When the Sound of Chewing Becomes a Personal Attack: Perimenopause and Your Nervous System

You used to be able to handle things. Now your husband is eating cereal and you're contemplating divorce.

The kids are in the next room merely existing at normal volume and you need to leave the house. Someone asks what's for dinner and you snap "the thing, in the thing" like those nonsensical words should be obvious to both of you. You're standing in the kitchen with no memory of why you came in there. Your ears itch for no reason. Your feet are burning at 11pm, your calves are cramping, and sleep has become a negotiation you keep losing. You're watching a movie you've seen a hundred times and your heart starts pounding like something is actually wrong. Anxiety shows up without warning, attached to nothing. You are, by all accounts, losing it.

Except you're not.

If you're somewhere between 35 and 55 and your body has started doing things that make no sense, you may be in perimenopause. The word sounds like something that happens to older women, but it can begin a full decade before your period stops. And the symptoms are nothing like what anyone prepared you for.

The hot flashes? Okay, fine. You knew those were coming eventually. But the rage? The sudden inability to tolerate sounds you've lived with for years? The brain fog, the lost words, the heart palpitations, the fatigue so deep it feels like it's in your bones? The strange sensory symptoms that send you to Google at midnight, convinced something is seriously wrong?

Nobody mentioned any of that.

And underneath it all, something harder to name: you don't feel like yourself. The life you built, the one you were managing fine, has started to feel unmanageable. Nothing external changed. Everything internal did.

Your window has narrowed

There's a concept in nervous system work called the window of tolerance. It's the zone where you can handle what life throws at you without tipping into fight-or-flight or shutting down. Inside that window, you can think clearly, regulate your emotions, respond instead of react. Outside it, everything becomes too much.

Perimenopause narrows the window.

The buffer you used to have is gone. Sounds that never bothered you are now unbearable. Stimulation you managed easily now overwhelms you. The kids, the noise, the questions, the decisions. What used to take no effort now takes everything you have.

This isn't weakness. It's not a character flaw. Your nervous system is working with less capacity than it used to have. The hormonal shifts are real, and they affect your brain, your regulation, your ability to absorb the normal friction of daily life.

The rage that doesn't match the moment

Let's talk about the rage. The flash of fury that arrives out of nowhere over nothing. Your partner breathes too loudly. Your child asks a simple question. Someone needs something from you, again, and you feel anger rise so fast it scares you.

This is a nervous system running hot. When the window narrows, you're living closer to the edge. There's no cushion between "fine" and "fight." The cereal chewing isn't the problem. You were already at capacity. The chewing was one sound too many.

You're not turning into someone you don't recognize. You're someone whose system is maxed out.

The sleep that won't come

And then there's the sleep. Or what used to be sleep. You're tired in a way that feels cellular, but when you lie down your body refuses to settle. Your legs ache. Your thoughts won't stop. You fall asleep and then you're awake at 2am, then 4am, then you give up.

Sleep disruption and nervous system dysregulation feed each other. The less you sleep, the narrower your window. The narrower your window, the harder it is to settle at night. It's a loop, and you can't willpower your way out of it.

What helps

Your doctor can address the hormonal piece. That matters. Get the labs. Have the conversation about what medical support might look like.

And there's work to be done with the nervous system itself.

Somatic therapy helps widen the window. Not by pushing through, not by managing harder, but by helping your body return to a baseline where you have capacity again. Where you're not waking up already at the edge.

This looks like learning to notice when you're heading toward overwhelm before you're in it. It looks like giving your nervous system the chance to complete stress responses instead of constantly overriding them. It looks like rebuilding the buffer you've lost.

The goal isn't to stop feeling. It's to feel like yourself again. To have your family's existence in the house be tolerable. To have access to your patience, your clarity, your sense of humor.

You're not broken

Perimenopause is a transition, not a malfunction. But transitions are destabilizing, especially when no one handed you a map. You're not losing your mind. You're navigating a significant physiological shift with very little support, while still being expected to show up like nothing is happening.

Something is happening. Your body is making that clear, even if it's speaking a language you haven't learned yet.

The nervous system piece tends to get overlooked in conversations about hormones. But the two are connected. Supporting your nervous system through this transition isn't an indulgence. It's how you get through without white-knuckling every day.

If this sounds familiar

I work with women who are used to being capable and are unsettled to find themselves suddenly struggling. They're smart, competent, and unnerved by what's happening in their bodies and their reactions. They don't need another suggestion to take a bath or practice self-care. They need someone who gets it. A place to process what's happening without having to perform or minimize.

If this resonates, I'd be glad to talk.

Margaret Sigel is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) in Santa Monica, California, specializing in somatic therapy for anxiety, trauma, and burnout. She works with adults in person and online throughout California.