Laura Biggs, Menopause Activist

The best thing about the menopause

It’s given me a whole new chapter, one I never expected but wouldn’t change for the world.

I’ve spent most of my career in the events industry. I sold my consumer events business in 2019 but retained The Fertility Show which we had to move online when covid struck in 2020. At the same time I was 47 and pregnant (a story in itself!), and almost as soon as I had my daughter, I was plunged into perimenopause. The hormones literally left the building.

Fast forward to mid-2020 lockdown, the strangest time ever. I realised that if I was struggling, so many others must be too. So, we launched Let’s All Talk Menopause. Online webinars, which eventually led me to meet Mariella Frostrup and, soon after, launch Menopause Mandate. What started as a campaign group has now become a movement keeping menopause high on the political and media agenda.

The hardest thing about the menopause is…

The never-ending symptoms, just when you think you’ve got one under control, another pops up. Do I increase my HRT? Change it? Add something else? But the hardest thing, without a doubt, has been the sleep or lack of it. There was a time last year when I would wake up at 2 am, convinced the world was ending. It drove me mad. Thankfully, I’m in a better place now, but I still have a bag full of HRT, supplements, and creams just to function in the morning.

And then there are the migraines – horrible three-day affairs. And the fact that I can’t tolerate alcohol anymore. I swear it feels like poison.

My lightbulb moment was…

There have been so many.

• Realising that HRT could help with the hideously heavy periods.
• Understanding that my never-ending PMT could actually be balanced.
• Figuring out that my anxiety around driving at night wasn’t something more sinister, it was my hormones.
• And the biggest one? Knowing that the lack of joy was real and that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

My self-care superhero is…

Yoga. I discovered it while pregnant and haven’t missed a week since. If I don’t go regularly, I feel out of sorts. It keeps me grounded, strong, and just for an hour, it lets me forget about the never-ending to-do list.

I couldn’t live without…

A walk in the park. I need green spaces whether I’m walking or running, it resets me. I’m lucky to live near Bushy Park, one of London’s biggest and most beautiful Royal Parks (and, thankfully, one of the least crowded!). My dog, Doris, loves it too. She’s 70 in dog years but still runs and  jumps in the water like she’s 20.

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