A few years of therapy, transcendental meditation, yoga foundation etc and recently I’ve just had a massive epiphany that has been more groundbreaking than anything before: I wasn't just anxious my biological brakes were missing.

I’m sharing this now because it feels like the final piece of the puzzle I’ve been trying to solve.

The Age 11 Nervous System Glitch

I’ve learned that our brain’s alarm centre (the amygdala) goes through a huge sensitive window around age 11. For me, that’s when I had a significant car accident. We all have things in our childhood - accidents, illnesses, or the weather of the home we grew up in - that shape our wiring.

Because I have aphantasia (I don't see pictures in my mind), I don’t have visual memories of those times. Instead, my body stored all that raw data as physical stress. I suspect my long-standing habits like nail-biting or smoking were just my body’s way of trying to find a somatic anchor to ground all that internal buzzing. Grateful to my partner who was the major catalyst for me finally breaking the smoking.

The Menopause Tightening

As we hit our 50s, it can feel like our "shock absorbers" have been removed. In the UK, we often talk about HRT in terms of hot flushes, but it’s so much more. I’ve been using Evorel Conti patches, but I’m becoming convinced that the tightening I felt was because my brain needed more of the natural, body-identical stuff. 

While synthetic progestogens protect the womb, they don't always reach the brain's fear centre. I’ve started adding a natural progesterone to my regime, and it has triggered a massive shift. It converts into a super-neurosteroid called allopregnanolone that bathes the brain in GABA our natural chill-out chemical. Without it, the amygdala becomes hyper-reactive. We lose that gap between a trigger and our reaction. We aren't failing; our brain is just lacking its primary biochemical brake. 

Lifting the Fog: Rewiring the Synapses

The most unexpected part of this journey has been the mental clarity. For a long time, it felt like I was wading through a thick brain fog, where finding the right words felt like grasping at shadows. But as the progesterone settles my alarm system, I can feel the static clearing.

It feels as though my synapses are rewiring in real-time. The noise of the overactive amygdala was drowning out my cognitive flow; now that the noise is gone, the words are finally finding their way back to each other. I'm able to articulate my thoughts with a sharpness I haven't felt in years (I mean I can't remember when to be honest).

The Mood-Food Connection: Fueling the Neurosteroid

While the natural progesterone provides the floor, I’ve learned that what we eat provides the building blocks for this neurosteroid pathway. To keep the amygdala calm and the skin glowing, we can focus on eating:

Healthy Fats (Avocado & Seeds): These provide the cholesterol base needed to synthesise steroid hormones.

Oily Fish (Omega-3s): Proven to dampen amygdala overactivity and protect skin collagen from stress-induced breakdown.

Zinc & B6 (Eggs & Chickpeas): Vital co-factors that help the body convert progesterone into that calming allopregnanolone.

My Three-Day Shift: The Science of Safety

I’ve recently started on natural progesterone, and the unravelling has been incredible. For the first time, I have a pause in a 40-year-old reflex. My logic brain actually has time to speak up before the panic starts. Now that the internal siren is quieter, I finally feel I have the capacity to properly nurture myself.

A Journey Toward Minimalism

As a fellow student of the nervous system and the quest for calm, I’ve also been on a journey of simplifying. I’ve moved away from an overwhelming collection of extra tools and gadgets, choosing instead to minimise and focus purely on the products I make: the Skin Elixir Core Five. These hero formulas are designed to truly nourish the skin you’re in by working with your body’s natural chemistry.

The move to organise my thoughts and streamline this range actually began before I started the natural progesterone, but the hormone has now given me the mental space to put those plans into action. It is also allowing me to finally dedicate myself to the ROOTED self-regulation system I created. Before, my nervous system was too hijacked to sit still; now, I have the biological floor to let those grounding rituals truly land.

I truly hope these findings and how they build on my previous two blogs resonate and are of help to you. We aren't broken we just need the right tools to help our nervous system, our minds, and our skin finally come home.

Credible Sources & Further Reading

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk: Explains how physical trauma (like accidents) is stored somatically in the brain's alarm system [1].

Neurosteroids & GABA: Research in The Journal of Neuroscience details how allopregnanolone (a metabolite of progesterone) acts as a potent modulator of GABA-A receptors to reduce anxiety [2].

The Sensitive Window (Age 11): Studies on brain development highlight the pre-teen years as a critical period for amygdala maturation and vulnerability to stress [3].

Skin & Progesterone: Clinical trials published in the British Journal of Dermatology show that progesterone significantly improves skin elasticity and firmness in peri/menopausal women [4].

Aphantasia & Trauma: Research into Acquired Aphantasia explores how the brain may disable visual imagery as a protective mechanism following traumatic events [5].

[1] Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score.

[2] Belelli, D., & Lambert, J. J. (2005). "Neurosteroids: endogenous regulators of the GABA(A) receptor." Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[3] Tottenham, N., & Sheridan, M. A. (2009). "A review of adversity, the amygdala and the hippocampus." Developmental Science.

[4] Schmidt, J. B., et al. (2005). "Treatment of skin aging with topical progesterone." British Journal of Dermatology.

[5] Zeman, A., et al. (2015). "Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia." Cortex.