Perimenopause Isn’t Normal – It’s a Symptom of Modern Life
- Brainz Magazine
- Oct 10
- 14 min read
Updated: Oct 13
Niaby is a Dream Weaver, Transcended Master, published author, and intuitive, transofrmational mentor whose work serves as a bridge between the spiritual and psychological worlds. Through her transformative teachings and healing work, Niaby stands as a powerful voice for those ready to walk the path of truth and transformation.
What if perimenopause is not just a biological inevitability, but a consequence of living in a toxic modern world? While it has been framed as a natural stage of aging, emerging research suggests that lifestyle and environmental factors may be accelerating its onset. This article explores how chronic exposure to chemicals, synthetic hormones, and industrial pollution might be reshaping women’s hormonal health, and why perimenopause is becoming the new normal much earlier than expected.
The perimenopause myth
Perimenopause, the buzzword of the moment, has quickly become one of the most discussed health topics in modern medicine. Until quite recently, the term was seldom used. Today, perimenopause symptoms and hormonal changes sit at the heart of mainstream medical conversation, routinely framed as a natural and inevitable phase of ageing.
We are told that advances in medical science and diagnostics have simply brought long-overlooked symptoms of perimenopause into the light. That early onset of perimenopause was always there, quietly shaping women’s lives, just unnamed, unrecognised, or misunderstood.
But what if the story is more complicated than that? What if what we now call perimenopause is not simply a biological inevitability, but a reflection of something far less organic?
What if, instead of being a natural part of human or female evolution, it is, in fact, the consequence of chronic overwhelm from chemical exposure, synthetic hormones, and over a century of industrial pollution? Could it be that its increasing prevalence and earlier onset are not the result of better science, but the cumulative burden of living in a chemically saturated world?
Perimenopause: The new normal
The medical world reassures us that our bodies are simply shifting. The symptoms that we experience are part of a normal process. Perimenopause, even when it begins in our thirties, is presented as a natural inevitability, to be expected and accepted without question.
Recent evidence reveals a significant increase in perimenopausal symptoms occurring much earlier than traditionally expected. A 2024 study found that more than half of women aged 30 to 35 were experiencing moderate to severe symptoms commonly associated with perimenopause. A figure that rose to nearly two-thirds among women aged 36 to 40.
This level of hormonal disruption, in women barely entering midlife, is not normal. It may be common, but that does not make it natural. We must be careful not to mistake collective imbalance for biological destiny.
If symptoms that once marked the end of the reproductive years are now emerging a decade or more earlier, we must ask ourselves what has changed. What, in our environment, our lifestyles, or our exposures, could be accelerating this shift?
Contraceptive pill and perimenopause
Amongst the most significant and early influences on hormonal balance is the contraceptive pill. Many of us started hormonal contraceptives as early as fifteen, before our natural menstrual cycles had fully regulated. We altered our endocrine systems with synthetic hormones and often used them to delay or manipulate the very cycle that signals our body’s natural rhythm. It became not just common, but convenient, to skip periods altogether. Reinforcing the idea that our menstrual cycles were something to control, rather than something to understand. A mindset that encouraged us to manage, rather than honour, our female biology.
For many women, the pill was experienced as a form of liberation, a way to claim autonomy over our bodies and reproductive choices. But alongside that empowerment came a quieter cost to our hormonal health. Synthetic hormones suppress ovulation, flatten the natural hormonal fluctuations of the cycle, and disrupt the delicate feedback loops between the brain, ovaries, and endocrine system. Over time, this can contribute to nutrient depletion, thyroid suppression, impaired stress response, and reduced ovarian function, all of which can mimic or accelerate the symptoms now attributed to perimenopause.
For many women, these effects linger long after discontinuation, as the body struggles to re-establish its natural rhythm after years of pharmaceutical override. What was embraced as a modern solution may, in retrospect, be a key contributor to the hormonal imbalances so many women face today.
Perimenopause and chemical exposure
Beyond the pill, we are exposed daily to thousands of endocrine-disrupting chemicals - in our tap water, food packaging, pesticides, cleaning products, cosmetics, deodorants, perfumes, detergents, and pharmaceuticals. Even our clothing and bedding can carry toxins. The air that we breathe is thick with industrial compounds and microplastics. Girls as young as twenty are having fillers and Botox, with the long-term side effects yet unknown. Society normalises heavy alcohol consumption and drug use. Our bodies are not perimenopausal, they are overwhelmed.
A growing body of research now points to a clear connection between environmental toxins and the shifting hormonal patterns that we are seeing in women today. Chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, BPA, and heavy metals, now common in everything from cosmetics to cookware, have been shown to contribute to earlier ovarian ageing and more severe menopausal symptoms.
