At 45, I started experiencing all those classic symptoms of perimenopause Brain fog, exhaustion, bloating and a level of irritability that could rival a toddler mid-tantrum and my god, the night sweats?! My confidence in social situations took a nosedive thanks to anxiety, simple tasks felt too much, and I just didn’t feel like, me.
I’d always thought I’d been an advocate for natural health so started to look at how I lived, my life was busy. 5 teenage/twenty something kids, running 2 businesses, trying to squeeze in gym sessions and going out most weekends, working all hours and coffee for breakfast, something had to change. I was getting older, and my lifestyle was still that of a 35 year old. It was my Husband who introduced me to functional mushrooms, even though he didn’t have perimenopause as an excuse, he was also suffering with a heightened anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed, he was burnt out and had started growing the medicinal mushroom, lion’s mane. When I started taking lions mane, it changed everything. I’m not saying it’s a ‘magic pill’ but within a few days I felt like the symptoms I was suffering with became way more manageable.
It was time to practice what I preached and really embrace a life change. I slowed things down, sleep wasn’t for the dead and taking the dogs for a walk in the woods wasn’t a chore it was necessary for my mental health, the connection to the earth felt like the balance I had been missing. I even knocked coffee on the head – I loved it.