June 10, 2026|Tania Mullan

MIDLIFE, EXPLAINED

What's Going On With My Brain?

Brain fog, burnout, ADHD or dementia? Why midlife can make a capable woman question the brain she has always trusted.

Written and edited by Tarnia Mullan, Founder of SOMA Wellness Co. · June 2026 · 15 min read

Quick Answer: Is it brain fog, ADHD, burnout or dementia?

Forgetting a word, losing a password or walking into a room without knowing why can be frightening. Ordinary brain fog does not automatically mean dementia. In perimenopause, changing oestrogen can affect attention, verbal memory, sleep and the brain systems involved in focus.

ADHD, burnout, trauma, poor sleep, medication effects, low iron, B12 or thyroid changes can overlap, so the answer may not be one tidy label. What matters is the pattern: what is new, what has always been there, and what changes with sleep, stress or your cycle.

Arrange an assessment if changes are persistent, progressive, affecting safety or familiar daily tasks, or clearly noticed by people close to you.

You were mid-sentence.

Could have been a meeting. A phone call. Telling someone a story at dinner. And you lost it. Not the thread of the conversation. The whole thing. Gone.

You sat there for a second, hoping your face was not showing it. Waiting for the word to come back. It used to come back. Now it sometimes just floats away, taking your confidence with it.

Maybe you forgot the name of the thing you eat with. A fork. A literal fork. Maybe you opened your phone and could not remember the password you use every day. Maybe you drove to the shops, came out with milk, and stood in the car park wondering where the car had gone, while trying not to look like someone who needed supervision.

Then comes the thought you have not said out loud yet: Is something actually wrong with my brain?

Maybe it is stress. Maybe it is perimenopause. Maybe it is ADHD. Maybe it is dementia. Maybe it is every tab in your life finally opening at once, and the browser has given up. If that is where you are, this article is for you.

Brain fog is one of the symptoms that frightens women most

We do not talk about this one the way we talk about hot flushes.

"Hot flushes are inconvenient. Brain fog is existential." — SOMA Wellness Co.

It makes you question your intelligence, your reliability, your work, your parenting, your safety and your future. The woman who used to remember everything now needs reminders to remember the reminders.

You can laugh about putting the cereal in the fridge once. You laugh less when you read the same email four times and still cannot hold onto what it says. And you laugh even less when the thing you have always relied on — your sharpness — starts feeling unreliable.

Naomi Watts has spoken about that fear in the place where her memory matters most: on set, with pages of dialogue arriving the night before. She described the moment as, "Wait, I always used to have a handle on this, and now suddenly it's a whole lot harder."

That is the part people miss. It is not only the lost word. It is what the lost word seems to say about you. It can make a capable woman wonder whether everyone else has noticed. Whether she is still trusted at work. Whether she will forget something important. Whether this is the beginning of a decline she cannot stop.

Losing your mind is what this can feel like. It is not automatically what is happening.

Why your brain can feel less reliable now

Oestrogen does not only work below the neck. The brain has oestrogen receptors too, including in areas involved in attention, memory, mood, verbal recall, sleep and emotional regulation.

During perimenopause, oestrogen does not fall in one neat, predictable line. It fluctuates. For some women, that changing hormonal environment seems to make finding words, holding information and switching between tasks far more challenging than it used to be.

Then real life piles on. A poor night makes attention harder the next day. Stress fills working memory with whatever feels urgent. Hot flushes interrupt sleep. Anxiety keeps part of the brain scanning for trouble. By lunchtime, the mental desk is covered in papers and somebody has just handed you another one.

That does not mean every forgotten appointment is hormonal. It means the brain is part of the menopause transition, and cognitive symptoms deserve the same seriousness as the physical ones.

Dr Louise Newson has repeatedly highlighted forgetfulness, poor concentration, anxiety and sleep disruption as symptoms that can arrive early in perimenopause. Neuroscientist Dr Lisa Mosconi's brain-imaging work goes further, showing that menopause is a genuine neurological transition as well as a hormonal and reproductive one.

