Jackie's Take: What's on My Mind in Women's Wellness ✍️ 🤔 📰 

🧬 The Whisper You’ve Been Ignoring: The Neuroscience of Intuition in Midlife

Let me tell you something I see all the time. A woman sits across from me, mid-40s, successful, sharp, juggling it all. And she says: “Something’s off. I don’t feel like myself.”

Then, almost in the same breath: “But maybe it’s just stress. Maybe I’m imagining it.”

That’s the dance, isn’t it? Our bodies whisper, and our brains immediately shout back: You’re fine. Don’t make a fuss.

The sneaky way perimenopause shows up

We’ve all been trained to expect perimenopause to look like hot flashes, night sweats, or missed periods. Sometimes it does. But often it’s sneakier.

It looks like rage at the dishes in the sink. Or lying awake at 3 a.m. with your heart pounding. Or crying in the car after a perfectly ordinary work meeting. Or brain fog so thick you can’t remember what you walked into the room for.

And if you’ve got a hormonal IUD? You often don’t even get the period clues.

Sidenote ✍️: IUDs are fantastic for so many reasons (effective, safe, convenient), but they also erase one of our clearest benchmarks for midlife hormonal shifts. Which means for IUD users, education and awareness have to be dialed up. If you are waiting for the missed-period signal, you’ll be waiting a long time.⏱️ 

Why we second-guess ourselves

Here’s where the neuroscience comes in. Our brains have a network called the Default Mode Network (DMN). Think of it as your brain’s background app. It runs when you’re not actively focused, keeping you looping on the past or worrying about the future.

When the DMN is balanced, it’s actually a superpower. It supports reflection, empathy, and creativity. But when it’s overactive, which is common in modern, overstimulated brains, it fuels rumination, anxiety, and self-doubt.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

1. You feel an intuitive nudge: “Something’s off with my sleep, I don’t feel right.”

2. Your DMN jumps in: “Don’t be dramatic. You’re just stressed. Everyone feels tired.”

3. You dismiss it.

This isn’t weakness. It’s wiring. Neuroimaging studies show that DMN overactivation is strongly linked to depression and rumination in women, particularly during hormonal transitions like postpartum and perimenopause.

And here’s the kicker: estrogen fluctuations directly impact neural circuits that regulate the DMN. Estrogen helps keep serotonin and dopamine humming, the very neurotransmitters tied to mood, motivation, and clarity. So when estrogen dips, your DMN is more likely to hijack the conversation in your head.

Translation: that spiral of self-doubt or overthinking isn’t imagined. It’s your biology doing its thing.

What to do with the whispers

The good news? You can dial the DMN down. Practices that shift your brain into task-positive mode help you hear your intuition more clearly.

For me, that might be shifting into a creative task, journaling symptoms so I can see the patterns in black and white, or walking outside without my phone. For you, it might be meditation, breathwork, or even just pausing to ask: “Is this fear talking, or is this my body talking?”

These aren’t fluffy wellness hacks. fMRI research shows that mindfulness and movement literally reduce DMN activity, making space for present-moment awareness and intuitive clarity.

Why this matters

Because when you listen early, you buy yourself time. Time to protect your bones and brain. Time to smooth out the mood swings and insomnia. Time to get support before symptoms spiral.

The women who thrive in perimenopause aren’t the ones who white-knuckle it with coffee and positive thinking. They’re the ones who tune in early, act on the whispers, and refuse to wait until their bodies are screaming.

The reframe

Here’s what I want you to remember: intuition is not woo. It’s wisdom. It’s neuroscience. It’s your body sending data that’s easy to dismiss but impossible to regret listening to.

So here’s my question: what’s the whisper your body’s been sending that you’ve been brushing off?

Hit reply and tell me. I really do want to know.

Because the difference between drifting through this transition and actually thriving in it often comes down to this: did you listen when your body whispered, or did you wait until it screamed?

