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The 3C Framework – Calm, Clear & Connected
A Practical Roadmap for a Mindful Menopause
Wednesday 12th March at 6.30pm – 7.30pm – online – save a seat here
Menopause doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Calm, Clear & Connected is a straightforward, easy-to-follow framework designed to help you take control of your experience with clarity and confidence.
In this lively workshop, you’ll gain essential menstrual health knowledge, helping you understand what’s happening in your body and why. With this foundation, making supportive choices becomes simpler and more effective—because they’re relevant and meaningful to your unique journey.
Through a practical, science-backed approach, you’ll create a personalised plan to:
✔ Calm your body—reduce symptoms, manage stress, and restore balance
✔ Clear your mind—cut through confusion, improve focus, and feel confident
✔ Connect the dots—understand your body’s needs and make informed choices
No fluff, no guesswork—just clear guidance and actionable steps to help you move through menopause with ease. By the end of the course, you’ll have a real-world strategy that works for you, so you can feel energised, in control, and fully supported in this next phase of life.
Your menopause, your way—let’s make it work for you.
Save your seat by booking on the calendar right now —> WORKSHOP CALENDAR
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Menstrual health extends far beyond reproduction—the ovaries play a crucial role in overall health beyond periods, pregnancy, and perimenopause.
A more accurate way to describe this journey is through the concept of a menstrual health timeline rather than a solely reproductive process—it’s a vital sign of overall well-being. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines menstrual health as, ‘the complete physical, mental, and social well-being related to the menstrual cycle, not just the absence of disease’. It’s an overarching term that includes periods, perimenopause, and postmenopause, shaping health outcomes throughout life.
Yet, despite its significance, menstrual health is often overlooked in conversations about mental health and long-term disease prevention. Research shows that irregular cycles, conditions like PCOS, and hormonal imbalances can increase the risk of anxiety, depression, and even cardiovascular disease. A recent study published in Nature highlights a new way to measure heart rate variability in relation to menstrual cycle regularity, reinforcing the connection between menstrual and cardiovascular health (Nature, 2025). If we want to improve health outcomes, we need to start with the basics—understanding menstrual health from the first period to postmenopause.
Learning from Women’s Lived Experiences
For too long, menstrual health has been treated as a niche topic rather than a fundamental part of healthcare. Women’s real-life experiences of menstrual irregularities, debilitating pain, and hormonal shifts often go unheard, leading to misdiagnosis and inadequate support. As one article aptly states, “The medical system has long dismissed the pain of women and assigned shame to our reproductive processes. As a result, women are left misdiagnosed, untreated and unheard.” (Red & Black, 2024).
By listening to women and acknowledging the patterns in their lived experiences, we can transform menstrual health education into something that is relevant, practical, and empowering.
The Economic Burden of Menstrual Health
Beyond the physical and emotional toll, menstrual health challenges come with significant economic costs. The price of managing periods, seeking medical care, and navigating misdiagnoses can add up quickly. According to a recent report, the economic burden of menstrual health is a growing concern, affecting workplace productivity and increasing long-term healthcare costs (Chamber UK, 2024). The financial impact of undiagnosed or untreated menstrual conditions underscores the urgency of improving education and access to menstrual health resources.
The Missing Piece of the Menopause Memo
The good news? Education on menstrual health is simple to implement. It starts with understanding the menstrual health timeline—from periods to perimenopause and beyond—in relevant and meaningful terms. One of the best ways to do this is by tracking your cycle beyond symptoms. Journaling can help you recognize shifts in energy, mood, and overall well-being, offering insight into what works for your body and what doesn’t. It also helps identify the nutrients that support your cycle and those that may not.
A Menopause Doula, like me, can be a great resource for this education, as we’re trained to talk about menstrual health across all life stages—not just during menopause. There is a continued call from all organisations supporting women’s health to improve education, and Menopause Doulas can serve as crucial touchpoints in the lives of menstruators. The BSI standard recommends in-house menopause champions, but outsourcing to a qualified Menopause Doula provides a more tailored and effective approach, ensuring personalized support at every life stage.
A Workplace Wake-Up Call
Beyond personal health, it’s time to rethink how we approach menstrual health in the workplace. The latest BSI standard recognises the need to support employees with menstruation, menstrual health, and menopause, ensuring that workplaces adapt to meet these essential health needs. You can read more about these standards here.
Menstrual health isn’t just about managing symptoms—it’s about understanding how it connects to every aspect of well-being, from mental health to heart health. By prioritising education and support, we can shift the conversation from reactive care to proactive well-being.
For more insights, The Menopause School is transforming the way people learn, think, and talk about menstrual health and menopause. By starting with simple, practical steps, we can empower people who menstruate to take control of their health at every stage of life.
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Many, have asked why we don’t talk about menopause when what we really should be asking is ‘How can we learn to talk about menopause?’
The word menopause appears twice on the Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education guidance published by the Department of Education in 2019.
