating activities.

Consider taking up a new hobby or learning a new skill. You’re challenging your brain when you do this, forcing it to remember learned behaviors or tasks. Dancing, boxing, and learning a foreign language or how to play an instrument are options that provide opportunities to exercise your brain and have fun at the same time!

Social networks are also vitally important as you progress through your menopause journey. They can provide empathy, support, and guidance while helping to keep your brain sharp.

Improving memory with self-testing, interleaving, and distributed practice

Have you heard of self-testing, interleaving, or distributed practice? Research has shown using these techniques can help improve memory.

Self-testing is a lot like what you might imagine. Studies show it can help with memory as well as cognition and learning. The idea is that the pressure will be off since you’re the only one who will know the results. And when you get anything wrong or answer not as accurately and completely as you would like, you’ll review it and be more likely to remember the next time.

The idea behind distributed practice is a basis for the saying “sleep on it,” when you find that taking a break from something you’re trying to remember, e.g., preparing for a presentation, helps you to imprint the information and retrieve it more easily. By spreading out your review of the same content, cognitive science has shown you’re more likely to remember it.

Interleaving is defined as “studying by mixing different topics (or practice methods) to strengthen long-term memory of the material.” It can also help with pattern recognition and developing problem-solving skills.