(Beena Nadeem/ Good Housekeeping) — By the time she was in her late thirties, Lauren Chiren was a senior executive of a global financial services firm, overseeing male-dominated teams. Almost overnight, her confidence levels plummeted – unbeknown to her, she was going through the symptoms of early menopause.
“I stopped sleeping and was worrying about my performance. I was forgetting simple words like ‘plan’ even though a lot of my job was about planning,” she said.
After months off work, she left altogether. “I thought I had early dementia and pictured myself in a home while someone else brought up my son.”
Like Lauren, countless others are going through the same sort of menopause symptoms every day – often with little support at work. Fewer than 5% of UK businesses offer a dedicated menopause policy while 59% of people experiencing menopausal symptoms say it negatively affects their work. Menopause can affect confidence, ambition, and career progression, yet those issues are seldom talked about. (…)