You will find it on page 29 under the section titled –
By the end of secondary school – Schools should continue to develop knowledge on topics specified for primary as required and in addition, cover the following content by the end of secondary: Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health
To have the word menopause mentioned in the curriculum was certainly a huge leap forward and a long overdue addition to the other relationship and sex education topics. However, in specific content, I have not been able to speak with anyone who knows exactly what is being delivered across the country.
What about Menstrual Health?
As with all topics in education they need to be introduced at various points, in relevant and meaningful terms for the age group and cohorts.
The word menstrual gets 7 mentions in various forms as either products, cycle, or wellbeing, and menstruation gets 6 mentions. Go the Period Campaigners!
However, there is still no mention of menstrual health in the curriculum, currently.
The term Menstrual Health was developed through a multi-stage process, led by the Terminology Action Group of the Global Menstrual Collective in 2021 – only 200 years after the word menopause was formally adopted thanks to French Physician Charles-Pierre-Louis de Gardanne to describe the permanent cessation of menstruation.
Since 2021 the World Health Organisation has placed menstrual health firmly on the global agenda.
What about the missed generations who have not learned about menstrual health?
Trying to learn about menopause without first learning about the prequel event called menstrual health, has proven time and time again to be the one thing that is holding back the conversation.
Let’s take a closer look at the missing menopause memo.
Menstrual health, like mental health, can be positive or negative. Most narratives place anything to do with menstruation in the negative column and refer to ‘period problems’.
Menstrual health is every single day of a menstruators life, not only the days of bleed.
For those who follow the typical timeline, they will experience around 450 menstrual cycles over 40-years. The menstrual health timeline is forecast the moment two sets of chromosomes unite. Menstruation will start a couple of years after the ovaries have ‘switched on’.
The regular infradian rhythm called the menstrual cycle has an unpredictable sequence to start with and then within a few years becomes mostly predictable, creating ovarian/uterine patterns that are relative to each person. On average menstrual cycles range from 21-35 days in length.
The first 30 years of circulating menstrual cycle hormones influence everything from muscles, bones, digestion, energy, metabolism, immunity, respiration, and the brain. In total, there are around 400 roles in the body that are collectively driven by sex hormones, in all humans not only those who menstruate.
It subsequently makes sense that the fluctuating cyclical version of events, driven by the ovaries in a menstruator will have a cyclical impact on physiology, second by second. The last 10 years of pre-planned ovarian activity is one that becomes less predictable, known as perimenopause. The tipping point of perimenopause, also known as accelerated ovarian aging, is estimated to be on average age thirty-seven and a half years.
Aging conundrum: A perspective for ovarian aging. Research has shown that the decline in follicle numbers is a bi-exponential function of age, and this change occurs at the critical value of 25,000 follicles at the age of 37.5 years. Frontiers in Endocrinology
From this point forward ovarian aging speeds up, slows down, does a loop the loop and then closer to the typical menopause day (51) the menstrual cycle stops for several months at a time, until it finally stops, permanently.
In my opinion, to truly understand menopause and create confident conversations, you have to know about the menstrual health timeline and the sequence of events that start 40 years prior.
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Perimenopause is the word used to describe the time before a typical Menopause Day. Which makes it easy to know when perimenopause finishes, but not when it starts.
The typical Menopause Day is the one moment in time when you have traveled along the menstrual health timeline to the point when the ovarian cycle has stopped permanently. When there has been no menstruation for 12 months, the next day is postmenopause, the time before that is perimenopause.
- Menopause Day may occur because of medication used to treat another health condition such as endometriosis or cancer, regardless of the distance traveled along the timeline.
- Menopause Day may occur before the age of 45, which is below the age of a typical menopause day which most often happens between the age of 45-55. This kind of Menopause Day is called Early Menopause.
- Menopause Day may occur below the age of 40, and this is termed Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI).
To some Perimenopause is a fairly new word, and others say it has been made up. The earliest known use is in the 1960s. The word was first used in an official clinical capacity in 2001 when the first Sexual Reproductive Agin Workshop (STRAW) was held and then modified to include Earl and Late Perimenopause when they met again in 2011 and the new revised edition became known as STRAW+10.
Peri means ‘a time leading up to’, however, it does not help us figure out when it starts. Medically they consider the key indicator to be a change in the menstrual cycle, or ‘fertility becomes unpredictable’ (don’t like that phrase either as it takes back to reproduction).
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The Menstrual Health Timeline is a sequence of events linked to DNA and time. Menstrual Health orchestrated by the ovaries and the brain.
When someone is born with ovaries and a uterus they will take their first step on the menstrual health timeline when their ovaries switch on, which we know to be around the age of 8. From this point, the estimated time frame of ovarian activity is 40 years, before the ovaries switch off again.
The Menstrual Health Timeline v Reproductive aging
From the point of ovaries switching on, to switching off, is medically defined as reproductive aging. I don’t like that term because it places the role of the ovaries and uterus exclusively in the reproductive system category. What if you don’t want to reproduce or find yourself unable to, does that mean they have no importance? I have chosen to use the term the menstrual health timeline to reflect a journey that links, menstrual health and ovarian aging, to overall health and well-being.
What happens next?
