Menopause CBT Clinic

13/03/2026

Today is World Sleep Day. Up to 70% of women experience significant sleep problems during perimenopause and menopause. Hormonal changes play an important role. Declining and fluctuating oestrogen and progesterone can affect thermoregulation, mood, and the brain systems involved in sleep. Symptoms such as night sweats, anxiety, and low mood can further disrupt sleep.

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) can help some women by addressing the hormonal component. However, sleep difficulties during menopause are rarely explained by hormones alone.

Sleep is influenced by a wider biopsychosocial picture, including:
• lifestyle factors such as diet, alcohol intake and physical activity
• psychological factors such as stress and worry
• environmental and life pressures such as work or caregiving

For this reason, psychological interventions can play a very important role.
NICE guidelines recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) as the first-line treatment for persistent insomnia.

In my clinical work with menopausal women, I often use a compassion-focused adaptation of CBT-I inspired by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the work of Dr Guy Meadows. Rather than relying heavily on strict sleep restriction, which can be overwhelming when women are already exhausted, this approach focuses on reducing anxiety about sleep, developing a kinder relationship with wakefulness, and rebuilding trust in the body’s natural sleep system.

Sometimes the most helpful shift is moving from the pressure of “I must sleep” to the permission of “I can rest comfortably even if sleep does not come immediately.”

Within the EMBERS® Menopause-Informed CBT framework, sleep is addressed in the E - Essentials step, where we focus on restoring the foundations of wellbeing: sleep, nutrition, movement and nervous system regulation.

On World Sleep Day, it’s worth remembering: menopause may change sleep, but it does not mean good sleep is lost forever.

If you’d like some practical strategies to improve sleep during menopause, check out this blog post with six evidence-informed tips that can help improve sleep during menopause.

https://www.menopausecbtclinic.co.uk/blog/six-tips-to-improve-insomnia-in-menopause

05/01/2026

New Year resolutions? Anyone else feeling the pressure?

January often pushes us towards drastic changes like eat less, exercise more, fix everything quickly. But motivation driven by the New Year resolutions rarely lasts.

Drastic plans, restriction and all-or-nothing thinking tend to leave us exhausted, discouraged and often feeling like we’ve failed.

For women in midlife and menopause especially, sustainable change doesn’t come from punishment. Our bodies and brains are already navigating hormonal shifts, stress and competing demands. What helps is support, not harsh regimes or criticism.

Begin by changing how you relate to change itself, leading with kindness and compassion rather than harsh strategies or self-criticism.

If you’re wondering what that looks like in practice, here are a few ideas informed by the ethos of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

1. Start with kindness - This may mean speaking to yourself more gently. It might also mean letting go of the idea that change has to be fast or brutal to be effective. Behavioural science consistently shows that most habits are built gradually, not overnight.

2. Bring curiosity into the process - Curiosity is often more helpful than criticism. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?”, try “What’s going on for me?” Our expectations are frequently shaped by unrealistic images of health and bodies that don’t reflect real life.

3. Let enjoyment be your companion - Enjoyment matters more than we often realise. If a change makes life harder or joyless, it’s unlikely to last. Look for ways of eating and moving that you enjoy. When the process feels good, you tap into a more sustainable form of motivation.

4. Reframe the narrative - Shift the focus from restriction and punishment to supporting your body and mind. Instead of asking what you need to cut out, ask what would help nourish and support your brain and overall wellbeing.

5. Choose progress over perfection - Small, consistent steps are far more sustainable in the long run. They lead to real change that fits into your actual life, rather than an idealised version of how you think things should be.

And here is a question for you to reflect on:
What is one small, kind change I could make this month that would support me, not fight against me?

Let this be the year you do things differently and succeed in making changes that last.

17/12/2025

Christmas can be magical, but it can also be overstimulating, unpredictable and emotionally demanding. And if you’re already navigating hormonal changes, brain fog or stress, December can feel especially heavy on the mind and nervous system.

Here are six psychologically informed strategies to help you brave the festive season with more clarity and calm:
🎄 1. Pace yourself, don’t push through - Slowing down and spreading tasks out reduces overwhelm and protects your cognitive and emotional bandwidth.
🎄 2. Guard your attention - Even 10 minutes of doing one thing at a time can refresh your mind.
🎄 3. Lighten your emotional load - Naming emotions (“I feel overwhelmed”) softens their intensity and calms the nervous system.
🎄 4. Use grounding anchors - A deep breath, a moment outdoors, a 3-minute pause. Small resets make a big difference.
🎄 5. Stabilise your rhythms - Regular meals, hydration, sleep and wind-down routines support mood, focus and energy.
🎄 6. Practise self-compassion - Kindness towards yourself is not indulgent; it’s SELF-CARE. Criticism clouds clarity while compassion restores it.

