| | | | We don’t talk enough about the importance of play in adulthood. Somewhere along the way—from the moment we swapped recess for routines and costumes for calendars—play became something reserved for kids. But research shows that playful activities are just as essential for adults, especially when it comes to our mental health.
Enter: Halloween. While it may seem like a holiday for little ones, it’s actually one of the few culturally sanctioned times when adults are encouraged to be silly, expressive and imaginative. Whether it’s carving pumpkins, dressing up or just indulging in a spooky movie night, these playful rituals can have a real impact—boosting mood, lowering stress and offering a temporary release from the pressures of everyday life.
Experts say Halloween can offer something rare and important: a moment for adults to give themselves permission to reconnect with joy. And that permission matters—especially for women in midlife, when so much of our energy is directed outward, toward caregiving, careers and the endless work of holding everything together. Finding moments of lightness and levity isn’t just fun—it’s a form of emotional resilience.
So if you’ve been feeling worn down by the weight of your responsibilities, maybe it’s time to put on the witch hat, light the jack-o’-lantern, and remember what it feels like to play. |
| Meet the Preventive Neurologist Changing the Future of Brain Health When it comes to brain health, the conversation is often reactive—focused on treating diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s after symptoms have already set in. But Dr. Kellyann Niotis is flipping the script. As the country’s first fellowship-trained preventive neurologist, she’s made it her mission to shift the focus toward early detection and personalized prevention strategies, particularly for women navigating midlife.
With a background that includes leading the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell and directing research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida, Niotis is pioneering a new path forward in brain health—one that takes into account the hormonal shifts, metabolic changes and cognitive concerns women face during midlife and menopause. In this newsletter edition, she shares the most overlooked yet critical lifestyle change women can make, what symptom should never be brushed off, and how precision medicine could unlock longer, sharper lives for women everywhere. |
What's one change that you believe can make the biggest difference when you're thinking about personalized lifestyle changes for midlife women specifically? We talk a lot about exercise, and exercise is, of course, huge, and what the right approach to exercise is, of course, varies based on what your underlying muscle mass looks like and other [parts of your] body composition. But the one thing that we don't talk about a lot is… Well, people often burn the candle at both ends. And if you are exercising when you haven't slept, it actually mitigates, or renders the exercise that you've done ineffective. So, when in doubt, choose sleep over exercise. If you haven't slept well, don't exercise that day. Take the day off.
Many midlife women start to notice subtle cognitive changes—like brain fog—during the menopause transition, but those concerns are often brushed off. What’s one early sign of cognitive decline that women should take seriously and absolutely not ignore? If you are forgetting conversations that you've had with people, that's definitely something to take seriously. It can be very difficult for doctors to differentiate between what normal cognitive aging is and something more serious, like dementia. Things like word-finding difficulty can happen in both, so that can be a really tricky one to follow. But if you're forgetting conversations you had with people, and they're telling you that they're telling you the same story they already told you before, that’s something to take seriously.
I know you've said that precision medicine is the future of brain health. Doctors like to say that about many different parts of medicine. But as far as brain health goes, what do you foresee that looking like for someone trying to protect their mind long-term? Why I think it's so important to brain health is because there's not one pathway to Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. There are multiple different contributors or drivers for these diseases, and those drivers can look very different, person to person, which is why precision medicine matters so much. What would this look like in a woman in midlife? Yeah. Well, there's certain changes that happen to women's bodies in midlife. Of course, we all talk about the hormonal changes, but it's also accompanied by changes in someone's cholesterol, changes in someone's body composition, changes in someone's blood pressure, blood glucose, and those are all independent drivers for disease pathology down the road. So for women, you know, it's not that matters throughout the lifespan, but specifically, while we're going through midlife, these are things that they really need to focus on.
How do you find flow—that moment, or ability, to be fully immersed and present in the moment—in your life? The space where I'm fully present and immersed, for me, is when I'm under the water. I'm a big scuba diver. I love watching the animals in their natural environment, just doing their animal things. I think it's so special to be in their world. So when I'm there, I'm fully emerged and engulfed in everything that's happening. I'm not thinking about anything else. |
Shining a Light on Hot Flashes Few symptoms of menopause have gotten as much attention as hot flashes, and rightly so.
Despite moderate to severe hot flashes due to menopause affecting nearly half of women and being one of the most well-known symptoms associated with menopause, many women still find themselves struggling to find relief from hot flashes and night sweats. Not to mention, all women don’t experience hot flashes the same way —or even have them at all. Some women experience mild hot flashes, meaning they feel a sensation of heat without sweating, while others experience hot flashes that are moderate in severity, or a sensation of heat with sweating. Some women can have severe hot flashes that cause sweating and cause them to stop what they're doing. In fact, one study found that 46% of Black women experienced hot flashes, compared to 37% of white women.
Luckily, there are ways to treat menopausal hot flashes.
Women know their bodies better than anyone and should feel comfortable having candid conversations about treatment options with their healthcare provider. |
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GIFTING all the men in our lives the free Man’s Guide to Menopause by Tamsen Fadal from Midi Health. This smart, straightforward read breaks down what partners, sons, brothers and friends need to know—because menopause impacts more than just the person going through it.
LISTENING to "UnPAUSED," a new menopause podcast from board-certified OB-GYN, menopause expert and bestselling author Dr. Mary Claire Haver.
READING Wreck by Catherine Newman, a laugh-out-loud yet deeply heartfelt novel about the beautiful messiness of family life. With Rocky and her chaotic, lovable crew back from Sandwich, this follow-up delivers sharp insights, sincere emotion, and the kind of humor that feels like therapy.
LOVING the style of Bina Roklov—the mother of Adam Brody's character Noah and played by the fabulousTovah Feldshuh—on the Netflix series Nobody Wants This. Season 2 was just released by the streamer last week. |
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