“I needed to order office filing cabinets. It took me several Google searches because I couldn’t remember the proper name. I finally typed in ‘drawers’ and a picture of filing cabinets came up. I felt like such an idiot. I used to be so sharp. I’m only 43, in early perimenopause — can anyone confirm this is temporary? Is there anything I can do?”
She’s 43. Sharp, by her own account, for her entire life until recently. And now she’s sitting with a feeling that’s harder to admit than almost any other symptom of this transition: I think I might be losing my mind. Literally.
If you’ve had a moment like hers — searching for a word you’ve known for decades, walking into a room and forgetting why, rereading the same paragraph because nothing is landing — you already know how frightening it feels. Not just frustrating. Frightening.
So let’s start with the answer to her actual question, because she deserves it directly: yes, this is temporary, and no, it isn’t dementia.
What’s actually happening in your brain
Estrogen isn’t only a reproductive hormone. It’s deeply involved in how your brain functions day to day — particularly in the hippocampus, the region responsible for forming and retrieving memories, and the prefrontal cortex, which handles word retrieval, focus, and working memory.
During perimenopause, estrogen doesn’t decline smoothly. It fluctuates — sometimes sharply, sometimes unpredictably, day to day and even within the same day. Your brain has spent decades operating with a fairly steady estrogen supply. When that supply becomes erratic, the systems that rely on it become less reliable too.
This is why the word for “filing cabinet” can disappear entirely, even though you know the word. It’s not gone. The retrieval pathway is just glitching, the way a search engine occasionally returns nothing for an obvious query, then works perfectly five minutes later.
Researchers who study this phase have a name for it: perimenopausal brain fog. It’s now recognised as one of the most common — and most distressing — symptoms of the transition, affecting word-finding, short-term memory, concentration, and mental clarity.
Why it feels so much scarier than other symptoms
Hot flashes are uncomfortable. Joint pain is annoying. But brain fog touches something more central — your sense of who you are.
For a woman who has always been quick, capable, the one who remembers everything and holds the details together for everyone else, losing that fluency feels like losing herself. The fear underneath the Reddit post isn’t really about filing cabinets. It’s the quiet, terrifying question: what if this is the beginning of something that doesn’t get better?
That fear is completely understandable. It’s also, by the best available evidence, not what’s happening here.
The reassurance, with real grounding
Cognitive research on the menopause transition has found that the memory and concentration difficulties common in perimenopause are associated with the hormonal fluctuations of the transition itself — not with any kind of progressive cognitive decline. Once hormone levels stabilise on the other side of menopause, cognitive function for most women returns toward their earlier baseline.
This is a meaningfully different pattern from dementia, which is progressive and doesn’t fluctuate with hormonal cycles or improve once a transition stabilises. Perimenopausal brain fog tends to ebb and flow — better some days, worse on others, often worse with poor sleep or high stress — rather than steadily worsening over time.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or that it should just be brushed off. It means it has a shape, a cause, and — importantly — an end point.
What tends to help
Not a cure, and nothing here will make perimenopause skip past this phase. But some things that show up consistently in both research and women’s own experience:
Sleep, even imperfect sleep. This is probably the single biggest lever, and it’s worth understanding why. Memory consolidation happens during sleep — your brain literally files away the day’s information while you rest. Perimenopause is notorious for disrupting that rest, through night sweats, racing thoughts, or waking at 3am for no obvious reason. Poor sleep then worsens word-finding and focus the next day, which makes the fog feel heavier, which makes it harder to wind down that night. It’s a loop, not a single cause and effect — which also means that even small improvements to sleep can interrupt the cycle, not just treat one night in isolation.
Foods that support brain function, not foods that fix it. Omega-3 fatty acids — found in fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines, as well as walnuts and flaxseed — are structurally important for the brain, and several studies on the menopause transition specifically have looked at their role in supporting cognitive clarity and mood during this period. No food will switch the fog off. But some women find that building these in regularly, alongside steadier meals overall, is one small thing within their control while the hormonal fluctuation runs its course.
Steadier blood sugar. Sharp swings in blood sugar affect concentration and mental clarity. Eating regularly, rather than skipping meals and crashing later, can take some of the edge off the foggiest hours of the day.
Movement. Regular physical activity, even moderate amounts, supports blood flow to the brain and has been linked to better cognitive function during this transition. It doesn’t have to be intense to count.
Naming it, out loud. Telling a colleague, a partner, or a friend “I’m having a foggy moment” does two things — it takes the pressure off you to perform sharpness you don’t currently have, and it usually reveals that someone near you has felt exactly the same thing and never said so either.
Giving yourself the extra few seconds. The word is usually still there. Search engines occasionally need a different query. So do you.
What she — and you — deserve to hear
You are not losing your mind. You are not early-onset anything. You are not becoming someone less capable than you were.
Your brain is navigating a hormonal transition that it has never had to navigate before, using systems that depend on a hormone currently behaving unpredictably. That is a physiological event, not a personal failing.
And it passes. Not instantly, and not in a straight line — but the research and the testimony of women who’ve come through the other side agree on this much: the fog lifts.
You typed “drawers” instead of “filing cabinet,” and you found what you needed anyway. That’s not someone falling apart. That’s someone solving a problem with the tools available to her in that moment — which, if you think about it, is exactly what a sharp mind does.
References:
- Research on estrogen fluctuation and cognitive performance during perimenopause, documenting the role of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in memory formation, executive function, and verbal fluency. [Weber MT, Maki PM, McDermott MP. Cognition and mood in perimenopause: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2014;142:90-98. doi:10.1016/j.jsbmb.2013.06.001]
- Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). Longitudinal findings on learning, attention, and verbal memory changes across the menopause transition, with partial reversal observed in postmenopause. [Greendale GA, Huang MH, Wight RG, et al. Effects of the menopause transition and hormone use on cognitive performance in midlife women. Neurology. 2009;72(21):1850-1857. doi:10.1212/WNL.0b013e3181a71193]
- Research on estrogen’s role in brain energy metabolism and neuroprotection, including effects on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. [Hara Y, Waters EM, McEwen BS, Morrison JH. Estrogen Effects on Cognitive and Synaptic Health Over the Lifecourse. Physiol Rev. 2015;95(3):785-807. doi:10.1152/physrev.00036.2014]
- Omega-3 fatty acids and brain health during the menopause transition. [Minihane AM. Omega-3 fatty acids, brain health and the menopause. Post Reprod Health. 2025;31(2):97-104. doi:10.1177/20533691251341701]