"I worked in offices full of women and NO ONE ever talked about it. We never recognised it was happening to the middle-age women on staff. We talked about maternity leave and fertility problems but it's weird the way you transition into your 40s and 50s and suddenly everybody goes really quiet."
In her new book Don't Sweat It, Nicky Pellegrino gets real about her own experience of menopause and suggests lifestyle changes that can help with the symptoms.
Writer Nicky Pellegrino Photo: Supplied
Photo: Allen & Unwin
Don't Sweat It also contains very personal details about Pellegrino's own experience of menopause symptoms.
"If I'm going to tell women they have to go to the doctors and talk about their vaginas and urinary tract infections and hot flushes, I had to be quite open", she tells Anna Thomas.
There are around 32 symptoms associated with menopause, Pellegrino says, and no two women have the same experience.
Some have no problems, some have a really tough time. She is in the 50 percent who feel "a bit rubbish some of the time and okay others".
Like many women, Pellegrino has trouble sleeping as her body loses estrogen.
To sleep better, she takes melatonin at night and goes for a walk first thing in the soft early morning light without sunglasses, which allows daylight into her eyes.
"[Daylight] helps your body produce serotonin, and then at night serotonin is converted to melatonin, which is the sleep hormone."
She's also one of the many women who find their bodies drying out.
"I am as dry as a chip. There isn't a part of me that isn't dessicating at this point. I feel like I ought to be sponsored by some sort of body lotion manufacturer. I need buckets of the stuff."
During menopause, many women wake up with dry eyes, and Pellegrino recommends putting small heat pads over them for 10 minutes first thing or using eye drops.
Brain fog is another very common symptom, she says.
Auckland business leader Jeanette Kehoe-Perkinson was so overwhelmed by her menopause symptoms she left her corporate job and eventually started up the social enterprise Power Pause to support other women in the workforce.
There's now a shift towards the challenges of menopause being acknowledged in the workplace the way the challenges of maternity are, Pellegrino says, but that's quite new.
"I worked in offices full of women and NO ONE ever talked about it. We never recognised it was happening to the middle-age women on staff. We talked about maternity leave and fertility problems but it's weird the way you transition into your 40s and 50s and suddenly everybody goes really quiet. Just the fact that is being spoken about is enormously positive."
Overfocusing on the symptoms of menopause can make women feel doomed, Pellegrino says, but this phase of life also comes with silver linings.
From their 40s and 50s onwards, many women feel more financially secure and free than they ever have before - maybe no longer able to procreate, but more able to create a life on their own terms.
Historically, women seem to have been reluctant to admit they're experiencing symptoms of menopause because it was equivalent to saying "I'm old" and ageing is "something a bit embarrassing to do".
"I want to kick back against that for a bit because you know what? We're old for quite a long time… being old is kind of normal so let's not be embarrassed about it. We live a third of our lives post-menopause and I just felt we had to be a bit more positive about what those lives can be like."
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