One recent study found that women with higher levels of metals like lead, cadmium, and mercury had significantly lower levels of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH), a key marker of ovarian reserve. Another review of endocrine-disrupting compounds showed clear links between chemical exposure and earlier menopause onset, across both human and animal studies.
These chemicals do not simply pass through us. They accumulate, interfere, and over time can mimic the very symptoms that are now diagnosed as perimenopause.
How to overcome perimenopause symptoms
Symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain, mood shifts, or bloating are now routinely attributed to age or labelled as perimenopause, often without deeper investigation. But there was a time when such a diagnosis would have raised alarm rather than being accepted as an inevitable consequence of ageing.
At the age of twenty-eight, I experienced an onslaught of health issues that were far beyond my years. In search of answers, I visited a practitioner who used Bioenergetic Stress Testing. One key finding was that my hormones were depleted and my body was behaving as though it were menopausal.
Twenty years ago, the term perimenopause was not yet mainstream. Without a normalised label to apply, the practitioner did not simply try to manage or suppress the symptoms. Instead, they recognised them for what they were, signals of deeper imbalance that were very much out of alignment for someone of my age.
Now at forty-seven, despite experiencing significant hormonal imbalances in my late twenties, there is no sign of perimenopause in my physical or emotional state today. The rebalance that I now experience came not through medication or suppression of symptoms, but through years of deliberate choices, intuitive awareness, and a growing trust in my body’s capacity to heal.
Over the years, I committed to a process of deep healing by reducing chemical exposure, addressing chronic stress, changing my lifestyle and diet, supporting my nervous and endocrine systems, and reconnecting with my body’s natural intelligence. Instead of masking the symptoms, I learnt to listen to them. I allowed them to guide me toward the parts of my life, my environment, and my thinking that needed to change.
This possibility becomes available to all of us the moment we stop accepting dysfunction as inevitable and begin exploring the conditions that shape our health over time.
From diagnosis to deeper insight
This possibility begins with the clarity that comes from recognising our symptoms and seeking a meaningful diagnosis of hormonal imbalance. Diagnosis is a vital first step. It validates our experience and opens the door to understanding what might be driving these hormonal shifts beyond just age.
When symptoms go undiagnosed, it can leave us feeling isolated, unsure of where to begin in seeking support or understanding. Normalising these experiences offers a collective recognition that we are not alone in this journey. Yet, if we stop at simply accepting the diagnosis as an unchangeable truth, we miss the vital opportunity for the deeper inquiry that helps us to understand why these symptoms, often labelled as early perimenopause, are occurring so intensely, and why so many women face them so prematurely.
Empowerment begins not only with understanding what is happening but also with questioning why, and using that understanding to seek positive change in our hormonal wellbeing.
Understanding this more clearly also opens up a deeper inquiry into menopause itself. Perimenopause is often spoken of as the gateway to menopause, a hormonal transition that takes place before menstruation stops completely, marking the arrival of menopause. But whilst they may be defined separately, the forces influencing them are deeply intertwined, and both offer an opportunity to reconsider what we have come to accept.
How menopause has changed
We rarely question the reality of menopause. It is treated as a biological certainty. A life stage that every woman is expected to pass through. But we assume it has always existed in the same way that we experience it now, disruptive, emotionally turbulent, and in need of medical management. But what if that assumption is incorrect?
What if the modern menopause that we have come to know is not simply a fixed outcome of biology, but a reflection of a particular time, culture, and environment? What if the way that we experience menopause symptoms today would have been unthinkable to women of pre-modern generations? Not because they did not live long enough, but because the conditions shaping their bodies and lives were profoundly different from what we experience today.
In many pre-modern cultures, there is surprisingly little reference to menopause as a disruptive or defining life stage. Historian Susan Mattern notes that menopause, as a medical category, only emerged in the last few centuries. Before that, the physiological process may well have occurred, but it often passed quietly, or at least, it was not pathologised in the way that it is now.
Of course, we must acknowledge that the historical record is imperfect. Women’s voices were often marginalised, their pain dismissed, their stories lost in the margins. It is entirely possible that many experienced symptoms but suffered in silence, their experiences undocumented or ignored. And yes, some women did die young, through childbirth, infection, or poor living conditions. But whilst average life expectancy was lower, many women did live into their fifties and beyond if they survived childbirth.
So we are left with a paradox, if menopause were as distressing, symptomatic, and disruptive in earlier eras as it appears to be now, why do we not see it reflected more clearly in the medical and cultural literature? There is significant documentation on menstruation, fertility, pregnancy, and the so-called female hysteria, which shows that the female body was neither overlooked nor dismissed, but closely observed and studied. Why, then, the comparative silence around menopause?
Perhaps hormonal decline occurred later. Perhaps symptoms were milder. Perhaps it was less of a crisis and more of a quiet turning, one that did not require intervention, diagnosis, or medication.
