Mini Mathur recently shared her experience with perimenopause on social media, highlighting memory loss as a significant but often overlooked symptom. The actor and television host explained how she once could remember numerous phone numbers but now struggles with verbal conversations and everyday tasks. She described walking into rooms feeling lost and forgetting why she opened the fridge. Mathur revealed that after four decades of being highly social and building a career around communication, perimenopause felt like an alien attack, changing how she felt about things that once gave her life. She now avoids evening social events, preferring lunch invitations over dinner due to mood swings and hot flashes. Medical experts confirm that memory issues and brain fog are common during menopause, primarily caused by declining estrogen levels affecting brain function, sleep disturbances, stress, and mood fluctuations.
Why Memory Loss Happens During Menopause
Dr Kavitha G Pujar from Motherhood Hospitals explained that declining estrogen levels play a key role in brain functioning by regulating neurotransmitters crucial for memory and concentration. Lower estrogen also reduces the brain's efficiency in using glucose, leading to slower processing and mental fatigue. Sleep disturbances from hot flashes and night sweats affect the hippocampus, the brain's memory center. Additionally, midlife stress raises cortisol levels, interfering with memory formation. Mood changes like depression and anxiety further contribute to forgetfulness and slower mental processing. Dr Pujar noted that brain fog is often temporary and more evident in perimenopausal women, typically improving once hormones stabilize after menopause sets in properly.
Source: Link