25/05/2026
One of the earliest hormonal shifts women notice in perimenopause isn’t weight gain.
It’s losing the ability to tolerate stress the same way they used to.
You suddenly become:
• more sensitive to poor sleep
• more anxious after caffeine
• awake at 3am for no reason
• hotter at night
• emotionally overstimulated
• exhausted but unable to relax
Why?
Because progesterone is not just a “fertility hormone.”
It has a calming, nervous-system stabilising effect on the brain.
And during perimenopause, progesterone declines much faster than estrogen.
Which means many women in their late 30s are functioning with - high stress, poor recovery, blood sugar crashes, overtraining, undereating,late nights, and dropping progesterone… all at the same time.
That combination is brutal for the nervous system.
This is why I’m not the biggest fan of aggressive fasting, tiny dinners, black coffee breakfasts, or overdoing cardio in women entering perimenopause.
Your body becomes far more blood sugar sensitive during this phase.
A carb + protein-rich dinner often helps more than women realise because stable blood sugar overnight can reduce cortisol spikes that wake you up sweating, anxious, hungry, or alert at odd hours.
And yes - Vitex (Chaste Tree Berry) can be supportive for some women because it works through the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis and may help support natural progesterone production indirectly.
But herbs work best when the foundations are in place:
minerals,protein,sleep, stress regulation,adequate calories, strength training, stable blood sugar.
Perimenopause is not your body “failing.”
It’s your body becoming less forgiving of what it tolerated in your 20s.
Comment the symptom you’ve been silently struggling with lately - I can guarantee a lot more women relate to it than you think.