The point isn't that every forgotten word is hormones. It's that midlife cognitive change deserves to be taken seriously, without automatically frightening women into thinking they're declining.

"You are not losing your mind. It's not all in your head. Your brain is undergoing a transition and a transformation." — Dr Lisa Mosconi, neuroscientist and author of The Menopause Brain

What the evidence tells us

Difficulty concentrating and forgetfulness are recognised symptoms during the menopause transition.
Studies have found small average changes in some areas, particularly verbal learning and memory, but the experience varies widely between women.
Sleep disruption, stress, mood, medication and other health factors can all add to cognitive fog.
ADHD is neurodevelopmental. Perimenopause may make existing symptoms more visible or harder to manage, but it does not create ADHD.
Changes that are persistent, progressive, affecting safety or interfering with familiar daily tasks deserve clinical assessment.

Evidence base: Healthdirect Australia; AADPA Australian ADHD Guideline; Greendale et al. (2009); Maki and Henderson (2016); Mosconi et al. (2021); Osianlis et al. (2025); Dementia Australia.

Why ADHD is suddenly part of so many midlife conversations

This is where a lot of women stop scrolling and sit up straighter.

Perimenopause does not create ADHD. ADHD is neurodevelopmental, which means the pattern begins earlier in life. But women and girls were often missed because the stereotype was built around hyperactive boys, not bright girls who stared out the window, masked hard, overprepared, people-pleased and panicked privately while looking functional from the outside.

Many Gen X women compensated for decades. They made lists for the lists, stayed up late, used panic as an ignition system, earned degrees, raised children and held demanding jobs. They did not look incapable. They looked high-functioning, often because an enormous amount of invisible effort was keeping the machinery moving.

Then midlife changes the conditions. Sleep becomes lighter, stress tolerance shifts and the workarounds that once held begin to fail. That is when many women look back and finally see a lifelong pattern they never had words for.

The school report that said bright but distractible. The assignment finished at midnight because panic was the only reliable ignition system. The handbag full of receipts. Three notebooks started in the same month. The birthday card bought on time and posted six weeks late.

Australian performer Em Rusciano was diagnosed with ADHD at 42. Her public advocacy resonated because it was not a story about suddenly becoming a different person. It was about finally seeing the cost underneath the person everybody thought was coping. Midlife can change how well those old workarounds work.

A 2025 systematic review found early signals that changing oestrogen and progesterone influences ADHD symptoms across female life stages. The research is still developing, but it supports what many women report: symptoms can feel louder when hormones, sleep and stress are all shifting at once.

The clever systems that kept everything moving may also be running out of fuel. Your available capacity may be depleted. Public conversations led by women such as Em Rusciano matter because visibility lowers shame. It does not diagnose anyone, but it lets the woman sitting in the car park wondering whether she is losing her mind exhale for a second.

It may not be just one thing

ADHD may be a major part of the picture without explaining every difficult week. Broken sleep can make anyone foggy. Professor Pauline Maki put that link plainly:

"You do not need a PhD in cognitive neuroscience to know that if you don't sleep well, your cognition isn't good." — Professor Pauline Maki

Burnout and trauma can also affect concentration, working memory and the ability to begin or finish tasks. Medication side effects and health issues such as low iron, low B12 or thyroid problems can matter too.

That does not mean you need to turn yourself into a detective with a colour-coded wall and red string. It means the timing and pattern matters. What has always been there? What is genuinely new? What became worse when your cycles, sleep or stress changed? What is happening often enough to affect your work, driving, finances or daily life? Those details are more useful than trying to choose one label from a social-media checklist.

If trauma, stress or burnout is in the mix

From the inside, these experiences can look remarkably similar. Burnout can leave you reading the same paragraph four times because there is simply nothing left in the tank. Trauma-related nervous-system patterns can look like ADHD from the inside: difficulty concentrating, poor working memory, freezing, overthinking and being permanently braced.

Trauma and ADHD are not the same, and one does not rule out the other. A careful assessment looks at developmental history, timing, context and functional impact rather than forcing every symptom into one category.

