6 Supplements That Can Change Your Perimenopause Experience

If you didn’t catch 7 Signs You’re Entering Perimenopause (and maybe earlier than you’d like), stop and go read it first.

We dove into the physiological, biological, and stress-driven reasons why some women dip into peri sooner than expected and why that season of life tends to be harder for some women more than others.

You are not destined for “perimenopause hell” just because the 17th “funny” Instagram reel of the week told you so.

We have influence over the foundational factors that drive hormonal and nervous system fueled symptoms: our diet, our light, our stress, sleep, exercise, emotional processing, and relationships.

And once we set a strong foundation, our body actually knows what to with the supplements or HRT or food we put in our bodies.

My 1:1 clients receive a full audit of all of those factors so we can start connecting the dots between why they feel the way they do and how they live, eat, think, and more.

I’m shown time and time again that the answers to our health “problems” are usually hidden in plain sight — we just need to be vulnerable enough to accept them.

The woman with Lyme, mold, Bartonella, parasites, and H.Pylori with two autoimmune diseases on 25 supplements doesn’t have a “bug problem”: she has a nervous system problem.

The woman with depression, weight gain, high cholesterol, PMOS and uterine fibroids doesn’t have a willpower problem: she has a thyroid, mineral and emotional suppression problem.

The woman who dipped into “perimenopause” at 38 with hot flashes, insomnia, “the perfect diet”, and anxiety doesn’t have a hormone problem: she has childhood wounding that has kept her tightly wrapped around the finger of perfectionism and fear-based decision making.

And none of these women are having enough FUN. We severely underestimate the healing power of JOY. It’s something I’ve been touching on in Instagram stories. We can’t supplement joy — it’s something we seek and remain open to throughout even the most mundane Tuesday.

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. This Bible verse doesn’t say, “Trudge through life always” — it asks us to finding joy and gratitude in all circumstances.

Joy and gratitude unlock the next level of healing most women are missing, but they get ignored because they take daily work within us. Anyone can show up to the gym 3x a week — but finding JOY when it feels like it’s all falling apart? That’s God’s assignment to His best soldiers (hint: you’re one of them.)

My healing philosophy: when we know thyself, we can heal thyself. Without medicine, without complex 37-supplement lifelong protocols, without injecting questionable substances into our bloodstream. I fully and confidently believe the human body has everything it takes to heal — it just rarely receives the substrates from modern humans to complete the process.

If we grab convenience foods (yes, even “healthy” ones) rather than cooking a meal of meat and vegetables, we chose time over ourselves.

If we procrastinate on getting into a workout routine, and an “I’ll do it next month” turns into “maybe in January?”, we chose excuses over ourselves.

So I encourage you to get out of your own way,

dig deep inside for the love it takes to show up for ourselves every day

the morning sunlight before the phone,

the after dinner walk instead of the TV binge,

the homemade dinner instead of grabbing takeout on the way home from the desk job,

and don’t be the person who gets in the way of You.

Well, my little half-related pep talk is complete for the day so let’s dive into the meat of this article: six foundational perimenopause-supportive supplements that I hand-picked myself based on years of human physiology research.

This isn’t a prescriptive list but an assessment of the factors that tend to drive the most dysfunction for women in their late 30s and 40s, and how we can support their physiology with smart, targeted supplementation.

P.S. If you don’t know or understand what a supplement does, please reconsider it. And take some time today to audit your own supplement routine — do you feel a difference? Do you understand how it works? Is it the right choice for your unique biology?

Supplements are not inert but can be powerful interventions that help push our health in the right direction (or the wrong one.) Just because they’re listed here doesn’t mean they’re right for you but are worthy considerations of your research.

Sulforaphane, a compound found in abundance in broccoli sprouts, has one of the more impressive growing bodies of research out of nearly any supplement I have researched in the last several years. And the way it could positively impact women in perimenopause and beyond seems quite promising.

Perimenopause is not just a hormonal transition period for women but a metabolic one. The metabolism does not necessarily “slow down” in perimenopause but reallocates metabolic resources. It’s why most women tend to need to shift up their diet, exercise, and sleep habits in their 40s to maintain the same level of fitness or potentially pant size as they had in their 30s.

