Perimenopause Can Bring Wide-Ranging Body, Mind Changes

Perimenopause often begins in a woman’s 40s, but timing and duration vary; shifting hormones can bring irregular periods, disrupted sleep, temperature changes, and other symptoms. Tracking changes and adapting everyday habits and nutritional care may help women manage the transition. Hormonal fluctuations may also affect vision and the eye’s surface, so some midlife vision changes may involve more than age-related difficulty focusing up close. A Yale study plans to examine whether reproductive hormone fluctuations during perimenopause are associated with brain health and network organization, reflecting research into possible links between this life stage and later neurological vulnerability.