Book Review: The Perimenopause Journal by Kate Codrington

Helpful to navigate mental health during perimenpause.

Over the next few posts - and including the last post - I’m embarking on book reviews of some books that can provide something of a self-help toolkit for midlife. As you saw last time, Davina’s book is a great addition to the meno canon - especially for identifying symptoms and also if you’re considering HRT. Davina and Dr Naomi are hot on medical health.

However what if you’re seeking a gentler, more holistic and mental health orientated approach to perimenopause - the years approaching menopause when you’re still having periods but hormones are in flux and plummeting?

Journalling can be a great help to navigating these years and this book is part guidance and part journal - and written by a very wise therapist with over 30 years experience. Kate Codrington is also a writer, mentor, facilitator, yoga Nidra guide, podcaster and artist. Her first book Second Spring: The Self Care Guide to Menopause was hailed as one of the ‘menopause canon’ by the New York Times.

I have never journalled myself, but I have close friends that do and am aware it can be very helpful when hormones and emotions are all over the place. It really does work in terms of calm and catharsis and can lead to much greater self knowledge and self care. The only reason I don’t do it myself is only because I am writing between 1000 and 2000 words a week anyway (with my books, journalism and commercial work and this Substack) which means I don’t have the stamina to do it as well!

Kate’s approach is to set our inner turmoil in a context of nature and to liken peri and menopause to the seasons in a useful analogy. Perimenopause is similar to autumn when discernment, truth telling and empowerment all come into play - and trees are in fruit and Menopause is winter when self acceptance, spirituality and healing come into play.

She also has useful wisdom to offer on small pleasures, our inner critic and reducing the impact of the digital world. All things that can get us through tough times mentally.

Whilst you wouldn’t turn to this book for tips on diet and exercise, which also need to be focussed on during peri and menopause, or medical help, it is a really useful guide to mental wellbeing during these turbulent years and feels somewhat like having a therapist whispering good advice in your ear. Like Davina’s book, a really helpful addition to any midlife toolkit but not the whole picture.