Dr. Betty Murray explains progesterone's role in the menstrual cycle and menopause, then breaks down the difference between natural progesterone and synthetic versions. She covers how to use it for cognition, sleep, and mood during perimenopause and menopause, and what the evidence actually shows about safety.
So there's a new controversy online, and it, you know, I would say maybe if you're watching and listening to menopause conversations, you might have heard it. It's the whole idea that progesterone is either completely safe and does very benign in the body, or that progesterone should be cycled, or we should be concerned about it for cognitive health. So today on Menopause Mastery, what I'm going to go into is the actual science around progesterone, what it does in the body, what the different forms of progesterone and synthetic forms do, and especially how you can use progesterone in perimenopause and menopause to support cognition, sleep, overall mood. And we're going to go into it deeply. So here's the first thing I want you to know. When we hear all those conversations, whether it's progesterone is completely benign and is great for sleep, they're right. Progesterone has been shown to affect memory in certain situations. It's also right. However, there's caveats. And so I want to go through both of those camps. So let's get into it. So let's start with the basics because I want to make sure that everybody has that. Most people think of progesterone as a pregnancy hormone. And yes, it plays a massive role during pregnancy by— and in a particularly in a cycling woman, progesterone does a whole lot more, and especially when we look at the balance of estrogen. So when we are a cycling woman, our estrogen peaks and valleys throughout the month, and so does progesterone. And progesterone's major peak is in that second half of your cycle called the luteal phase.