Women with complex histories are often bounced between labels: anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma, ADHD, hormones, personality. The more useful question is not which label wins. It is what is contributing now, and what kind of support changes the pattern.

Your nervous system does not care which category the spreadsheet uses. It responds to whether there is enough sleep, safety, structure, nourishment, recovery and support to function. Support may include trauma-informed therapy, gentle body-based practices, time in nature, creative expression, safe relationships and rest before collapse. You do not need to try every technique at once. The useful practice is the one your body can tolerate and your real life can sustain.

If nutrition and metabolic load are part of your picture

Blood sugar swings, poor sleep, alcohol and nutritional deficiencies can all affect clarity. Dr Mary Claire Haver includes omega-3s and creatine among the evidence-informed supports she discusses for women in midlife. Creatine has established benefits for strength and physical performance, with growing evidence for memory, attention and processing speed — especially when brain energy demand is high or sleep is restricted. DHA is a major structural fat in the brain, while EPA and DHA support neuronal and inflammatory signalling.

A 2025 menopause-focused review found the evidence indicative of brain-health benefit, with further work underway on dose, timing and who benefits most. This is not a cue to build a giant supplement stack because someone online looked convincing in good lighting. It is a reason to discuss creatine, omega-3 intake and any suspected deficiency with a qualified practitioner who understands your health, medications and goals.

But what if it is dementia?

Let us say the frightening part out loud. When ordinary words disappear, passwords vanish and you walk into a room with no idea why you are there, dementia is often the fear that arrives first. That fear is not silly. It is one reason clear guidance matters more than reassurance alone.

The useful distinction is pattern and progression. Brain fog often fluctuates. It may be worse after poor sleep, during high-stress weeks, around cycle changes, after alcohol or when the sensory load has been relentless. You may lose the word, but still know what the object is, where you are and why the task matters.

More concerning changes tend to be persistent or progressive. Dementia Australia lists signs such as increasingly frequent memory loss, trouble with familiar tasks, confusion about time or place, problems with language and changes that interfere with everyday functioning.

A blog cannot tell you which pattern you have. A clinician can take a history, assess cognition and check for other contributors, including medication effects, vitamin deficiency, infection or metabolic conditions. The aim is not to create panic. It is to replace frightening 3 a.m. guessing with a proper clinical conversation.

When to seek medical assessment: Arrange an assessment if cognitive changes are persistent, progressive, affecting safety or familiar daily tasks, or if people close to you are noticing a clear decline. Seek urgent medical help for sudden confusion, weakness, speech difficulty or another abrupt neurological change. The purpose is not to frighten you. It is to replace uncertainty with appropriate care.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

I thought it was just the juggling…

I did not believe it at first either. Looking back, I had always run a bit chaotic. Mental tabs open everywhere. Half-finished lists. Multiple whiteboards, notebooks, word docs. Forgetting the thing I had literally just put down two minutes ago. Time blindness? I had a whole time zone named after me — "Tarnz-time" — which appeared to be 45 minutes behind the rest of the country, no matter how hard I tried to be punctual, even for my own 40th birthday celebrations.

But I had an explanation ready: single mum of four, studying, working, holding a household together on not enough sleep. Of course I dropped things. Anyone would. Right?

Except when I was honest with myself, I had juggled far more in my thirties — with a teen and three babies under six — than I could manage later when the load was actually lighter. Fewer kids at home. Fewer balls in the air. And yet somehow, I was struggling to keep even two of them off the floor. That was the bit I could not explain away.

The ADHD diagnosis came in my early 50s, well after perimenopause had already sent me looking for answers about my own nervous system. It did not change who I was. It gave me a word for a pattern that had been running quietly in the background the whole time, working overtime to stay invisible.

I don't think it was ever just one thing. I had multiple systems go into overdrive during my 40s. Perimenopause simply pulled the rug out from under compensation I did not even know I was leaning on.

But the diagnosis still mattered. I stopped treating every dropped ball as proof that I was lazy, disorganised or a sign that my brain was in a steep decline. That is what I want for you too. Not a label for the sake of it. Enough understanding to stop blaming yourself and start finding support that fits.