These metabolic shifts include a decrease in insulin sensitivity, hormonal fluctuations, and increases in histamine signaling often create heightened oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a “normal” physiological result of metabolic processes as long as it is counterbalanced by sufficient antioxidant protection.

When antioxidant protection is low, oxidative stress leads to rapid aging of tissues, cell death, and damage to our DNA. Excess and unopposed oxidative stress is a precursor to nearly all modern diseases especially cancer, dementia, fatty liver and cardiovascular disease — all conditions that increase quite substantially after the perimenopause transition.

The ovaries are a high mitochondria, metabolically active organ with an equally high need for sufficient antioxidant protection.

They are prone to damage by oxidative stress which can result in weakened ovarian signaling, lower progesterone production, and faster hormonal decline → aka the perimenopause horror stories we see all over the internet right now.

In our 30s and 40s, we want to baby our ovaries with targeted nutrition such as vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, magnesium, COQ10, omegas, and zinc to protect them against free radicals and environmental stressors.

Think of free radicals (the precursor to oxidative damage) as a successful game of Dominoes — once the first cell “falls” (dies or is damaged), all the other cells can more readily fall into the same fate.

This is the metabolic premise behind cancer as a whole — cells mimic each other whether or not they’re behaving in an adaptive or maladaptive way.

Over time especially after years of chronic stress, under-eating, blood sugar instability, poor sleep, toxin exposure, inflammation, nutrient depletion, overtraining, or simply aging itself, the body’s antioxidant defense systems can start struggling to keep up.

One of the most important protective pathways involved in this process is called the Nrf2 pathway.

Think of Nrf2 as one of the body’s master cellular defense switches. When the switch is flipped on, it turns on genes responsible for producing many of the body’s own antioxidant and detoxification compounds, including glutathione and other enzymes that help neutralize oxidative stress, reduce inflammation, support mitochondrial health, and protect tissues from damage.

This is where sulforaphane becomes an incredibly interesting and promising supplemental support.

Sulforaphane is a sulfur-containing compound found in cruciferous vegetables, especially broccoli sprouts. It’s formed when the vegetable is chopped or chewed, activating an enzyme called myrosinase that converts glucoraphanin into sulforaphane.

Unlike traditional antioxidants that directly “mop up” free radicals themselves, sulforaphane works more upstream.

It essentially signals the body to strengthen its own antioxidant and detoxification defenses, and this is incredibly important in mid-life as research indicates phase II detoxification slows and antioxidant capacity declines when not supported intentionally which can lead us straight into disease territory.

Research suggests sulforaphane may:

• activate Nrf2 pathways (detox)

• increase glutathione production (detox)

• support mitochondrial function (energy)

• reduce inflammatory signaling (slower aging)

• protect ovarian and granulosa cells from oxidative damage (cancer-protection)

• support healthier estrogen metabolism (cancer protection)

These are some of the reasons broccoli sprouts have become such a focus in longevity, hormone, detoxification, and metabolic health conversations.

Now, to be clear, this doesn’t mean broccoli sprouts “reverse aging” or prevent menopause. Human evidence is still emerging, and much of the mechanistic research comes from cell and animal studies.

But the concept itself is compelling: supporting the body’s innate antioxidant and detoxification systems may help improve resilience during one of the most metabolically demanding transitions in a woman’s life.

And in a culture constantly searching for the next pharmaceutical shortcut, there’s something fascinating about the possibility that compounds found in simple cruciferous vegetables may interact with some of the body’s most protective longevity pathways — sounds like God knew what he was doing when he came up with the cruciferous family.

When researching sulforaphane supplementation, I wanted something stable and well-tested so I chose Mara Labs BrocElite Plus for my family. They have a kids capsule that I use for my daughter with neuroinflammation as well that are easy to swallow.

There are plenty of options available, and yes you can grow your own organic broccoli sprouts — activating sulforaphane as you chew them — but for a more stable and traceable daily dose, 10mg a day is considered maintenance whereas higher doses can be used for active disease management such as cancer.