I've always been a great believer that age is just a number.
Keep yourself mentally and physically strong, look after your wellbeing, stay curious, and your chronological age doesn't really matter. At least, that's what I thought for most of my life.
But as I've got older, I've realised it isn't always that simple.
Time affects us all. The key isn't pretending it doesn't; it's learning how to manage the changes with kindness, acceptance, and a little self-care.
I had my second son when I was 42. I still thought of myself as young, healthy, and capable of anything. Having lost my mother at a young age, I genuinely believed every day was a gift, and I still do.
But I began to notice things were changing.
The sleepless nights weren't quite so easy to bounce back from. A trip to the park more than once in a day suddenly felt like a marathon. Most of the time, my world felt hazy at best and like a thick, soupy fog at worst.
I put it down to life.
After all, I had a young son, a job, older children with their own needs, a husband, a home, and the endless mental load that so many women carry without even realising it.
By the time Oliver was around three years old, I finally went to see my doctor. I was convinced I needed some kind of wonder potion to pick me up and get me back to feeling like myself.
Instead, Dr Alison gently suggested that what I was experiencing was probably the beginning of the "big M" – perimenopause.
I was completely unprepared.
Like so many women, I had heard the word, but I didn't really understand what it meant. Nobody had told me about the brain fog, the exhaustion, the emotional ups and downs, or how disconnected from myself I could feel.
It caught me completely off guard.
That conversation marked the beginning of a new chapter.
It was when I realised that what I ate really mattered. My body no longer had the constitution it had in my twenties. It needed proper fuel, rest, and care.
I also realised something else.
I needed help.
Now, asking for help has never been one of my strengths. In a previous life, I was convinced I was Superwoman. I thought I could do it all, for everyone, all of the time.
But the truth was that people wanted to help.
The older children took turns cooking. My husband kept Oliver entertained while I soaked in the bath. My mother-in-law and father-in-law helped out one day a week while I worked.
And little by little, I started to breathe again.
I became more comfortable talking about how I was feeling. I opened up to friends and discovered something incredibly powerful:
I wasn't alone.
So many women were experiencing the same things. The same exhaustion. The same worries. The same sense of losing themselves somewhere between caring for everyone else.
That's when I learned one of the most important lessons about self-care for women over 45.
It's not all about green smoothies, yoga classes, or expensive wellness retreats.
Sometimes self-care is simply finding the people who lift you up.
The people who listen without trying to fix you.
The people who remind you who you are when you've forgotten.
I also started making time for myself and my friendships. Once a week, I went out with friends, and we had one rule:
We could talk about anything except the children.
Suddenly, we were laughing again.
We were talking about dreams, holidays, books, ridiculous stories, and places we wanted to visit. We were rediscovering parts of ourselves that had quietly slipped into the background.
And in those brief escapes, something beautiful happened.
I started reclaiming a little bit of me.
Now, when I think about healthy ageing, I don't think it's about trying to stay young forever.
It's about adapting.
It's about nourishing your body, protecting your mental health, accepting support, and making space for joy.
Because age isn't just a number.
It's a privilege.
And the more we learn to care for ourselves along the way, the more fully we get to enjoy it.
At Tenacious, that's what we're all about—helping women navigate life's transitions with compassion, resilience, and the reminder that they don't have to do it alone.