Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I haven't forgotten the word podcast, but have you ever forgotten a word? That is what we're going to be talking about today because it happens so often to so many women and men, but we're talking particularly about women. Now I notice this quite often in my Pilates classes that I teach.

because I'm talking a lot, I'm giving instructions. And then one particular instance, I was like, I'm trying to get you to, ⁓ or what is it with your leg? ⁓ Now, ⁓ straighten, straighten your leg. I say that hundreds of times throughout the week. I forgot the word straighten, to straighten your legs. And I often say the wrong words, or I tell somebody to put the ball between their knees when I mean ankles, or.

all sorts of things, I forget the words. What can be worse is forgetting people's names. Now, I have a register that I have people booked in and sometimes it happened to me the other day, I was looking at this person, I've known them for years, they've come to my classes for years, I could not remember what their name was.

So I just sat there for a few minutes and it's like, then it finally came to me. I think when you try and think about it too much, it doesn't happen. But if you just kind of think something else and then suddenly it comes to you. Other times I have to look at the register. If I've got people that I've not known for very long or they're fairly new to the class, I have to do a process of elimination to see what actually their name is.

So this can happen from a young age, just forgetting things, but there are several things that cause this to be worse. So forgetting words, forgetting names, forgetting why you've walked into a room. I do that quite frequently. Now I'm not quite perimenopausal yet. I actually have chronic fatigue, which is very similar in all its symptoms. And I've had that for at least since my children.

been were born. So I've had that for at least 17 years. My children broke me when I had them. I think I had it before as well, but it just got worse after having children. Now the symptoms of chronic fatigue are so similar to perimenopause. So actually, I may be perimenopausal now. I just don't know because the symptoms have been going on for 20 odd years. So it would be very hard for me to know.

where I am in my journey, but I will be heading into it very soon if I'm not already. But there are several things. It's not just menopause that causes these name issues or word issues, but it can be heavily linked to that hormonal change. And it's often known as brain fog and poor cognition.

But one of the other things that can cause it that is obviously quite bad in perimenopause is poor sleep. Now that is my issue. I have brain fog, I have fatigue, I can't sleep very well because of my chronic fatigue. It may also be that I'm now coming into perimenopause and I'm starting to get more of those symptoms.

However, it can be scary when you forget things and you forget words and you're in the middle of talking and you literally cannot think what to say. I think this has actually happened to me for many, many years. So I've kind of got used to it. And certainly all the people in my class know me very well now and they just give me the words that I've forgotten or they can just make it up themselves and get on with the exercise. But say you're out.

in front of a big panel at work, or you are a public speaker, or there are situations where it could be really bad or frustrating or scary to forget certain words. Now, the change in hormones at perimenopause are a big driver of this because

our estrogen feeds our brain, it affects our neurotransmitters, so those signals going through the brain and throughout the body, and it also affects our sleep, like we say, so that might be due to having hot flushes at night time, it might be insomnia, it might be down to pain.

There's many reasons why we have poor sleep. It might be anxiety, depression, but sleep is really linked to cognitive ability and brain fog. So if we don't have good sleep, then we are more likely to get not only forgetting words, but also maybe you're messing things up or things just don't go as well or you don't understand a situation.

or you can't think of the logical answer to something. We just don't have that quick thinking and the reasoning ability if our sleep is poor. Brain fog can also be linked to low testosterone levels. So as well as our estrogen decreasing during perimenopause, but not at a steady rate, it goes up and down. So day to day might be really different, which causes many of our symptoms.

Our progesterone decreases, which is our calming hormone and balances against our estrogen, but also our testosterone. Now women do still have testosterone. Obviously it's no more as a male hormone, but we do have it. And it is important for many things such as libido, but also our energy and our like brain function. So if we have

our estrogen going up and down, our progesterone decreasing and our testosterone decreasing, then this can lead to brain fog and cognitive issues, as well as poor sleep and everything else.

So we know it happens, but what can we actually do that can help improve it? Now there's lots of different things that we need to think about managing menopause as a whole, because if we can improve all of our symptoms, then that can improve our brain fog. So thinking about our stress levels, try and decrease those, doing some relaxation, because having high stress hormones in the body also can

fuzzy our thinking and can cause brain fog as well. So thinking about our stress management, we need to think about our sleep. So our sleep, there's many ways that we can look at improving our sleep. One of the easiest things would be to avoid blue light before bedtime. Try not to be on your phone to the very last minute because then that

reduces the amount of melatonin which is our sleep hormone. Have a really good wind down routine. Try and have a regular bedtime and get up time because that means that our circadian rhythm tells the body when to get up and when to go to sleep and that will make the quality of our sleep better.