All of this opens the door to a deeper question, "Is the intensity with which we experience menopause today truly natural or is it the unseen legacy of an industrial world?"
Toxic history of menopause
This question becomes particularly interesting when we enter the 19th century, a time when the diagnosis of female hysteria reached its peak. Some of the older women diagnosed with hysteria may, in retrospect, have been navigating menopause symptoms. However, we could also hypothesise that the surge in female hysteria diagnoses during the 19th century was influenced by chemical toxicity brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution brought with it unprecedented environmental toxins and social change, and with it, a flood of invisible exposures. Women working in textile factories handled arsenic-laced dyes and breathed air thick with coal soot. Mercury was prescribed in treatments. Lead was used in makeup and plumbing.
Chronic exposure to these industrial toxins is now known to cause neurological symptoms, hormonal disruption, and reproductive dysfunction, which were often attributed to nerves, melancholia, or the mysterious affliction of being female. But what if many of these symptoms were the early signs of chemical-induced hormonal collapse? What if the suffering of that era, just like the suffering that we are seeing now, was not a matter of inherent biology, but of overwhelmed biology?
When we view the Industrial Age through this lens, menopause symptoms begin to look less like a fixed biological fate and more like a manifestation of the time. A bodily response to the shifting pressures of modern life and toxic chemical exposure. And if that is true, it challenges not only how we treat menopause, but how we understand hormonal health in the first place.
Menopause and cultural wisdom
Menopause in the modern Western world has become a medical event which is diagnosed, medicated, and often dreaded. In other parts of the world, there are cultures in which menopause symptoms are not treated as a pathology, but as a rite of passage. Not as an end, but as an emergence into a deeper embodiment of womanhood.
In Japan, for instance, menopause is called ‘kōnenki’, a word that translates to ‘renewal’ or ‘season of energy’. Many Japanese women, especially in more traditional or rural communities, report milder menopause symptoms, and cultural framing often treats menopause less as a loss and more as a transition toward inner strength and renewed purpose.
Part of what makes this cultural approach to menopause so different lies in the environment that surrounds it, not just physically, but socially and emotionally. In these communities, lifestyle factors, community support, and cultural attitudes all contribute meaningfully to how menopause is experienced. Traditional diets are rich in phytoestrogens, which can naturally support hormonal balance. Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals is significantly lower than in the West, and family structures often remain intergenerational, providing emotional support and a stronger sense of belonging during this transition.
In many cases, when menopause symptoms do arise, they are addressed less with hormone therapy, medication, suppression, or control, and more through lifestyle adaptation and respect for the body’s changing rhythm. This stands in stark contrast to the Western medical model, where menopause is often framed as a problem to be solved or a decline to be delayed.
This contrast invites us to see that perimenopause and menopause may be less of a fate carved in stone, and more of a story shaped by the cultural, physical, and emotional conditions around us. A story that holds the possibility for healing and understanding beyond what we, in the West, have yet to embrace.
This broader perspective invites us to consider not only the physical environment but also the subtle energies, social context, and emotional landscapes that shape hormonal health and our overall experience of menopause.
PMS vs. Perimenopause
Hormones are not just biochemical messengers, they are translators of our inner and outer worlds. They respond, not only to diet and toxins, but also to emotions, beliefs, and even to the subtle energetic influences that surround us.
This intricate mind-body dialogue between our hormonal system, our bodies, and environments is recognised in some ancient traditions, where women honour the deep sensitivity of their hormonal cycles as a source of strength and insight.
In some traditional cultures, women retreat into a dedicated space during menstruation, as it is understood that this is a time when they are at their most sensitive and therefore most powerful. It is seen as the best time to ‘sit with God’, to channel, to connect, and to receive guidance.
In our modern world, this sensitivity, this empathic ability, has become bogged down by over-stimulation, busyness, and chronic stress. It is not understood that a woman, during menstruation, has become an empathetic sponge for everything around her. Other people’s energy, emotions, and stresses, Wi-Fi signals, and Electromagnetic Frequencies are all soaked up in this sponge, overloading, overwhelming, and creating symptoms of PMS that can, at times, closely mimic those of perimenopause.
When a woman experiences irritability, anxiety, or mood swings, this is often a response to the overburden of external stimulus, triggered by the heightened hormonal sensitivity of menstruation.
Often, her moods are not solely her own. They can reflect the unspoken emotions in her environment, the collective emotional field around her, and may even echo the broader currents of the world as a whole.
This heightened sensitivity, instead of being understood as a powerful gift to be honoured, becomes a burden, an over-sensitivity and stress response, to the weight of external influences, all of which we equate to hormonal imbalance, PMS symptoms, or early perimenopause.
