When your period brain fog turns into full-on chaos, or you feel like midlife has flipped your nervous system upside down - you’re not imagining it. You're not “too much.” You’re not alone. And you're definitely not broken.
This blog post is a must-read conversation with Paula Rastrick, founder of The Brain Body Method®, a therapeutic and educational framework supporting hormonally sensitive women. Paula’s mission? To pull back the curtain on the messy, confusing, and often misunderstood intersection between ADHD, periods, and perimenopause. She’s been through it herself - and now she’s here to make sure you don’t go through it in the dark.
Paula, you’re open about your own menopause journey. Can you tell us what that experience was really like - and how it led you to create The Brain Body Method?
Let’s start at the beginning. Paula’s own experience with perimenopause was less of a “gentle transition” and more of a system shutdown. What followed was a deep dive into her own nervous system, ADHD traits, and hormonal sensitivity - and the birth of something powerful.
“My own perimenopause crash happened when I was 44, back in 2016 and at the time, I had no understanding at all about perimenopause or menopause - let alone how it might affect my nervous system. There was no roadmap at that time (and there still isn’t) or and no explanation for why I felt like my life started to spiral out of control with increasing anxiety, brain fog and insomnia.
“I had spent years previously managing early life stress, high-functioning neurodivergence, and high-functioning anxiety through control, achievement, and intellect. But when perimenopause hit, everything I had relied on including my previous masking and coping strategies stopped working. I developed severe nervous system dysregulation - emotional flooding, panic, sensory overwhelm and nothing seemed to make sense.
“Even HRT, which I was prescribed early on, made things worse. I now understand this was because I have a hormonally sensitive nervous system and this is a critical conversation that is still missing from most medical frameworks and this is why I have become a passionate advocate and campaigner.
“Due to my own experiences and out of necessity, I began researching obsessively. I pulled together threads from neuroscience, trauma theory, endocrinology, and lived experience and that’s what eventually became The Brain Body Method®: a therapeutic and educational framework for hormonally sensitive women, especially those with histories of early life stress, adverse childhood experiences, emotional intensity, or neurodivergence.
“This work also led me to write my book, Sensitive Women, where I explore the deeper links between complex trauma, ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence, hormonal sensitivity, and nervous system regulation. I wanted to give voice to women who are so often misdiagnosed, medicated, or misunderstood - women who, like me, were told they were “too much” when in fact they were just too sensitive for the systems built around them.”
We often talk about “hormonal changes,” but what does that actually mean for the brain? How do periods, perimenopause, and ADHD all overlap?
Time to bust a myth: Hormones aren’t just about your uterus. They rewire your brain - and if you’ve got ADHD or a sensitive nervous system, those shifts can feel seismic.
Here’s how Paula breaks it down:
“Hormones don’t just affect our reproductive system they shape the architecture and functioning of the brain itself. Oestrogen and progesterone, in particular, play a key role in modulating neurotransmitters like dopamine, GABA, glutamate, and serotonin all of which are crucial for mood, cognition, attention, emotional regulation, and sleep.
“For hormonally sensitive women and especially those with neurodivergent traits like ADHD or histories of early life stress even subtle hormonal fluctuations can destabilise the nervous system. This is because the GABA system, which helps regulate calm and sensory processing, becomes more fragile under chronic stress, trauma, or epigenetic sensitivity.
“During the menstrual cycle, oestrogen and progesterone rise and fall in ways that affect brain chemistry. In ADHD, where dopamine signalling is already atypical, this creates a perfect storm especially in the luteal phase (after ovulation), when progesterone surges and GABA sensitivity drops. Many women with ADHD report more brain fog, low mood, and emotional overwhelm in this phase even before perimenopause begins and there are significant cross overs with PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric Disorder).
“Perimenopause then amplifies everything: oestrogen becomes erratic, progesterone declines, and the brain’s ability to maintain equilibrium is compromised. For many women, this is the moment they finally connect the dots not because their ADHD “suddenly appears,” but because the hormonal buffering system that kept things semi-functional has collapsed. What was manageable in their 20s and 30s becomes unmanageable in their 40s.
“The overlap is neurological because hormones affect the brain. And for sensitive women, the brain and nervous system is more affected during the hormonal storm of perimenopause and this impacts multiple domains including attention, mood, sensory regulation, and also identity and psyche. When we talk about hormonal changes, we’re really talking about significant brain changes.”
So many women only realise they have ADHD after they hit perimenopause. Why is that — and what signs should they look out for earlier in life?
If midlife is when everything unravels, it’s often because you’ve spent decades holding it all together. Paula explains why perimenopause can act like a magnifying glass for ADHD - and the signs that were probably there all along.
“Most women with ADHD aren’t diagnosed in childhood, not because the symptoms aren’t there, but because they’re often masked by intelligence, high achievement, people-pleasing, or sheer survival instinct. Girls and women are more likely to internalise their struggles, which means their symptoms get misread as anxiety, depression, perfectionism or hormonal instability.
