If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters are about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching.
This month for the new year, we're exploring new beginnings with award-winning author Sahar Delijani, comedian-filmmaker Mandy Fabian, Dawn Veselka (co-founder of Cards2Warriors), and this week, perimenopause expert Karissa Pfeffer. Welcome to the Uplifters!
Listen to this episode if...
You’re thinking about leaving your job because you just can’t keep up the pace and don’t understand why
You’re in HR or leadership and want to understand how to support women through this transition (and save your company money)
You’ve been told you’re “too young” for perimenopause or that your symptoms are “just stress”
Karissa was out for a walk on a cold day, mittens on, podcast queued up. The title was something about menopause and she thought, Nope, not for me yet, but it was freezing and she didn’t want to fumble with her phone to skip it. So she listened.
In those next 30 minutes, everything clicked into place.
The exhaustion she’d blamed on being a working mom. The anxiety that seemed to come from nowhere. The brain fog she’d attributed to juggling too much. What if she wasn’t losing her mind or failing at life, but experiencing a seismic hormonal shift that nobody had bothered to tell her could start as early as 35?
After years as a high-achieving finance executive, becoming a mom at 35, grinding through a pandemic that exploded her workload while her two-year-old was home from daycare, and ultimately leaving her career in order to survive all of it, she finally had an answer. It wasn’t postpartum depression. It wasn’t burnout from pushing too hard. It was perimenopause.
Here’s what the research tells us: as estrogen declines during perimenopause, our bodies stress response becomes more reactive. Our nervous system is more easily triggered, cortisol spikes more readily, and our ability to regulate emotions takes a hit. And it’s why women in perimenopause often feel like they’re losing their edge at work when really their bodies are just responding differently to the same stressors.
The relief of being seen, of having an explanation, brought Karissa to tears. And then it brought her to action. If she didn’t know this, and her friends definitely didn’t know., there were probably lots of women who didn’t have this knowledge. She dove into research, got trained and certified, and launched Perimenopause Power.
Her mission became clear: make sure women don’t have to choose between their careers and their undiagnosed symptoms. Because here’s what she learned: 13% of women leave their careers due to unaddressed menopause symptoms. Another 12% are at risk. For companies, that attrition costs between $650,000 to $1.2 million—even for organizations of just a thousand people.
Now Karissa works with individual women through coaching and with corporations to provide education that keeps talented midlife women thriving. Her approach centers on nervous system regulation. When your cortisol stays elevated (chronic work stress plus perimenopause), it doesn’t just make you exhausted and anxious—it actively works against you, making weight loss harder, disrupting sleep, and clouding your thinking. But practices like breathwork, gratitude, and boundaries can actually retrain your body’s stress response.
Her Courage Practice
The Five-Minute Reset: Making Nervous System Regulation Non-Negotiable
When Karissa talks about managing perimenopause while starting a business, she doesn’t point to massive overhauls or expensive retreats. She points to five minutes.
Five minutes of conscious breathing. Five minutes of gratitude journaling. Five minutes before the day’s demands take over.
“We have three things we absolutely need to live: food, water, and air,” Karissa explains. “We know when we’re hungry because our stomach growls. We know when we’re thirsty because our mouth gets dry. But, air, the one thing we literally can’t live without for more than two minutes is the thing we don’t even pay attention to.”
So she started paying attention. Five minutes of simply noticing her breath moving in and out. She pairs it with gratitude journaling, which research shows can shift your nervous system out of stress mode. And she’s ruthless about boundaries now. She says no to events she would’ve forced herself to attend out of guilt. She schedules self-care like she schedules client meetings.
“In my 40s, I have way less f*cks to give,” she laughs. “My boundaries are really reeled in.”
The ripple effect has been profound. Her energy is better. Her mood is more stable. She shows up for her daughter in ways she couldn’t before. And she’s built a business helping other women do the same.
Lift Her Up
Visit perimenopause-power.com to learn about Karissa’s coaching collective (affordable group coaching that makes this work community-based) or to book corporate training that will save your company money while supporting employees.
If you loved this story...
Start with other women who’ve made brave midlife pivots: Shannon Russell’s episode about leaving her 9-5 to build Second Act Success, Melanie Cohen’s episode about designing your healthy life strategy, and Jennifer Maanavi’s episode about building Physique 57 from startup to global brand.
Did you ever wonder if what you are/were experiencing is burnout, postpartum, or perimenopause? And for the meditation and breathing fans out there: what’s the biggest benefit you’ve found from practicing breathwork? Share in the comments.