Toxins in menstrual products
Further disruptions to our natural flow are intensified by modern habits that interfere with the body’s inherent hormonal rhythms. In many traditional cultures, menstrual blood is allowed to flow freely, regarded as a sacred release that honours the body’s cycle of cleansing and renewal. In contrast, much of the modern world relies on tampons, which not only trap the blood within the body but have also been identified as a contributing factor in numerous cases of Toxic Shock Syndrome.
Tampons also contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as phthalates and parabens and may introduce trace toxins such as dioxins into the womb, as some brands are still bleached or contain chemical residues. These exposures may further disrupt hormonal balance and intensify symptoms often mistaken for perimenopause or PMS.
Breaking the perimenopause cycle
When we consider how history, environment, and culture shape our biology, we must ask the question, "Did our grandparents’ quiet acceptance of their ‘new normal’, in the wake of the industrial revolution, add to the hormonal burden that many menopausal and perimenopausal women carry today?" And if so, what legacy will we be leaving for future generations if we do not question the normalisation of perimenopause now?
Emerging research in epigenetics suggests that environmental and psychological stressors, including exposure to toxins, trauma, and chronic stress, can leave biological imprints that are passed down through generations. This means that the environmental and emotional burdens borne by our grandmothers during the early industrial era may well have quietly shaped the hormonal landscape that we have inherited today, making this not only a personal or generational concern, but a biological echo of history.
By accepting early onset perimenopausal symptoms as inevitable, we risk cementing them as truth. Just as menopause is rarely questioned today, our granddaughters may grow up believing that their bodies are meant to begin breaking down in their thirties, viewing it as a natural part of female evolution. If we do not intervene now, they will inherit not only our chemical burden but the conditioning that came with it.
The cost of acceptance
When we treat menopause and perimenopause as fixed biological scripts, we risk losing sight of the factors that may be shaping them. When we accept them as unchangeable truths, we embed them into the collective consciousness. This quiet acceptance shapes our lived reality, much like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we believe that perimenopause symptoms in our thirties are simply the way that it is, we will embody that belief. We agree to it. We consent to it. We invite it in to be part of our experience and pass it into the invisible field of possibility that future generations inherit. As with the hundredth monkey effect, once a critical mass begins to hold a belief, it enters the collective consciousness. It becomes not just an idea but an energetic template, something that others unconsciously tune into, like a superstition that manifests itself through expectation.
But when we begin to see these symptoms not as an inherent fate, but as signals of imbalance, not as inevitable, but as interruptible, we change the narrative. We create a different pattern in the field. We dissolve the conditioning. We alter the energetic imprint that shapes what comes next.
This shift in perspective matters. It creates a ripple, not only through our own bodies but through the collective experience of womanhood. It allows us to reclaim what it means to live in a female body, not as a slow decline, but as a steady evolution toward deeper embodiment, power, and possibility.
Escaping toxic hormonal decline
When we attribute early hormonal decline and perimenopause symptoms to age alone, we stop asking questions. If we accept its timing and severity as inevitable, we stop looking for solutions. We confuse prevalence with normalcy.
Age, perimenopause, or any other label should not become a convenient cover story for poor living. We are a generation raised on over-prescription, low-nutrient food, artificial lighting, high stress, and constant busyness. We are, in many ways, the first generation to truly live in constant exposure to synthetic everything, from skincare to screen light. It is no wonder that our bodies are showing signs of distress earlier than they did before.
Our bodies are not breaking down from the natural decomposition of age, but from the accumulated weight of chronic stress, toxins, poor nutrition, and disconnection from a natural environment. A person of fifty has simply experienced more years of exposure to environmental stressors than someone of twenty. It is this prolonged exposure, rather than age itself, that drives the deterioration that we have come to accept as inevitable aging decline.
If we change the input, we change the outcome. By rethinking our lifestyles and reducing our chemical intake, we can profoundly influence how we age and how we experience menopausal and perimenopausal symptoms.
The path forward is not simply about managing symptoms, it is about rediscovering what it means to live in true rhythm with our bodies. It is not about fixing what is broken, but restoring what has been forgotten, that is, the innate power of a body in harmony with itself and the world around it.
Read more from Niaby Codd
Niaby Codd, Author, Dream Weaver, Transformational Mentor
Niaby is a gifted healer, seer, empath, and evidential medium who has spent over a decade honing her natural abilities. As a Transcended Master, she blends together these profound spiritual gifts with her deep intuitive understanding of human behaviour and trauma to help people identify the root cause of their emotional blocks and limiting beliefs. Using her unique gift as a dream weaver, she helps her clients to release deep-rooted trauma by accessing the subconscious mind through the dream state. A seer of truth, she empowers others to move beyond societal conditioning and reconnect with their authentic selves. Her mission is simple yet profound: to inspire people to be who they came here to be.
