Soha Ali Khan Gets Real About Perimenopause: "Transitions Deserve Support, Not Shame"
Perimenopause, often called the menopause transition, is that middle ground before your periods stop for good.
Perimenopause is that in-between stage when your body starts transitioning toward menopause. It is basically the warm-up before your periods stop completely. It usually kicks in during your 40s, though it can start earlier, and it happens because estrogen levels begin to fluctuate. You might notice your periods becoming irregular, mood swings creeping in, sleep playing hard to get, and those infamous hot flashes making surprise visits. Now, as Soha Ali Khan reminds us, this stage isn't something to dread, it is something to understand.
In a video on Instagram, the actress opened up candidly about her experience with perimenopause, breaking a silence that many women still feel pressured to maintain. “This message is for women between the ages of 40 and 50, maybe even 35,” she began, explaining that while her tests confirmed she was in perimenopause, what really struck her were the things beyond the test results, “memory lapses, insomnia, anxiety, the feeling that you just aren't able to cope sometimes, that you're not the person you know to recognise.”
She nailed what so many women go through quietly: the feeling that something is shifting inside. “What's amazing is, as women, we just don't talk about this,” Soha said. “We're expected to sail through this rollercoaster of hormones silently or gracefully, whatever that means.”
“Perimenopause is not the end of youth or energy,” she said. “It is a transition and transitions deserve support, not shame.”
And support, she adds, does exist. From lifestyle changes and supplements to therapy and, for some, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which she points out “is not taboo, it's science.”
“If it is done safely, it can make this phase a whole lot smoother,” she added.