Why Perimenopause Makes Starting Anything Feel Impossible

Motivation can disappear so quietly in perimenopause that you start telling yourself a brutal story - 'I’m lazy', 'I’ve lost my discipline', 'I don’t recognise myself'. We’re putting that story under the microscope and replacing it with something far more accurate and far more useful: your body is moving through a major hormonal transition that changes brain chemistry, sleep, stress response, and the way effort feels.

We unpack the oestrogen dopamine connection and why dopamine, the neurotransmitter tied to drive, focus, and reward, can become less reliable when oestrogen starts fluctuating. That shift can make everyday tasks feel weirdly heavy, increase procrastination, and even push you towards quick reward habits like constant scrolling because they are an easier “dopamine hit” than real life responsibilities. If you have ever thought, “I know what to do, I just can’t start”, this will land.

Then we layer in two big amplifiers: sleep and cortisol. Broken sleep in midlife directly reduces dopamine sensitivity, so even small decisions can feel exhausting and overwhelm can spike fast. Add chronic stress and elevated cortisol, and the nervous system can slip into survival mode where conserving energy outranks chasing goals, which can sound like “what’s the point?” even when you are not depressed. From there, we walk through practical steps that support motivation at the source: prioritising protein for neurotransmitter building blocks, getting morning sunlight to steady circadian rhythms, building muscle with strength training, improving sleep in small achievable ways, and reducing the self criticism that drives stress higher.

If you want support with low motivation, weight changes, sleep issues, and other perimenopause symptoms, book a free period loss assessment via the link in the show notes. Subscribe or follow for weekly episodes, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more women can find the help they deserve.

Are you a woman feeling stressed, flat and experiencing the challenges of perimenopause or menopause?

It’s time to reclaim your youthful energy, radiance and self-assurance (and your ideal weight).

I’m here to help with my proven method.

Here's how I can support you -

1. Hit your health and wellbeing goals this year, balance your hormones and lose weight with your own personalised protocol, based on your body's biochemistry. Sounds awesome right!! Book a free 30 minute Peri Weight Loss Assessment with me so we can discuss your health and wellbeing goals and also see how I might be able to support you. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book your call here. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@the.perimenopause.path

3. Book your appt package at The Perimenopause Path Clinic here. Or if you'd like a single appt, book here.

Transcript

Welcome And What We’re Tackling

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and Autumn Podcast. I'm an age-defying naturopath and clinical nutritionist and I'm here to bust myths around women's health and ageing so that you can be ageless and awesome in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. The Ageless and Awesome Podcast is dedicated to helping women through perimenopause and menopause with great health, a positive mindset, and outrageous confidence. Hit subscribe or follow now and let's get started. Hello, gorgeous one, and welcome to this week's episode of the Ageless and Awesome Podcast. I'm Susie Garden, your host, perimenopause naturopath, weight loss nutritionist, and proud perimenopause survivor. Yes, I made it through to the other side, and I'm here to help you do as well. So you don't have the experience that I did going through perimenopause where no one really even knew what that was. And it wasn't that long ago, let me tell you. So this week I'm going to talk about a subject that I hear my clients, you know, worry about all of the time. I would say every week I'm having a conversation with someone that's looking to work with me, and one of their biggest problems, and it is a perimenopause symptom, is low motivation. And I've experienced this myself, and I will explain, or rather, tell my story also within the podcast because it's a serious issue. It's a really serious issue. And it's not laziness, it's not you, it's perimenopause. And once you understand this, you can start to overcome it. And I've got some hot tips in today's episode as well to help you overcome it. So let's talk about this symptom that really doesn't get nearly enough attention. And I suspect a lot of people don't really realize this is part of the perimenopause um story or

Why It Feels Like You Changed

SPEAKER_00 2:02

symptom picture. And it's not, you know, hot flushes. That's what probably what most people think about when they think about perimenopause. It's not the weight gain, it's not the brain fog. The motivation or the feeling, more specifically, like your motivation has completely disappeared. And perhaps you've found yourself sort of saying, I just can't be bothered anymore, or I know what I should do, but I just can't seem to make myself do it. I used to be so disciplined, I don't recognize myself. And if you've had those thoughts, and I've had them very clearly as well, and I want you to know something straight away. You're not weak, you're not lacking willpower. You know, this is not your fault. What you're experiencing has probably got a lot more to do with your hormones than who you are as a person. And today we're going to unpack exactly what's happening inside the perimenopausal brain, why motivation can really dive, and what you can do to start feeling like you again. So let's get into it. So, who kind of thinks about themselves as being the woman who gets things done? But now you're kind of thinking about yourself as the woman who used to get things done. One of the most common conversations, as I mentioned, is women, particularly with women in their 40s and 50s, is it's like, Susie, I used to be so organized. I used to be driven. I had goals. I used to be able to exercise without talking myself into it. I used to be able to get everything done at work and enjoy it. I used to be able to just push through if I needed to. And then almost always comes this sentence, which is now I just can't seem to get going. I feel so unmotivated. And what's really fascinating is that these women are often incredibly capable. They're running businesses or holding senior roles, they're managing households, they're looking after children, they're working demanding jobs, they're doing all of the things, but internally everything feels harder. The effort required to initiate tasks feels enormous. And because our culture worships productivity or busyness, women often interpret this effort that it seems to take to do things as a personal failure. They assume there's something wrong with them, or more commonly, I've become lazy, I've lost my discipline, I hate my job, I hate my whatever. But here's what I want you to consider. What if the problem isn't actually your mindset and it's not something you can actually control consciously? What if it's more like your biology has changed?