However your December looks - busy or quiet, joyful or simple - I hope you find pockets of rest, connection and warmth.

You deserve a holiday that supports your mind and honours your energy. You don’t have to do Christmas at anyone else’s pace. Let it be gentle, nourishing and right for you. 💛

07/12/2025

🌟 A Brilliant Podcast on Nutrition & Mental Wellbeing — Plus a Book Recommendation! 🌟

Hi everyone,
I wanted to share something that I think many of you will find both interesting and genuinely helpful.

There’s often so much confusion out there about supplements, multivitamins, and whether they make any real difference to our health, especially during midlife and menopause. Social media is full of mixed messages, and it can be hard to know what to trust.

This week I listened to a fantastic podcast with Professor Julia Rucklidge, a clinical psychologist and leading researcher in nutrition and mental health. What I love about her work is that it’s based on solid science, not trends or marketing.
In the episode she talks about:
💊 Why some people benefit from broad-spectrum multivitamins
🧠 How nutrients affect mood, focus, energy, and resilience
🧬 How stress and modern life can change our nutritional needs
🥗 How to choose good-quality supplements (and avoid the hype)
It’s eye-opening, easy to follow, and full of “I had no idea!” moments.

🎧 Here’s the link to the episode:
https://www.thedoctorskitchen.com/podcasts/324-can-multivitamins-help-treat-depression-anxiety-and-prevent-mental-health-issues-professor-julia-rucklidge

And if podcasts aren’t your thing, or if you’d love to go deeper, she’s also written an excellent book called The Better Brain. I’ve started reading it and honestly, I’m having lightbulb moment after lightbulb moment. It’s definitely worth popping on your Christmas list (if you can wait that long!).

📚 The Better Brain by Julia Rucklidge and Bonnie Kaplan
If you give the episode a listen or pick up the book, come back and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Coming into this podcast my opinion was that multivitamins are just not worth it. Whether that’s for general wellbeing, cardiovascular health, sleep and especially mental health, I just was not convinced that they did anything at all.

23/10/2025

The NHS has just announced that the routine 40–74 health check will now include questions about menopause for the first time. 🙌

This is brilliant news and a long-overdue recognition that menopause matters to women’s health.

But we also know menopause is not just a physical transition.It can profoundly affect mood, confidence, identity, and emotional wellbeing.

That’s why we need to make sure that mental health is part of this new health check, too.

Women identified as struggling with low mood, anxiety, or emotional overwhelm deserve access to menopause-informed psychological care, not just medication or reassurance.

As a community we can help make this happen, by raising awareness, sharing good practice, and keeping the conversation focused on the whole woman: mind and body.

🎥 I’m sharing this short video — Be Part of the Change in Menopause Psychological Care — as a reminder of why this matters and how we can lead the way.

Please take a few minutes to watch and share it.

Together, we can make sure this new initiative truly supports women in every sense. 💛

💬 What small actions can each of us take to help ensure mental health becomes part of this new menopause health check? Let’s make our collective voice heard.

08/10/2025

When therapy “doesn’t work”, it’s not always about the person who's seeking support or the therapist. Sometimes it’s about CONTEXT.

Hormonal changes during menopause can deeply affect mood, anxiety, sleep, and sense of self, yet many women’s therapy never touches on it.

That’s why Menopause-Informed Psychological Care matters. It helps women feel seen, understood, and supported in ways that generic therapy often can’t.

And that’s where the EMBERS® Menopause-Informed CBT framework comes in - an evidence-based approach that adapts therapy to the menopausal context, bridging CBT, neuroscience, and lifestyle medicine to help women regain control over their mind, body, and life.

💛 The next EMBERS® Professional Training Programme starts 22 Oct – 26 Nov. Booking is open for one week only!

👉https://www.menopausecbtclinic.co.uk/embers-professional-training_-booking-page-october-25

Let’s make Menopause-Informed Psychological Care the norm, not the exception.

If you believe in the importance of Menopause-Informed Psychological Care, please help spread the word by sharing this post with your community. Your support helps more clinicians make an informed decision to join. Thank you 🙏