Menopause Brain Fog: Not Just “Getting Older”

If you feel like your brain just doesn’t work the way it used to in your 40s or 50s—losing your train of thought, rereading the same line, forgetting what you walked into a room for—you are not alone. A 2026 study looked at 208 women in perimenopause (ages 41–60) to understand what might be linked to this “brain fog.”

Women filled out questionnaires about memory and attention, menopause symptoms (like hot flashes, mood changes, joint pain, sexual changes), sleep, stress, and how mindful they felt in daily life. Many had significant memory or attention complaints.

When researchers adjusted for many factors at once, two things stood out:

• Women with higher mindfulness—being more aware and present in daily life—were less likely to report serious problems with memory and attention.

• Women with more psychosocial symptoms—such as low mood, worrying, or feeling bad about themselves—were more likely to report attention difficulties, and there was a trend toward more memory concerns.

Other things like age, education, alcohol or caffeine intake, sleep problems, hormone therapy use, and hot flashes were not clearly linked to brain fog once everything was considered together.

Because this was a one-time survey, we can’t say what causes what. But the study suggests that supporting your emotional well-being and building mindful awareness may be helpful pieces of the brain-fog puzzle during perimenopause.

Zhu C, Thomas EHX, Arunogiri S, Spector A, Li Q, Gurvich C. Factors associated with subjective cognitive symptoms during the menopause transition. Menopause. 2026;33(3):1-9. doi:10.1097/GME.0000000000002651