Infertility in Women: Common Causes and When to Seek Help
You’ve been trying, with no success, to add to your family, and you want to know what might be causing your infertility. Here, we review drivers of infertility in women and how we can help.
Brain Fog and Hormone Loss: Understanding the Connection
The number of women entering menopause annually in the United States is very high, thanks to an aging population — two million American women begin this hormonal transition each year. And, in any given year, there are between 8 and 10 million women who deal with the potentially long laundry list of side effects linked to menopause.
Mixed in among vaginal health and hot flashes is a symptom not spoken of extensively — brain fog, or cognitive decline.
At Women’s Wellness MD, Dr. Chetanna Okasi and the team take great pride in providing an oasis of evidence-based menopause care. Our team understands that there’s a large constellation of menopause symptoms that can have a small impact on your life, and brain fog is a good example of this.
What we mean by brain fog
When we talk about brain fog, we’re referring to some cognitive issues that affect memory; however, it describes mental fatigue as a marked lack of concentration and focus. We include problem-solving and analytical thinking under this umbrella.
If you’re losing your train of thought, struggling to find words, or are more forgetful than usual, these cognitive issues can relate to the loss of reproductive hormones, such as estrogen, that occurs during menopause.
The link between brain fog and menopause
One of the challenges for researchers and healthcare providers is differentiating between menopause symptoms and those that are a natural part of the aging process. After all, the average age a woman transitions through menopause is 51.
We bring this up because cognitive decline is a natural part of the aging process, but this doesn’t explain the often sudden development of brain fog that occurs during menopause.
This phase has prompted researchers to explore how the sudden loss of reproductive hormones, such as estrogen, can affect brain function, and here’s what they found.
Given that most organs in your body have estrogen receptors and that your body is sensitive to hormone fluctuations, the drop in these hormones affects many different places in your body, including your brain.
Recent reports have found that the loss of estrogen hormones leads to:
- Less glucose in the brain, which affects brain energy metabolism
- Structural changes, including a reduction in gray matter
- Alterations in cerebrovascular reactivity
- Less dopamine and serotonin production, which affects mood and cognitive function
Menopause has also been tied to heightened anxiety and depression, so that brain fog may be a result of these mental health conditions. Or, night sweats are keeping you up, so you’re fatigued, and your brain is feeling sluggish as well.
The takeaway is that while we wait for research to uncover the direct cause-and-effect mechanism behind menopause and brain fog, we’re confident of the connection, which can go in many different directions. Brain fog may be a standalone issue or a byproduct of other menopause side effects.
Coming out of the fog
There’s good news in the research on menopause and brain fog, and it’s that your brain should adapt to a new normal and adjust to the lower levels of estrogen.
That said, this can be a long process, and you may not feel like you’ve got the luxury of time on your side — you need to be able to function now.
We can help with hormone therapies that replace the lost reproductive hormones. This approach not only helps with brain fog but also with common menopause side effects, such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and bone health.
While hormone therapy is a great approach, if you don’t want to take hormones, we can discuss other ways to break out of the brain fog, and mindfulness practices top the list. Becoming more mindful and staying present can help keep your brain focused and on task.
In addition to mindfulness practices, we also recommend that women going through menopause keep their minds sharp by challenging their brains with new things. Perhaps you start working on puzzles or anything else that gets your brain onto a new task that it’s unaccustomed to — this forces your brain to make new, healthy cognitive connections.
The bottom line is that you don’t have to live in a fog during and after menopause. To determine which treatments and practices restore your clarity, contact us today by calling our Columbia or Greenbelt, Maryland, office or using our online booking feature to schedule an appointment.
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