- There are 100s of hormones. We know a lot about the actions of many but you will hear mostly about the top 20. There are 3 main hormones at the top of the list, particularly when we are talking about menstrual and menopause health.
- These 3 very important hormones, referred to as sex hormones, are made in all humans.
- They have a vital role in all 11 systems of the body.
- There are 11 different functional networks in all humans. They work together to keep us alive. One of the key parts keeping them operating well is the method of communication between them – hormones.
- Hormones have no gender. No hormone is exclusive to one gender over another. It’s a huge misconception, and even today our children are taught the wrong kind of language about hormone health.
Do Sex hormones need a re-brand?
Calling the top 3 (oestrogen, testosterone & progesterone) sex hormones is a very old nomenclature based on the fact that they are part of the development of secondary sexual characteristics in humans. Technically, progesterone doesn’t really qualify but gets grouped into it by default because of menstruation and pregnancy.
There are only 2 pages in a school textbook about these hormones and they are placed on gender pegs, which creates a smoke screen around hormone health moving forward. Scientists have known for decades that sex hormones play a role in all 11 systems of the body. Since I discovered this I have never understood why it is not in textbooks at school or university education. Speaking as someone who taught the A Level Biology curriculum, who now knows about this massive hole in our education system, I just don’t understand why there has been no upgrade in what we teach.
I will explain more about The Menstrual Health Timeline in future blogs, but for now, here is an illustration of what it looks like.
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A Menopause Tool Kit …
… is a collection of actions and items that will enable you to manage symptoms and optimize your physical and mental health as you travel the menstrual health timeline.
It could equally be called a Menstrual Health Tool Kit. Choosing what to add to the robust selection of items can only happen when you have a clear understanding of where you are and what the options are.
What you choose today, may not be what you choose tomorrow. It’s all about balance.
1. Learn about the menstrual health timeline
You can read a copy of Menopausology (no email required). This short read will explain the process of menopausing and give you an insight into why menopause transition may lead to some physical and emotional challenges.
2. Keep a Journal to collect the data on you
Use a symptom tracker, pen and paper will do, to identify the signs and indicators that you are noticing now. You could also recall any other symptoms that may have come and gone in the last few months or years. Write down as much as you can about your historic menstrual health.
3. Tune in to you
As you start to notice more things about yourself, start to record the information in terms of food, mood, movement, and stress. Also, note any significant differences in relation to your menstrual cycle. It may take 30 days or so to collect enough information but gradually you will start to get a much clearer picture of when symptoms occur, what makes them better, and when they are worse.
5 Key ‘supplements’ that could be in any menstrual or peri/menopause tool kit, are*:
Breathing (Vit O) – get plenty of Oxygen. Controlled breathing, on purpose with a purpose, will instantly reduce stress which triggers a reduction in cortisol, which then helps all hormones work better. What kind of symptoms may be helped? Feelings of sadness, anxiety, physical strains, vasomotor symptoms (hot & cold flushes, and sweats)
Move (Vit E) – exercise that helps to maintain muscle strength and joint flexibility will keep you mobile for longer in your lifespan. Moving requires the heart to pump and the lungs to inflate. Both help with circulation and cardiovascular strength. What kind of symptoms may be helped? Mindset, emotions, aches and pains, flexibility, brain fog.
Food (Vit N) – a good quality of nutrients is essential. Without a great source of vitamins and minerals from a wide variety of real foods you are not going to experience the best kind of natural hormone cascades that your body should be experiencing to function well. What kind of symptoms may be helped? Crushing fatigue, brain fog, joint aches & pains, temperature regulation, insomnia.
Rest & Destress (Vit Sr) – Stress and Sleep are two vital components of life. Whilst we need positive stressors to function, too many for too long of the negative stressors will impair all hormone functions, slowly grinding us to a halt. Sleep, or rest, must be good quality to balance out the stress. Sleep can become impaired not only because of changes in ovarian hormone levels but also because we rush into it. Take more break points in the day to connect with the parasympathetic nervous system. For example, while the kettle is boiling stand still and breathe, prep your real food meals, and chop/mix in a mindful way, let your mind wander, and journal for 5 mins before bedtime. What kind of symptoms may be helped? Insomnia, overwhelm, lack of joy, anxiety, vasomotor symptoms, ear and eye ones (anything related to the vestibular system)
Social Connections (Vit L) – finding joy and laughter during times of confusion feels like a complex ask. ‘Shouldn’t you be focusing on the core elements?’. We are human beings and we benefit from being human with others. Oestrogen has a direct relationship with oxytocin the ‘cuddle and care’ hormone, which also happens to be a brain chemical. Without enough oxytocin, it directly affects our happiness dial. The bad news is oxytocin depletion can present as aching muscles, sleep disturbance, and a bigger appetite for sugary foods. The good news is laughter swaps the cortisol in the bloodstream with the happy hormones oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins. Altogether they can improve immune functioning, stress relief, cardiovascular health, reduced anxiety, sense of safety, and improved mood. What kind of symptoms may be helped? All of the above.
*The Bottom Line – Obviously, there is a play on the word ‘supplement’ and those 5 vitamins are not real – but I honestly think they should be.
