Hazel Harrison

DipION mBANT mCNHC

My first love was gut health, but after my own experience of menopause and struggling to find a quality, unbiased information, I particularly enjoy supporting women through this amazing but often challenging phase of life, to help them feel full of health, hope, and joy for the future.

Read more about my menopause journey below.

Looking back, I now realise that I didn’t have enough reserves heading into menopause, which is a pattern I also see with my clients.  This lack of resilience means the brain is more vulnerable.  Having a baby at 42 after several miscarriages and then becoming a single mother running her own business with young children to look after wasn’t the best foundation for hormone health.  It didn’t even cross my mind that it might be the peri-menopause, having just had a baby.  I was embarassed to admit anything was wrong, so I quietly withdrew and waited to feel better.  I couldn’t understand why my diet was no longer enough to sustain me.

My thinking deteriorated.  It was frightening: my brain function is the very essence of who I am.  Understanding how hormones affect the brain was life-changing.  There was a good reason for feeling the way I did and I could do something about it.

I can now happily say it fires better than ever.  I was even able to pluck up the courage to date again, and remarried.  This is me on my wedding day aged 51.  I certainly didn’t see that coming!

I’m still open-heartedly navigating my way through mid-life and “biohacking” – making lots of small diet and lifestyle changes to keep healthy both in body and mind.

Dr Lisa Mosconi, Neuroscientist and Director of the Women’s Brain Initiative, says “we have been taught to fear our hormones and doubt our brains”.  We need to change this.  Better understanding helps us all to make the right choices for ourselves so that we can embrace the next third of our life with renewed vigour.