How Menopause Affects Mental Health: Anxiety, Mood Swings, and More

(Tina Dawn/ VM Med) — Even though menopause is a normal part of a woman’s life, it can also be a difficult transition for many. Typically occurring between the ages of 45 and 55, menopause is when a woman’s period stops permanently and she can no longer get pregnant.

While many women consider it a liberating time in their lives, it’s also not without its challenges, as it arrives with a long list of often unpredictable and undesirable symptoms.

When we think of menopause, our first thought is normally hot flashes. Then perhaps sleep issues, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and weight gain come to mind. We think about physical symptoms, but there’s more to it than that. Menopause can significantly affect your mental health, since how you feel and how you react can also be affected by all these physical changes to your body, including your hormone levels.

Menopause and Mental Health

Many women experiencing menopause complain about mood changes, depression and anxiety. A significant percentage also complain about brain fog, irritability and trouble concentrating. Some of those symptoms can be attributed to lower estrogen levels. Hormonal changes may also affect levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, which can eventually lead to depression.

When one considers that many women experience trouble sleeping, joint pain, and hot flashes during menopause, it’s totally normal that they may also be dealing with a change in their mood. It’s hard to be uncomfortable, in pain, or going through difficult physical changes in your body and not have that affect your mental health and disposition to some degree.

Menopause can be a difficult transition for women. They’re still young enough that they’re juggling the demands of a career, a family, and aging parents. But on top of those demands, they’re also dealing with an aging body, concerns about body image, new aches and pains, potential weight gain, or a lack of sexual desire, which may lead to problems in their relationship. It can be a lot to handle all at once.

Women going through menopause who are having trouble sleeping, dealing with bouts of insomnia, or restless sleep and night sweats are also understandably prone to brain fog, irritability and mood swings. It’s hard to feel and perform at your best if you’re not getting enough rest and running on empty all the time.

Minor Mood Fluctuations or a More Severe Mental Health Problem?

It’s important to narrow down how much of your mental state is directly linked to menopause and fluctuating hormones, and how much is simply a consequence of physical symptoms and discomfort. Treating or helping to reduce these physical symptoms can go a long way towards helping your mood and improving your mental health.

Fluctuating hormones can lead to mood swings, irritability, and even depression, which can be menopause side effects that are overlooked​ or misattributed to other causes.

Many women experience difficulty concentrating, memory lapses, and a general feeling of mental fogginess, commonly referred to as brain fog. Sleep disturbances, such as insomnia, restless sleep, and difficulty falling asleep, are very common during perimenopause and menopause and can exacerbate mood issues and fatigue

Anxiety and Menopause

It’s quite common for women going through perimenopause and menopause to also experience anxiety. Hormonal changes, sleep problems, and all-around life changes can naturally make a person more anxious.

Panic attacks are also something to look out for in menopausal women. Women are already more prone to panic attacks than men, but women going through menopause are at an even greater risk of panic attacks due to hormonal changes. In fact, doctors warn that many women may experience a panic attack for the first time in their lives around this time.

For many women, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and anti-anxiety medications can help considerably with both anxiety and panic attacks. Other lifestyle changes, like getting more exercise, spending more time in nature, reducing your caffeine and alcohol intake, and taking part in social activities, can also help reduce anxiety levels. Even though women can feel like their body is out of their control during this time of their lives, there is still a lot that they can do to fight back that is within their control.

Menopause and Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression, is a mental health disorder which features extreme mood swings, with periods of elevated, agitated mood known as mania or hypomania, and periods of low mood and energy.

If you have bipolar disorder, menopause may affect the severity of your symptoms and overall quality of life. Very rarely, menopause may even cause the onset of bipolar disorder symptoms.

A Cardiff University study found that women are more than twice as likely to develop bipolar disorder in the years leading up to their final period. It concluded that hormonal change is a very important factor in mood disorders and one that deserves to be researched thoroughly.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder During Menopause

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a more severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), that affects mood and is driven by hormonal changes inside the body. Just like postpartum depression affecting women after childbirth, PMDD is also mainly driven by hormonal changes.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a severe and chronic health condition that needs attention and treatment. Lifestyle changes and sometimes medicines can help manage symptoms. Anyone can develop PMDD but people with a personal or family history of PMS, PMDD or depression are particularly at risk. PMDD is a far more serious form of depression and needs to be treated as such.

While PMS and PMDD symptoms generally tend to ease after menopause and during perimenopause, for some sufferers, they can actually worsen. This is primarily due to fluctuating hormones. Some women may experience an even higher risk of severe mood swings, depression, fatigue, irritability, anxiety, and these symptoms can become harder to manage as hormones fluctuate.

VM Med’s Gynecology Center

Our team at VM Med supports every aspect of our patients’ gynecological health throughout the course of their lives. We offer a welcoming environment and specialized counselling and treatments on a wide range of issues. This includes menstruation, menopause, screening, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and genital cancers, hormonal imbalances, and more.

Still have questions? Read more articles on menopause and the role that hormones play on your overall health, such as How The Thyroid Impacts Women, Hormones, and Menstruation or Is the Mona Lisa Touch right for you?  

Still have questions? Book a consultation with our gynecology experts.