Susie’s Story Of Hitting A Wall

SPEAKER_00 4:53

And this happened to me a few years ago, not actually that long ago. I found myself feeling, I'd be sitting at my desk here and just feeling like I couldn't get started on anything. It felt like it was just so hard to get anything started. I'd get very um, what's the word? I'd feel overwhelmed, I guess, about all of the jobs that I needed to get done. And that overwhelm led to me just not being able to get started on any of them. And then that would lead to feelings of I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, I should be doing better than this, you know, all of those sorts of negative thoughts that are not helpful at all. And I know this, and this is the thing, I know this, and still I'm thinking them. And often I do, if that happens to me, this negative self-talk, I can stop it. But I was going through that period of time, I didn't even have the motivation to stop that negative talk. And what I know now is that that was absolutely a hormonal shift that was happening. It was before I hit menopause. It was while I was still in perimenopause. And it's like many things when the when you know you're it's involves mood, you often don't realize when you're in it. It's often after you've gotten out of it that you realize how low you really were. And that certainly was true for me. And it was only really when I got past it that I realized, oh, of course, this wasn't me. This wasn't me changing, this wasn't me becoming lazy. This wasn't me trying to get away with as little work as possible because that anyone who knows me knows I'm a pretty high type A personality and I love work and I love getting things done. And so for me to be going through this period of months and months of just feeling like it was such a big effort to get anything done, and it almost caused me to walk away. I got very, very close. I was working part-time at a clinic at the time, and the rest of the time I was working on uh this business, and I got very, very close to talking to the owner of that clinic and saying, look, I just want to come and work with for you only, pack up everything else, pack up the podcast, pack up my home clinic, and just do work for somebody else. And I came very, very close to doing that. So I totally understand when if you're feeling like that, I totally understand where you're coming from. And I feel for you because it is a horrible place to be, particularly when you pride yourself on your work ethic and you pride yourself on the quality of your work and your ability to get things done, which is certainly my kind of mindset most of the time. Probably all of the time, but yeah, certainly not at that time. Um, so let's switch and talk about why this happens.

The Estrogen Dopamine Link

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Why does this happen to us in perimetopause? And it is really so common. As I mentioned, like I I would do discovery calls or or peri weight loss assessments with women every single week. And these, I reckon 80% of these calls, women would say to me that they're just really unmotivated and they don't know why. So it's a really widespread problem, which is why I wouldn't, and I don't think I've really addressed it. I may have addressed it somewhat in previous episodes, but not for some time. And I know I've got a lot of new listeners, so I really wanted to cover this off. But let's look at potentially one of the causes of it, and one is the estrogen dopamine connection. So let's talk a little bit about dopamine. You've many of you would have heard about dopamine. It's often called the motivation neurotransmitter. It's involved in helping us with focus, reward, drive, anticipation, goal-directed behavior. Dopamine is what helps you think this is worth doing, it's what helps you initiate action, it's what gives you that little spark of enthusiasm. You know, we talk about dopamine hits, particularly when it comes to social media and things like that. And that's exactly what I just described, that little spark of enthusiasm just to keep going to get that dopamine hit. But here's the part most women don't know. Estrogen plays a significant role in dopamine function. And when estrogen is at like that pre-perimenopause stage, doing what we want it to do. It's at healthy levels, it's nice and stable, it's not dropping and rising. Dopamine signaling tends to be stronger in this stage of life. And as oestrogen begins fluctuating during perimenopause, the dopamine signaling can become less efficient. And this means tasks feel harder to start. Motivation feels less reliable, you procrastinate more, you feel less excited about things that you used to get really excited about. And it's possibly why a part of the driver behind social media addiction is you do, it's probably easier to get a dopamine hit from that than from doing the things you the task like that you have in your day. Because this happens really gradually, like many symptoms of perimenopause, often women don't realize what's happening and that this is occurring. And they simply assume, certainly I did, that they've become a less motivated person. But it's actually not what's happening, it's your brain chemistry changing. And when brain chemistry changes, behavior changes.

Sleep Loss Makes Drive Disappear

SPEAKER_00 11:05

So let's layer sleep into the conversation here, because by the time many women reach perimenopause or are in perimenopause, sleep has become a bit disrupted. Certainly was the case for me. Maybe you're waking at two, maybe you're waking at three, maybe it's taking you an hour or two to get to sleep, maybe your sleep's restless. And here's the thing sleep deprivation directly affects dopamine sensitivity, which means even if your body is producing dopamine, your brain becomes less responsive to it. So if you think about how you feel after several poor nights of sleep, which is not unusual for a woman in perimenopause and even post-menopause, everything can feel harder. Decisions can take longer. You can feel like you really can't make a decision. You're back and forth and back and forth and overthinking, worrying. Motivation can really disappear. Tasks that you used to just get done or even quite enjoy now feel overwhelming. So imagine that experience or experiencing that for not just a week or a few days, but for months or years. For me, I don't think it was years, it was months, definitely for sure. Suddenly, this loss of motivation can make a lot more sense when you understand the biology behind it.