Till next week,

Jackie

The Tea: What's Trending in Women's Wellness & Culture 🍵 📰 

💇‍♀️ The ‘hair longevity’ trend is set to drive sales and innovation this year

Hair longevity is the new “skinification” wave in beauty, with peptides, ceramides, and scalp serums moving from niche to mass market. Sounds opportunistic, but hear me out — midlife women know thinning and shedding aren’t vanity issues, and this shift signals the industry finally catching up to the science of it all. 👩‍🔬 

👀 Research Corner: Gut Microbiota in Exercise-Regulated Development, Progression, and Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

A new study in Frontiers in Endocrinology shows that exercise doesn’t just help with blood sugar—it actively reshapes your gut health. Moving your body boosts microbial diversity, increases beneficial compounds, and lowers markers of gut leakiness and inflammation. TLDR: physical activity is medicine for your microbiome as much as your muscles. 🦠📚️ 

🌊 Here’s how to embrace the benefits of ‘blue health’

This confirmed what I’ve always felt in my bones: water heals. Time by the ocean, a lake, or even a pool lowers stress hormones, improves sleep, and sharpens focus. Maybe that is why I cling to the coasts; my nervous system knows it needs the waves as much as the weights. Scientists call these “blue spaces” restorative environments, and it feels good to know the research explains what so many of us sense instinctively. 🏊‍♀️(Wapo)

🙅 Welcome to the 'menodivorce'. Why women aren't sweating marriage in a sea of hot flashes

This article puts a spotlight on the rise of the “menodivorce”—when perimenopause or menopause flips the clarity switch and women suddenly decide they’re done settling. While divorce rates overall are down, breakups among women 50+ are climbing, fueled by hormonal shifts, empty nests, and the realization that “till death do us part” shouldn’t mean tolerating nonsense forever. Hot flashes? Manageable. Mediocre marriage? Not so much. 😤(USA Today)

A Special Note from Jackie 🖇️ 

You're the woman everyone comes to for answers. You run meetings, manage teams, make decisions that matter. But behind closed doors? You're exhausted by 3 PM, your libido is MIA, and you're surviving on willpower that's running dangerously low.

Every health bit of advice feels like another item on your endless to-do list. And no one is giving the same guidance...

Go Keto! No, vegan is the way during menopause. What about a low-histamine diet? It's exhausting...

All the advice that assumes you have unlimited time and a personal chef. Meanwhile, your energy keeps declining, your motivation is inconsistent, and you're starting to wonder if this is just "what 40+ feels like."

And that's why I've created a first-of-its-kind program that works WITH your lifestyle, not against it.

In 6 weeks, you'll build your very own personal health copilot using AI-powered biointelligence, clinical-grade testing, and behavioral science—all wrapped up in my clinical expertise.

No more guessing. No more one-size-fits-all. Just a personalized system that follows you from the bedroom to the boardroom to the exam room.

If you have been thinking about joining the waitlist, now is your chance AND to get a special BONUS when you do 👇👇️ 🔲 👇️ 

The Group Chat Edit 📲 👯‍♂️ 

✍️ To Try: Surprise someone with a long overdue email or note saying thank you. Make it cinematic. Make the recipient laugh and cry. Reap the longevity benefits of generosity (I’m loving the stationary from Dear Annabelle🖋️)! 🥰 

📺️ To Watch: In this helpful video, Dr. Lotta Borg Skoglund presents existing evidence highlighting the unique challenges women with ADHD encounter during perimenopause. She offers advice on how patients can prepare for discussions about treatment with their doctors.

🛍️ To Buy: Hey side sleepers, listen up - I have something for you! These Ozlo silicone noise-cancelling, snore-blocking, sleep-sensing sleepbuds are on my list. I have always worried that I would sleep through an alarm, but it’s biometric sensors seamlessly detect when you fall asleep, auto-magically switching from your streaming audio to built-in noise-masking sounds, and then a gentle alarm when you want to rise. 🛌 😴