Why Do Things Feel Harder in Midlife?

Understanding Behavior During Perimenopause

Maybe you used to exercise regularly, but now just getting yourself out the door feels like a challenge.

Maybe you find yourself reaching for convenience foods more often, putting things off that you used to normally handle with ease, or you’re struggling to maintain routines that once felt automatic.

Maybe you are still doing everything you have always done - but everything suddenly feels like it takes much more effort.

For many women, this is part of the experience of perimenopause.

Perimenopause is a period of significant physiological change. Fluctuating hormones can be accompanied by changes in sleep, energy, mood, concentration, temperature regulation, and other physical and emotional experiences. And when your body changes, the conditions influencing your behavior can change too.

That last piece is important.

We often talk about perimenopause in terms of symptoms. But from a behavioral perspective, there is another question worth asking:

How might changes in our bodies affect our behavior and make some things feel harder than they used to? 

Your Body Is Part of the Context

We tend to think about behavior as something we simply decide to do.

You decide to exercise. You decide what to eat. You decide whether to tackle the project, make plans with friends, prepare a healthy dinner, or go to bed on time.

But behavior doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It happens within a context - and your physiological state is part of that context.

Consider sleep.

If you have slept well, going for a morning walk might require relatively little effort. After a night of disrupted sleep and repeated awakenings, that exact same walk may feel considerably harder.

The walk hasn't changed.

The context has.

The same thing can happen when you are experiencing fatigue, brain fog, headaches, hot flashes, mood changes, or other symptoms. Activities that were previously manageable may now require more effort, while behaviors that offer immediate comfort or relief may become more appealing.

That doesn't mean you suddenly stopped caring about your health or your goals. It means the variables influencing your behavior may have changed.

The Ripple Effect of Physiological Change

One of the challenges of perimenopause is that changes don't necessarily occur in isolation.

Imagine that hot flashes disrupt your sleep. You wake up tired, which makes your morning workout less appealing. Because you skipped your workout, you decide you will exercise after work instead.

But, by the end of the workday you are even more fatigued.

You get home and choose something easy for dinner rather than the meal you had planned. You sit down because you need a break. Once you are sitting, getting back up to exercise feels increasingly unlikely.

Later, you stay up longer than you intended because that quiet time feels like the first opportunity you've had all day to do something for yourself.

Then you go to bed late.

And tomorrow begins with another tired morning.

None of these behaviors exists independently. Each is occurring within - and helping to create - the context for what happens next.

This is one reason perimenopause can sometimes feel as though everything has changed at once.

Why "Just Try Harder" Isn't a Particularly Good Strategy

When familiar routines start falling apart, it can be tempting to respond by becoming more demanding of yourself.

I need to get back on track.

I need to be more disciplined.

I used to be able to do this.

But expecting yourself to behave exactly as you did before, when the conditions have changed, is not likely to be very effective.

A behavioral approach asks a different question:

If the context has changed, does the plan need to change too?

Maybe the exercise routine that worked five years ago isn't the best fit right now.

Maybe preparing complicated meals at the end of a long workday creates too many barriers.

Maybe your evening routine needs to account for the fact that you are exhausted but also desperately want some time to yourself.

The goal isn't necessarily to lower your expectations.

It is to develop strategies that work under the conditions that actually exist now.

Start by Looking for Patterns

One of the most useful things you can do is become curious about the relationship between how you feel and what you do.

Rather than focusing only on whether you completed a certain behavior, start noticing the circumstances surrounding it.

Ask yourself:

• When is this behavior easiest for me? When is it hardest?

• How does sleep affect what I do the following day? Does fatigue change the choices I make?

• Are there certain times of day when things feel particularly difficult?

• What symptoms tend to occur on the days when my routines fall apart?

• What makes the behavior I want to do easier?

• What could I change so that it requires less effort?

You may begin to see patterns that weren't obvious before.

And those patterns give you something useful to work with.

Work With the Context You Have Now

Perimenopause can be frustrating partly because strategies that worked reliably in the past may suddenly stop working.

The answer isn't necessarily to abandon your goals.

But it may be time to reconsider how you pursue them.

Perhaps the 45-minute workout becomes 15 minutes on a low-energy day. Perhaps you keep several easy meal options available for evenings when cooking feels unrealistic. Perhaps you move an important activity to a time of day when your energy is typically better. Perhaps you protect sleep more intentionally because you've noticed how strongly it affects everything that follows.

These aren't shortcuts.

They are examples of designing behavior around the conditions in which it actually needs to occur.

A Different Way to Think About Perimenopause

Understanding the physiological changes of perimenopause is important. But understanding their potential impact on behavior adds another piece to the picture.

Your body, your environment, your responsibilities, your history, and the immediate consequences of your choices all interact to influence what you do.

When one part of that system changes, behavior may change with it.

So, if things that once felt manageable suddenly feel harder, it may be worth asking something other than:

"What's wrong with my motivation?"

Try asking:

"What's different about the context in which I'm trying to do this?"

The better we understand the conditions influencing our behavior, the better equipped we are to make changes that work in our lives now, because sometimes moving forward means changing the conditions, not simply asking more of ourselves.