Cortisol And Survival Mode

SPEAKER_00 12:33

And then, of course, of course, then we have cortisol. Many women in midlife are living with elevated stress that's ongoing, what we might call chronic. And you know, it's not because you're doing anything wrong. It's it's this season of life is really demanding. You know, we've all heard it that we've often at the peak of our careers. Many of us have teenagers or even younger children. Many women are having kids in their 40s or late 30s. You may have aging parents, financial pressures, mortgage pressure, relationship pressure, thinking about everything that's going on in the world, pressure, health concerns, and all of this, plus the hormonal fluctuations. It's a lot. It's a lot, right? And when cortisol stays elevated for too long, your brain shifts into survival mode. You know, cortisol has a role. Cortisol is really important, but we can get into a situation where this cortisol can be elevated or it can be dysregulated, where it's higher at certain parts of the day when it should be lower, and lower at certain parts of the day when it should be higher. And when you're in this mode, you're not interested in goals. You're the body is more interested in conserving energy. And this is why many women find themselves thinking, what's the point? Not because they're depressed or because they're lazy, but because their nervous system is absolutely exhausted. But, you know, there is good news here because we can rebuild this.

Practical Ways To Rebuild Motivation

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Motivation can absolutely come back. It did for me. It does for the women I work with. Um, but we don't rebuild it through guilt, through self-criticism, through forcing ourselves harder, driving ourselves harder. Instead, you want to support the systems that create motivation. So, and that's our neurotransmitters, like dopamine. So, one of I'd say the most important ones is in our diet, we want to prioritize protein. Now, protein is everywhere at the moment, and I'm certainly not saying go overboard on the protein, particularly fake kind of foods. We want to get most of our nutrition from food. Um, but protein, oh, actually, I'll go the other way around. Neurotransmitters require protein to be built. So, protein is the source of the building blocks for neurotransmitter production. So, protein's super important. Number two, get morning sunlight because this helps regulate dopamine and circadian rhythms. So, when you wake up in the morning, open the curtains, look at the sky, um, not look directly at the sun, but you want to, you know, just try and get some sunlight in the morning. Third priority is to build muscle. Strength training improves many things, including insulin sensitivity, mood, and brain chemistry. We know now we're starting to learn about this muscle-brain connection. Super important. Uh, number four, improve sleep quality. I've already touched on sleep and its role, but even small improvements in sleep can create noticeable changes in motivation. Number five, reduce the constant stress. The constant pressure. Sometimes it's pressure we put on ourselves. Um, and often women are trying to motivate themselves through criticism. And criticism creates stress, stress suppresses motivation. So sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to be kind to yourself. It's hard to do though, sometimes when you are in it, believe me.

Reframing The Question And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 16:37

So I guess uh to wrap up, here's what I want you to remember: motivation is not something you have, it is something your body creates. And if your hormones, your sleep, your stress, your blood sugar are all working against you, motivation can become incredibly difficult. So instead of asking yourself, why can't I get motivated? What's wrong with me? Try asking, what does my body need in order to create motivation? That is a very different question. It has a very different energy, and it's often the beginning of real change. If today's episode resonated with you, please know this. You're not lazy, you haven't lost your edge, you haven't become somebody else, you haven't changed. Your body is moving through one of the biggest hormonal transitions of your life. And understanding that is the first step towards just feeling like yourself again. As I mentioned, I support a lot of women that are going through this, and there's so much we can do in diet from a dietary point of view, from a lifestyle point of view, uh, to help with

Support Options And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 17:53

this. And we can change it and switch it pretty quickly. So if you'd like support in navigating this, in navigating low motivation, weight changes, sleep issues, and the other symptoms of perimenopause, I'd love to help. Um, as you know, I have the perimenopause path clinic set up now. I have a beautiful naturopath working with me, Erin. She's gonna come on the podcast soon, so you can all meet her. You can book a free period loss assessment using the link in the show notes, and we can have a chat and see if what I do can help. Um, yeah, so I would love to meet you. I I always love talking to women about what's going on with them. I learned so much from these calls, and there is absolutely no obligation on these calls to do anything, it's just a lovely conversation. So take care. Be well. If you're feeling like this, know you're not alone. Please feel free to reach out. Uh, I'll be back next Tuesday with some more new content. Uh, until then, have a great week. Thanks so much for joining me on the Ageless and Awesome Podcast. If you would like this episode, please make sure you click the little plus button if you're on Apple Podcasts, or the follow button if you're on Spotify, so that you get each new episode delivered to you every single week. If you feel like writing me a five star review, you would absolutely make my day. If you found this episode resonated with you, head over to my Instagram and DM me at the Perimenopause Park. I would love to connect with you.