Swapping Rage for Rituals

If perimenopause were a person, it would be that friend who shows up uninvited, rearranges your furniture, and then blames you for the clutter. Let’s be honest, perimenopause sucks. If you’re between 35 and 52 and reading this, you are probably nodding and thinking, “yeah, duh.” Mood swings that feel like emergency alerts, nights that unravel, libido that ghosts you then shows up uninvited, and a midsection that collects mystery weight. Being a woman is glorious and messy and sometimes exhausting. The most powerful work to steady it is not dramatic, it is ritual, and for me, mastering my circadian rhythm became that ritual.

Quick confession so you know I am a real human who gets it. I am 44 years old and deep in the perimenopause fray. When I turned 40, my tune shifted - waking at 3 a.m. became a cameo, moods showed up like weather reports, libido blinked, gut stuff popped in and out, and my skin could not decide whether to glow or revolt. Most painfully, eight quiet pounds crept on over a year with zero changes to my diet or workouts. I tried the obvious (and even trendy fixes), eat less and move more. But a few months later, I had more brain fog, more belly fat, and far less patience. My body made it very clear, it would not be bullied.

That rude wake-up call forced me to stop out-hustling biology and start listening. As a FDNP, I had the clinical language to name what was happening, but language alone did not soothe the panic. What steadied me was ritual, tiny repeatable practices that give your nervous system and metabolism reliable cues. Mastering my circadian rhythm became the central ritual, the hinge I built everything else around. I traded punishment for curiosity, softened my schedule so my nervous system could breathe, and kept a gentle ledger of patterns instead of a tally of mistakes.

Here is the useful nerdy part, I will keep it practical. Cortisol and insulin are the queen bees. Cortisol times your wakefulness and stress response, insulin decides whether the calories you eat become usable energy or polite storage. When cortisol spikes at odd hours and insulin hangs out too high, estrogen and progesterone get pulled into a chaotic, offbeat dance. The result is shredded sleep, emotional volatility, cravings that choose comfort over nourishment, and weight that appears for reasons that feel unfair. Once I leaned into that, everything stopped feeling personal and started feeling tactical. Calm cortisol and steady insulin became the highest-return moves.

So I redesigned my days around timing, not punishment. Morning light was my first prescription. Ten minutes outside within an hour of waking told my circadian clock, “Hey, it is day,” and quietly cut down those 3 a.m. wake-ups. Breakfast became strategic, protein first within 60 to 90 minutes so insulin had a predictable job. I traded punishing cardio for movement that felt human, walks that did not require a motivational speech, and two or three strength sessions a week that preserved muscle without turning me into a cortisol factory. Evenings were simplified, dim lights, limited screens, and a short wind-down that actually invited sleep.

Those timing rituals spilled into everything else. I scheduled creative work for my sharp hours, and moved admin to the afternoons. Five-minute resets, a breath, a stretch, a quick walk, became my cortisol interrupters. I slowed meals, prioritized hydration, and protected real human connection, because a laugh with a friend literally calms the alarm system. These habits are small on their own, but stacked together they change the conversation between your cells.

Functional lab testing sat beside ritual like a practical map. Cortisol rhythm panels and metabolic snapshots did not replace the daily work, they revealed patterns I could not feel in the fog. Labs helped me know where to tighten, where mercy was due, and when to shift timing or load. Testing refined the plan, ritual remained the road I walked.

Months of small, steady repetition did the rest. Sleep smoothed, hot flashes softened, mood swings thinned, and that stubborn weight began to loosen. Energy settled into a steadier arc. Skin calmed. Appetite leaned toward nourishment instead of numbing. Most unexpectedly, my heart felt steadier too. Mastering my circadian rhythm, the ritual I leaned on every morning and every evening, gave me a way back into my body and, eventually, back to myself.

If you are furious, exhausted, or grieving what used to be, let that feeling be permission to begin small. Pick two rituals and treat them like an appointment with the future you. Use testing to inform, not to terrorize. Perimenopause is not punishment, it is a transition with its own grammar. Learn that grammar, write a new sentence each day with a quiet ritual, and give yourself space to be both tender and strategic as you do it.

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Kelsey Weaver is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and founder of The Holistic Health Lab, where she helps individuals feel their best through advanced testing, personalized protocols, and clear, science-based guidance. 

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