Symptoms – The Tired Body

WOMEN’S CARE: PART I

Symptoms – The Tired Body

“I just don’t feel like myself.” Or more precisely: “Lately, I feel this sudden, simmering rage.” Not sadness. Not confusion. Rage. And it’s new.

This is not irrational. It’s not hormonal havoc. It’s clarity--shaped by a lifetime of emotional containment, unpaid labor, and internalized silence. Women entering their 40s are not unraveling. They are waking up.

This period is marked by profound physiological changes and escalating life responsibilities. The phrase “not feeling like myself” often encapsulates a constellation of symptoms: fatigue, irritability, brain fog, and emotional volatility, but beneath these lies a powerful shift in consciousness.

Recent studies have begun to unpack the layers behind this collective experience.

Endless Google searches, questions over group chats, muttered impatiently in checkout lines, women are buried in the subtext of “I’m not fine.” For women in their 30s and 40s, this sense of dislocation is so common, it’s almost expected. But what exactly are we experiencing?

Is it hormonal? Emotional? Cultural? Or have we been sold an entire marketplace of “fixes” for something that might actually be a rational response to impossible conditions?

Let’s begin where most common fads of womanhood exist in current bio-pharma buzzwords sprinkled throughout pop culture and social media today: cortisol and perimenopause.

The Cortisol Conundrum

Cortisol, often shamed in the contemporary sense as the "stress hormone," plays a pivotal role in our body's response to stress. While essential in moderation, chronic elevation can lead to adverse health outcomes. Research indicates that during late reproductive years and the transition beyond, women may experience increased cortisol levels, correlating with symptoms like fatigue, cognitive complaints, and even metabolic syndrome.

Lifestyle factors prevalent among American mid-life women, such as advanced maternal age, high caffeine intake, irregular sleep patterns, and intense exercise regimens can exacerbate cortisol imbalances. Experts suggest that lifestyle modifications, including balanced nutrition, stress management, and adequate rest, are crucial in regulating cortisol levels.

Perimenopause: Real Shift, Real Market

Perimenopause, the transitional phase leading up to menopause, typically begins in the early to mid-40s. This period is characterized by fluctuating estrogen levels, which can manifest as mood swings, sleep disturbances, and cognitive challenges. A study in the Menopause  journal highlighted that women reporting a sense of "not feeling like themselves" often experienced heightened anxiety, fatigue, and brain fog.

These symptoms most associated with cortisol or perimenopause are not merely anecdotal. The Seattle Midlife Women's Health Study, a longitudinal research project spanning over two decades, documented that women during this transition frequently reported disruptions impacted their daily functioning. But increasingly, it’s not just a life stage--it’s a branding opportunity. From “hormone-balancing” supplements to boutique blood tests, and influencer-driven health plans, there’s a growing industry eager to define and then treat this phase of life.

What’s often missing from this wellness discourse is context. Medicalized products operate on a premise that women are biologically broken and in need of consumer correction. But the symptoms attributed to falling apart at forty: fatigue, insomnia, irritability are also textbook signs of burnout, lack of boundaries, and role overload. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of ever-mounting responsibilities can lead not just to burnout, but to a deep, simmering resentment. A rage born from being expected to always cope, always care, and never complain.

When you strip away the hormone charts and wellness language, the question remains:

Are women really “unwell,” or are we simply unprotected by a society that expects us to do everything--and then tells us to buy our way back to balance?

Life Conditions as Symptoms

The phrase “I don’t feel like myself” doesn’t always originate in the ovaries. It often originates in structural conditions like a chronic lack of rest, care work with no end, invisible labor in the home, and workplaces that demand output while ignoring how much effort it takes for the throughput.

In this framework, cortisol spikes and midlife mood shifts don’t reflect failure--they reflect exposure.

So yes, tracking your hormones might be helpful. But so is asking:

• Why is your workday out of sync with school hours?

• Why are healthcare costs rising while support systems shrink?

• Why are women still socialized to self-sacrifice until their bodies shut down?

Medicalizing this transition can help some women feel validated, but it also reinforces the idea that the individual must adapt--not the system.

What If You’re Not Broken?

There’s something quietly radical about asking whether the story you’ve been told is true. That maybe the reason you “don’t feel like yourself” isn’t because you’ve lost your way, but because you’ve outgrown the role you were assigned.

This stage of life isn’t just hormonal; it’s also historical. We are among generations of women trying to parent, produce, and perform in a world that tells us we’re both too much and not enough.

And when the dominant wellness advice sounds like: take this supplement, track that hormone, fix yourself quietly, we should be asking: Why? Who benefits when we pathologize natural life transitions? We often compartmentalize midlife women's health into more socially and mentally manageable buckets and call them perimenopause symptoms, cortisol issues, and refer to the elusive end with no visible pathway: stress elimination.

SIDEBAR: Thoughts Contemplating Medicalization vs. Capitalism of Women's Health

Medicalization of Stressed Women

• Defines normal life events (like menopause) as medical problems

• Shifts responsibility for well-being onto the individual

• Frames discomfort as dysfunction

Capitalism as Social Environment

• Sells solutions to the problems it helped create

• Builds markets around suffering

• Converts natural transitions into consumer identities

Together?

You feel bad. They sell you relief.

But the real cure might not be in the pharmacy aisle. It might be in naming the system that made you sick--and deciding not to buy into purchasing illusory promises of health.

Next Up: Women’s Care Part II – The Toxic Nest

In Part II, we’ll examine how environmental toxins, consumer culture, and societal expectations work together to shape women’s midlife health--and how pushing back requires more than a clean diet or a daily planner on your newly designed organization station.

-AP