I started leaning into my hot flashes. I stopped dreading them. Which means I stopped denying them. I started approaching each one with curiosity and detachment, as a neutral experience that I will soon get through, and that has made everything better.

The average woman, according to a report from the Female Founders Fund, spends US$2,000 a year on trying to manage symptoms. Here are a few evidence, expert and experience-based suggestions on how to tackle how you feel without forking over any more cash.

When the natural and mainstream medicine worlds battle it out, supplements tend to be caught in the crossfire. There are several truths worth considering here: hormone therapy is not for everyone and hormone therapy might not help everything.

I’d call my 40s a roller-coaster, similar to the kind of ride many women report experiencing in perimenopause. I would easily and often stew and ruminate about people, or their actions. Anxiety was near-constant; I was always fighting a lurking sense of dread – a feeling that hit hardest in the morning. I ran myself ragged trying to cope: exercising like a crazy person to feel better and on the weekends, drinking too much just to relax.