“Before perimenopause, many sensitive or neurodivergent women have spent decades managing by often by overcompensating, masking, or using external structures to keep themselves functioning.
“This is often the point where women begin to drown under the weight of everything they used to manage. Brain fog intensifies, emotional regulation becomes harder, and long-standing traits like time-blindness, sensitivity to noise, sensory overload, or executive dysfunction become impossible to ignore. For the first time, they may see themselves clearly not as ‘failing’ but as fundamentally wired differently.
Earlier signs to look for often include:
● Feeling chronically overwhelmed by “simple” tasks
● Strong emotional reactions or rejection sensitivity
● Struggling with organisation, time, or transitions
● High mental load and low tolerance for noise or chaos
● A tendency to hyper-focus or dissociate
● Needing time alone to reset, but rarely getting it
● Recurrent burnout, especially during hormonal shifts (e.g. postpartum, cycle
changes)
"Perimenopause doesn’t cause ADHD but it is a major brain and nervous system recalibration, and it exposes it. And for many women, this revelation is both devastating and liberating. It helps explain decades of struggle and begins the process of reconnection with self, nervous system, and identity."
For teens or adults with ADHD, periods can make symptoms feel worse — more brain fog, more overwhelm. What are some practical things they can do to feel more in control during that time?
Spoiler: This isn’t just “PMS.” Paula gets real about what’s actually happening in the brain and body when ADHD meets the premenstrual phase - and how to start tracking, understanding, and owning your cycle without shame.
“For women and girls with ADHD or those who are undiagnosed but hormonally and neurologically sensitive the premenstrual phase can feel like an emotional turmoil and instability. It’s not simply “hormonal” - It’s a neurological and psychological shift that can impact attention, mood, identity, and overall stability.
“What’s often missed is that this is a spectrum. For some, symptoms are mild and manageable. For others, it tips into PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) a severe, cyclical condition that can include rage, intrusive thoughts, hopelessness, or dissociation. It’s often misunderstood or missed entirely, especially in women with histories of masking, high-functioning anxiety, or trauma.
“Puberty is often the first warning sign, when depression and overwhelm begin to surface. But many girls are told this is normal, or that they’re just “too emotional.” These early signs get buried, and years later often at perimenopause everything unravels.
Practical things that can help include:
● Tracking the pattern: This is the most important first step. Documenting symptoms across the menstrual cycle helps identify patterns and if the symptoms are severe, recurrent, and clearly cycle-related, this becomes crucial medical evidence. Without this tracking, PMDD is often dismissed or misdiagnosed.
● Learning to recognise when it’s more than PMS: If you’re experiencing emotional or psychological symptoms that feel extreme or destabilising, this is not “just hormones.” It may be a diagnosable condition that deserves proper investigation and support.
● Advocating early: If you suspect you’re on the PMDD spectrum, especially if there’s a history of mood disorders, ADHD, or trauma, it’s essential to seek help from someone who understands hormonal sensitivity. Early recognition can prevent years of misdiagnosis and suffering.
● Reducing internal pressure: This isn’t the time for self-judgment. Learning to adjust expectations and reduce your emotional load during this window is a form of self-protection, not weakness.
“Above all, this is not in your head and it’s in your hormonal cycle. Hormonal shifts can dramatically impact the brain. Recognising this early can be life-changing and potentially life-saving.”
What would you say to women who feel like their bodies — or brains — are working against them right now?
This one’s for the woman who feels like she’s falling apart. Paula closes with the message so many of us needed to hear years ago - when things got hard and we were told we were “too emotional” or “just hormonal.”
“I would say: You are not broken, you are not more “complex” but you are sensitive and that sensitivity is not a flaw, but it’s information. Your body and brain aren’t betraying you; they’re signalling that something deeper is asking to be understood.
“So many women hit midlife and feel like they’re falling apart but what’s really happening is a huge convergence and an unraveling of decades of masking: neurodivergence, hormonal sensitivity, trauma, burnout. That’s why I wrote Sensitive Women to give voice, language, and context to the experiences so many of us have lived in silence.
And you are not alone.”
Final Thoughts on ADHD, periods and perimenopause
If your cycle feels like it’s playing tug-of-war with your brain - or if perimenopause has turned the volume up on everything you used to manage in silence - please know this: You are not crazy, and you’re definitely not alone.
Paula’s work reminds us that understanding your hormones isn’t just helpful. It’s radical. It’s an act of self-trust in a world that still tries to silence women’s pain. So keep tracking. Keep asking questions. Keep finding people who get it.
And if this post lit a fire of recognition in you, go follow Paula, check out The Brain Body Method, and grab her book Sensitive Women. Because you deserve real answers - and real support.
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