Developing allergies for the first time during midlife isn't a coincidence. Experts unpack the connection between hormones and histamine—and what you can do to manage your symptoms.

From night sweats to 3 a.m. wake-ups, here’s what to do when hormones hijack your sleep.

Gwyneth is joined by Lisa Mosconi, author of The Menopause Brain. Mosconi is an associate professor of neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine and the director of its Women’s Brain Initiative and the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program. Today, Mosconi explains how hormonal shifts during perimenopause and menopause can impact cognitive health and shares some of the clinical trials and brain-imaging work her lab is doing to better understand this stage of life. They about the foods that can support brain health at any stage of life and Mosconi’s perspective on why menopause can be seen as an opportunity, particularly from an evolutionary standpoint.

Taz Bhatia, MD—a board-certified integrative medicine physician—on how to use food to balance hormones during perimenopause and menopause.

Board-certified integrative medicine physician Taz Bhatia, MD, shares her advice for getting better sleep during perimenopause.

The average age for menopause in the US is 51, though it’s not abnormal to begin experiencing symptoms of perimenopause before age 40. We formulated a daily supplement regimen to provide nutritional support to help smooth the perimenopausal and menopausal transition.

A frozen shoulder is exactly what it sounds like: Your shoulder stiffens, your range of motion is limited, and even day-to-day activities, like reaching for a coffee mug, can be painful. What’s less expected is that this condition predominantly affects women going through perimenopause or menopause.

We’ve all heard about the challenging symptoms that menopause brings, but often we’re not given tools to help. Integrative dietitian Esther Blum, MS, RD, CDN, CNS, shares some remedies—nutritional, lifestyle, and hormonal—to ease some of these common symptoms of menopause.

Integrative dietician and menopause expert Esther Blum joins GP today to talk about her approach for treating women during menopause. Blum shares her nutrition-based perspective on perimenopause and menopause, and her advice on treatment options, lifestyle recommendations, and ways to advocate for yourself through the process. After you listen, preorder Blum’s new book, See Ya Later, Ovulator, which comes out on October 4.

Sexual wellness throughout perimenopause—and beyond—benefits from thoughtful self-care routines. Try incorporating tools and supplements into a consistent practice that can help with dryness, body confidence, and libido.

Taz Bhatia, MD, is a board-certified integrative medicine physician, author, and the founder of the functional medicine practice, CentreSpringMD. She helps patients navigate their health journey by drawing from different systems of medicine, including Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine. Today, she joins GP to talk about perimenopause and menopause. They talk through what happens when our body begins perimenopause, the factors that influence our hormones, and what we can do to support our body while navigating—and enjoying—these stages of life.

Menopause is when menstrual cycles no longer occur. It’s a part of life that can be both empowering and challenging. Hot flashes and changes in mood and sexual function may significantly affect quality of life for some people. But many women report feeling relief when their periods stop and may experience increased sexual desire. And menopause can be a time for meaningful change and growth.

Dr. Dominique Fradin-Read focuses on preventive and anti-aging medicine, helping women through the hormonal changes and symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. (She also works with men on hormonal issues.) In her practice, the aging process feels nearly imperceptible. She takes us through her approach, outlines what we can expect from hormonal shifts, and suggests different options for smoothing out the ride. And there’s a lot you can do, says Fradin-Read: “We should not be the victims of our hormones anymore.”

If you have ovaries, menopause will happen. There’s no getting around it. But there is no one normal way to go through menopause, especially when it comes to perimenopause. This is something ob-gyn Caitlin Fiss, a clinical instructor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, stresses in her private practice. Take hot flashes as an example: Some women feel them years before menopause, some don’t, and when women do get them, they report vastly different experiences—varying from a minor annoyance to something terribly disruptive

Perimenopause is often, well, a period of great change but also confusion. This is where Dr. Dominique Fradin-Read comes in. Fradin-Read, who is board-certified in preventative medicine, focuses on developing strong relationships with her patients to help them step through hormonal changes.

GP sat down with hormone expert Dr. Sara Gottfried to get the answers that elude women in hormonal transitions: Is it advisable to take hormones during perimenopause or menopause? What kind? Are there nonprescription alternatives that help with symptoms like mood swings and hot flashes?

Every woman is pretty familiar with the signs of menopause—unbearable hot flashes, thickening waists, moods the fluctuate wildly—but what about all those other signs of "aging," like thinning hair, flighty cycles, brittle nails, and weird sleep disturbances? We've learned it's likely perimenopause, a drawn-out period of time when your body's reproductive system slows down until you hit menopause, which is actually the technical term for the full year anniversary of not having a period. We asked Dr. Maggie Ney, the co-director of the Women's Clinic at the Akasha Center in Santa Monica, to explain exactly what's happening, and whether there's anything to be done to make it process a little less disruptive.