There are many things. I'll do a whole episode just on sleep and I've done one in the last season as well. So you can always go back and listen to that. But sleep is a big thing. Also thinking about the food that we're eating. If we're having a lot of sugar, that can also cause us to be a bit fuzzy in our thinking with the brain fog. If we're having lots of fake sugars as well. So things like aspartame and things that they put in like diet drinks.

that's not really good for the body. I know it may be less calories, but it again can cause that the brain not to function as well as it could do. Also, we can train our brain. So as we get older, we often lose that cognition and we maybe haven't got that quick thinking. And that isn't just to do with the hormones, which

part it will be for women because as we hit menopause, so the day we haven't had a period for a year, we are then post-menopausal and our estrogen levels are more stable but they are low. That does mean that we don't have the supply to the brain as it was because we've got lots of receptors over the brain. We'd still produce estrogen elsewhere. I will cover that in another episode.

our cognition does decline. Often then when we stop working and we're not using our brain, if you think of it like muscles, if we laid in bed and didn't get up and we didn't use our muscles, our muscles would quickly fatigue and then it would be more difficult to use them. So then when you get up, it's more difficult the muscles aren't functioning properly. So we need to work our brain. We need to train it.

to keep that cognitive function going. There are various ways that we can do that. Now, back in the day, I don't know how many years ago when the DS came out, if you know what that is, like a little handheld game console, one of the biggest games that they had was a brain training game on it. And you did a test first of all, and it told you how old your brain was depending on how quickly you could solve the puzzles.

And then the more training you did every day, you did like training puzzles, and then that brought your age down. So if you've got an old DS lying around, they probably have it on like the newer consoles now, doing some brain training on a regular basis would be good, whether it is a computer game, whether it's just doing puzzles. Now I know a lot of people don't have papers anymore, but if you still have a paper that's got

a crossword in the back. I can't do the cryptic crosswords. I just think my brain doesn't quite work that way. But say like a normal crossword or any puzzles that you may find on the newspaper or in a puzzle book. Or maybe you're like me on my phone, I have the app where it's got the Wordle app and some other little games on there and it all kind of gets the brain going. So if you can do five minutes or some kind of puzzles,

or even learning new things. Music is a great thing. If you are musical or you can take up a new instrument, then your brain works really hard. So learning a new instrument or maybe you are learning how to draw or paint or I know a family friend who did many degrees even as an older person at Open University because he just loved learning. ⁓

but it is just finding something that will keep your brain active. I'm a little bit of a courseaholic, so I love doing new courses and learning new information. I find it really boring not to be learning something. It might be something simple that you learn, or maybe you enjoy reading. I hate reading. My sister would tell you she reads hundreds of books throughout the year. think I've read maybe, I don't know if I even read a hundred in my lifetime,

but I find business books and books that teach you something a lot more interesting than just reading a storybook. I just find storybooks is, I think they're a waste of my time, but they are good. They're good, keeping the imagination and reading things, but I like to use the time to learn things and better myself. But she's quite happy just to go off into fancy land. We are very different personalities, but reading is great. Moving the body.

So I teach Pilates. I have my mat work group that has a range of ages actually from like, I had an 18 year old all the way up to 80 something depending on how fit they are, whether they're able to come and get on and off the floor. But then I have for those that are less mobile, my chair class and my chair class is amazing. They just teach me something every week about.

back in like when they were at school or there's always some kind of history lesson that I get and we have a good old gossip, but it isn't just a social thing. We're actually moving the body and they find it really tricky when I start getting them to do opposite arms and legs and doing coordination things. But I do it for a reason. I do it to keep their brain active as well as getting their muscles moving. So there's all sorts of ways.

that you can keep your brain active and try and reduce some of this brain fog. And so hopefully you have less word finding difficulties like I do, but it's certainly improving just your general health, improve those menopause symptoms, improve your sleep, reduce your stress levels, taking up something new, get that brain training. So hopefully you can take at least one or two things.

away from today to improve your brain fog and improve some of your menopause symptoms. So just pick one. One thing that you can change this week, maybe it's just as simple as if you go for a walk, that you go a different route or do it backwards. I have a route that I do most mornings. I always go the same way, but maybe change the direction and your brain will be like, oh, this is something new. I have to

make some new neuro pathways to kind of to work out what's going on here, but it's doing something new, training the brain, working on your sleep and your stress. So hopefully you have got something from today's episode and I will speak to you again next time.