Menopause Is Natural: Reclaiming Balance Without Drugs

In a world that profits from keeping women disconnected from their own bodies, it’s not surprising that the FDA just removed warnings about significant health risks from hormone replacement therapy (HRT). 

Once again, the message is clear: profit and politics are louder than women’s well-being.

A Government That Keeps Failing Women

This isn’t just a medical decision — it’s a cultural mirror. When our systems treat natural transitions like menopause as diseases to be managed, instead of sacred thresholds to be supported, women’s bodies become battlegrounds for pharmaceutical control.

The FDA’s move to lift HRT warnings, despite years of data linking certain hormone therapies to increased risks of breast cancer, blood clots, and stroke, shows where priorities lie - not in women’s safety, but in the comfort of the medical establishment and pharmaceutical profits.

This is not care. It’s commodification.

Menopause Is Not a Malfunction

Menopause is not something to “fix.” It’s the body’s natural shift from fertility into wisdom — a recalibration of energy, hormones, and metabolism. But because we live in a culture that fears aging and worships productivity, we treat menopause like a problem.

The truth is: many of the symptoms women experience — hot flashes, mood swings, fatigue, brain fog — are not inevitable punishments of womanhood. They are amplified by the toxic environments and lifestyles our modern world imposes.

What’s Really Fueling the Symptoms

1. Diet & Inflammation

Diet plays a major role in how intense menopausal symptoms become. A meta-analysis found that the “dietary inflammatory index” — a measure of how inflammatory a diet is — correlates with severity of menopausal symptoms. (PMC)

Foods high in refined carbohydrates, ultra-processed items, added sugars, and saturated fat raise inflammation and insulin resistance — which relate to worsened vasomotor (e.g., hot flash) and somatic symptoms. For example, one study found higher-quality carbohydrate intake was associated with lower somatic and psychological menopausal symptoms. (ScienceDirect)

Another study on women following a modified Mediterranean diet found significantly lower odds of moderate-to-severe hot flashes and sexual symptoms. (News-Medical)

To put simply: when the body is already dealing with inflammation from a poor diet, the hormonal shifts of menopause hit harder.

2. Environmental Toxins: Endocrine Disruptors

Our environment is loaded with chemicals that interfere with hormone metabolism. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) like BPA, phthalates, PFAS, PCBs have been linked to earlier onset of menopause and more intense menopausal symptoms. (WashU Medicine)

A recent review noted that EDC exposures are associated with reproductive aging and more severe menopausal symptoms. (PubMed)

Thus, part of what makes menopause rougher isn’t just the loss of hormones — it’s the polluted ecosystem of modern living disrupting normal hormone signalling, accelerating aging of reproductive tissue, and compounding stress on the system.

3. Sedentary Lifestyle, Stress & Sleep Disruption

Although less often cited in menopause-specific research, it’s well-recognized that chronic stress, elevated cortisol, poor sleep, and low physical activity impair hormonal balance, increase inflammation, disrupt insulin sensitivity, and slow metabolism. These factors thereby make the menopausal shift harder.

In fact, in reviews of diet + lifestyle and menopause, the authors emphasize that lifestyle therapy (including physical activity, balanced diet, improved sleep) is more effective than any one therapeutic element by itself. (PMC)

Reclaiming the Natural Path: What Women Can Do

You don’t need to drug your way through menopause. You can support your body’s innate intelligence instead.

Here’s how:

1. Nourish with Whole Foods
Eat plants close to the earth — whole grains, leafy greens, legumes, seeds, and fruits. Phytoestrogens found in foods like flax, soy, and lentils can help gently balance hormones without synthetic intervention.

2. Move with Intention
Yoga, walking, swimming, or dance — choose movement that connects you to your body rather than punishes it. Consistency, not intensity, regulates hormones best.

3. Ditch the Toxins
Switch to natural cleaning and beauty products. Avoid plastics and synthetic fragrances. Your liver (and hormones) will thank you.

4. Rest, Ritual, and Reconnection
Treat menopause as initiation, not inconvenience. Make space for ritual, journaling, community circles, or therapy to process the emotional and spiritual transitions that accompany this change.

5. Support the Nervous System
Herbal allies like ashwagandha, maca, and red clover can ease symptoms naturally. Breathwork, meditation, and grounding practices bring the body out of stress and back into flow.

A Culture That Honors the Crone

Menopause isn’t the end of vitality — it’s the evolution of power. In many Indigenous and ancestral traditions, women entering this phase were revered as keepers of wisdom. In ours, they’re offered prescriptions.

It’s time to return to reverence. To remember that healing doesn’t come from suppression, but from alignment.

Your body has always known the way. Whether bleeding or becoming, cycling or shifting — there is wisdom in your rhythm. It’s time to listen deeper.

Read next: Menstrual Cycle in Sync: Reclaiming Our Rhythms — explore how reconnecting to your body’s natural cycles restores balance, vitality, and feminine power beyond the medical gaze.