With warmth, Tarnia Mullan Founder, SOMA Wellness Co.

Three things that can help this week

1. Separate what is new from what has always been there

For one week, notice when the fog is worse. After a broken night? Before a period? During a deadline-heavy week? After wine? When three people are talking to you while the air fryer is beeping and the dog has decided the courier is a national-security threat?

Then look backwards too. Were you always late unless you were very early? Did you regularly lose things, procrastinate until panic arrived, interrupt, daydream, overprepare or feel as though everybody else received a manual you missed? You are not trying to diagnose yourself. You are giving a clinician a useful timeline.

2. Give your brain one reliable place to put things

Not a new planner with twelve sections and stickers. We both know how that story can end. Choose one note on your phone. Put the appointment, the name, the task and the question there. Use alarms without apologising for them. Keep the keys in one place, even if that place feels insultingly obvious.

External support is not cheating. Glasses are external support. Calendars are external support. So is putting the school form beside the front door because otherwise it will spend another week travelling around in your handbag.

3. Take the right questions into the room

A menopause-informed GP can help look at whether cognitive change arrived alongside cycle, sleep or other perimenopause symptoms. A formal ADHD assessment should look beyond how scattered you feel today. It considers childhood patterns, functioning across different settings and other possible explanations.

Your clinician may also consider whether sleep, medication, nutrition or another health issue is contributing. That is an individual decision, not a universal shopping list of blood tests. The most useful opening sentence may be simple: "My memory and focus have changed, and I need help working out what is new, what may be hormonal and whether ADHD could be part of the picture."

Where SOMA fits

SOMA is not here to tell you brain fog is caused by one thing. That would be lazy, and not good enough. Medical care, MHT/HRT, ADHD assessment, therapy, nutrition, sleep and community may all have a place.

SOMA provides a hormone-free, stimulant-free and sedative-free botanical ritual built around midlife nervous-system support. It is designed to sit alongside the care and tools that are right for you, not compete with them. The consumer need is practical: a repeatable daytime anchor for the hours when you are expected to remember, decide, begin, finish and stay steady while the demands keep arriving.

A practical daytime ritual: Vitalitea Daylight Ritual

When your brain already feels like a browser with every tab open, more stimulation is not always the answer. Sometimes clearer thinking begins with reducing the noise around the thought.

Vitalitea Daylight Ritual was created for the hours when you are expected to remember, decide, begin, finish, speak clearly and keep your footing while everybody else keeps adding things to the list. Its daytime botanical blend brings together gotu kola, tulsi and lemon balm at clinically aligned botanical doses.

Tulsi has placebo-controlled human evidence for improving general stress symptoms, including forgetfulness, exhaustion and sleep-related problems. Lemon balm has human research supporting calm, mood and performance under stress. Gotu kola contains active compounds long associated with memory and mental clarity, and has been studied in humans for its calming response under acute stress.

→ Explore Vitalitea Daylight Ritual for Calm Focus

When poor sleep is part of the fog, the SOMA Duo supports both ends of the pattern: a steadier daytime ritual, followed by a deliberate Moonlight downshift that supports deeper, more restorative sleep.

You have not lost the capable woman you were

Maybe this is perimenopause brain fog. Maybe it is ADHD that has finally become visible. Maybe sleep, stress or another health factor is adding weight to both. Whatever the mix, noticing that your capacity has changed is not vanity and it is not a sign of decline.

The systems that once held your life together may need updating. That is different from saying your intelligence has gone anywhere. You are still the woman who built the career, raised the children, remembered the birthdays, solved the problem and found the missing shoe when everybody else had already looked directly at it. Your brain may need more support than it used to.

Share this article. Sometimes an article can say the thing we are too tired to explain ourselves. Share this with the woman who has quietly been wondering whether her brain is letting her down.

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Join the conversation: Has brain fog, burnout or ADHD made you question your capability in midlife? What helped you recognise the pattern or ask for support?