If your mood fluctuations feel less like your usual stress and anxiety and more like the beginnings of a villain origin story (and you\u2019re also experiencing symptoms like insomnia and feeling warmer than usual), it could be the beginning stages of perimenopause.<\/p>\n
This is what doctors call the transition to menopause, which is the end of a person\u2019s reproductive years and technically marked by 12 consecutive months without a period, with the full transition taking anywhere from two to eight years,\u00a0according to the Office on Women\u2019s Health<\/a> (OWH).<\/p>\n Perimenopause usually begins after the age of 40 (though it can start earlier), the variabilities of which \u2014 both in ovarian function and hormone levels \u2014 can leave you feeling out of sorts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s generally a confusing time that catches many of us by surprise, in large part because of how wildly unpredictable symptoms of perimenopause can be,\u201d Dr.\u00a0Anna Barbieri<\/a>, New York-based OB-GYN and founding physician at Elektra Health<\/a>, told HuffPost. \u201cHormonal changes, and the way symptoms show up, are anything but linear.\u201d<\/p>\n For some, periods can still be regular in the early stages of perimenopause, making it easy to brush off mood-related symptoms (anxiety, irritability, crying spells) as being caused by things like stress, sleep deprivation or burnout.<\/p>\n But start adding signs of cognitive decline to the mix \u2014 drawing a blank as to what someone just told you, forgetting what you walked into a room to do \u2014 and these ongoing mental blips can trigger understandable waves of panic and fear as to what exactly is going on with that mind of yours.<\/p>\n