Insomnia, Weight Gain, and Anxiety, Oh My.
Jenna is 47. She hasn’t changed her eating or her workouts, but she’s up two sizes.
She goes to bed at 10, but wakes up at 3am like it’s time to start the day.
She used to be the calm one. Now she’s crying in the car after drop-off and snapping at her partner for chewing too loudly.
She’s not depressed. She’s not crazy.
She’s in perimenopause.
And her nervous system is hanging on by a thread.
Sound familiar? Keep reading to see how we helped Jenna.
Hormones Were the Scaffolding. Now They’re Shifting.
Perimenopause isn’t just about hot flashes or the occasional mood swing.
It’s a slow unraveling of the systems that used to keep you stable.
For most of your life estrogen and progesterone acted like scaffolding quietly supporting your sleep, mood, stress tolerance, and metabolism.
They buffered you from stress. Helped you bounce back. Kept your emotions from boiling over.
But, in perimenopause, that scaffolding becomes compromised.
Estrogen drops. Progesterone fades. And cortisol rises to compensate.
Your nervous system is left to carry a load it was never meant to hold alone.
You start feeling off-balance in ways that don’t make sense on paper:
- Restless sleep
- Weight gain around your midsection
- Emotional reactivity
- Brain fog
- Anxiety for no clear reason
This isn’t about willpower or aging.
It’s nervous system dysregulation rooted in biology.
What’s Really Driving the Symptoms No One Warned You About
When your hormones start shifting your nervous system becomes more sensitive to stressors it used to handle easily, especially biological disruptors like these three:
1. Cortisol Overload: Why Your Body Thinks You’re in Danger
Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone. In the proper ratios, it’s the most important hormone. It gets you out of bed, helps you focus, and keeps you safe in emergencies.
But, in perimenopause estrogen and progesterone (which normally help regulate cortisol) are in decline. Without those hormonal checks and balances, cortisol has no buffer. It runs the show.
When cortisol is elevated for too long, it:
- Signals your body to store fat—especially around the belly
- Disrupts your circadian rhythm and keeps you from deep sleep
- Makes you more reactive anxious and emotionally fragile
This isn’t just “stress,“ it’s full-body overwhelm.
Science Check
Estrogen plays a crucial role in regulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which controls the stress response. As estrogen drops in perimenopause, cortisol becomes harder to regulate, resulting in weight retention, poor sleep, and heightened reactivity.
Sources:
Estrogen and Cortisol in Midlife Frontiers in Endocrinology
Estrogens Role in the HPA Axis Journal of Neuroendocrinology
2. Blood Sugar Swings: Why Under-Eating Makes You More Anxious and Heavier
Most women were taught to eat less and fear carbs—a whopping +65% of women have disordered eating behaviors. However, under-eating, skipping meals, or cutting carbs too low can cause blood sugar levels to fluctuate wildly throughout the day, and even while you sleep.
These rollercoasters aren’t harmless.
→ They activate your nervous system like a false alarm
→ You feel hangry anxious or shaky
→ You wake up at 3am, wired and hungry
→ Your body gets stuck in fast storage mode because it feels underfed and unsafe
In perimenopause, your body becomes more sensitive to these fluctuations because your hormonal scaffolding is already compromised. Without enough fiber, protein, and complex carbs, your body can’t find stability.
Science Check
Low caloric intake and skipped meals are known to trigger blood sugar crashes which activate the sympathetic nervous system, leading to symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and disrupted sleep. Perimenopausal women are especially vulnerable due to increased cortisol sensitivity and slower glucose metabolism.
Sources
Nutrition and Perimenopause NCBI
Blood Sugar and Stress Harvard Health
3. Hormonal Buffer Loss: Why You’re More Sensitive Than You Used to Be
Estrogen and progesterone don’t just control your cycle; they support neurotransmitters and calm your nervous system. When they start to decline, everything you used to tolerate can begin to feel too loud, too much, or too fast.
- Estrogen supports serotonin, helping to stabilize mood
- Progesterone boosts GABA, your calming neurotransmitter
Without them, you feel more reactive, emotionally raw, and overstimulated.
If you’re neurodivergent, ADHD, autistic, on the spectrum, or have sensory processing sensitivity, you most likely are already prone to histamine issues, so you may feel this imbalance of hormones even more intensely.
Why?
Because your system was already working harder to maintain regulation and now it has even fewer tools.
Science Check
Estrogen supports serotonin production and stabilizes the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, while progesterone enhances the sensitivity of the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor. When these hormones decline, emotional regulation becomes more difficult. Women with histamine intolerance or neurodivergence are more vulnerable to these effects due to altered neurotransmitter sensitivity and mast cell activity.
Sources:
Hormones and Neurotransmitters National Library of Medicine
Neuroendocrinology of Progesterone NCBI
Histamine Intolerance in Women Allergy Asthma Clinical Immunology
Perimenopause Is Like Walking a Tightrope. Nervous System Support Builds a Wider Bridge.
Right now it might feel like you’re walking a tightrope. One wrong move—too much on your calendar, a skipped meal, one bad night of sleep—and everything tips. You snap, spiral, or crash.
That’s because your system doesn’t have the buffer it used to.
With nervous system regulation, you can build a wider bridge—one your body can actually walk across without bracing for disaster.
You regain steadiness. You recover faster.
You stop reacting, and start responding.
And from there? Your hormones have the space to recalibrate.
Why Your Other Fixes Aren’t Working (Yet)
If you’ve tried supplements, HRT, strict food protocols, or meditation apps, and still feel like you’re losing the battle, you’re not alone. Jenna had been trying them all and still felt off-kilter and confused.
You might have the right tools. But if your nervous system is dysregulated, your body won’t use them effectively. It’s like trying to pour into a cup with holes punched into it. More is going out than staying in.
Don’t get us wrong, nervous system regulation isn’t the only thing you need. Supplements, HRT, choosing whole foods and meditations have their time and their place. But the thing that makes everything else work better is a body that’s ready to receive them.
What Regulation Looks Like (And How to Start Today)
We’re not here to give you more work. It’s not a 12-step morning routine, or another protocol of pills and powders to take!
It’s short, simple habits that create signals of safety for your body:
- Gentle somatic movements
- Light exposure first thing in the morning
- A few slow breaths before your coffee
- Stabilizing meals with protein and fat
- A quiet moment to pause before bed
Sound too easy? We hear that all the time: How can such small pieces help my body? We explain it all in our “What is Nervous System Regulation?” course in the app.
Or, maybe it sounds impossible to add in MORE habits to your day. We get that, too. Which is why you’ll love our AI Health Coach that can guide you through creating new routines.
Want to know where to start?
Inside the Your Daily™ app you’ll find calming tools that fit into your real life, not around it.
In just a few minutes a day, you can help your body shift out of survival mode and create the conditions for hormonal balance, better sleep, and more ease.
Join the app and feel the shift in a single exercise.
You’re Not Failing—You’re Overloaded.
You’re not missing something.
You’re just carrying too much without the internal supports you used to have.
Nervous system regulation helps support that inner scaffolding, allowing you to sleep, digest, restore, and respond again. So, you can feel like you again.
Jenna joined us and started to feel relief in just a week! She finally learned how to work with her body, not against it, and then magic: her HRT began to do its thing. Meditations were a place of peace and not a chore to trudge through. She started to feel like she had a solid ground under her feet again.
That’s possible for you, too. Join us for a 3-day free trial inside the app to get started.
