Ever Wondered How Long Menopause Lasts? Here's Your Answer

I was recently asked what seemed at first glance to be a rhetorical question: "How long does menopause last?" My immediate instinct was to blurt out, “Once you're in menopause, you're in it for the rest of your life. There is no exit strategy!" But then I paused and realized that there are multiple interpretations of that question, revolving around one’s interpretation of what it means to go through or to be in "menopause."

Words matter. They can deliver powerful messages, or they can oversimplify and give an inaccurate sense of the situation. Here is my powerful pronouncement: The word menopause is a poorly chosen word for this female process. We should banish it forever and replace it with a word or a phrase that signifies what menopause really means to women.

But before I go further down the road of changing the English language, I probably should take a drink from the glass of realism and acknowledge that my wish to rename menopause isn’t likely to come to fruition anytime soon. So for now I will accept the word as it is and try to convey the true meaning of menopause while answering the question, "How long does menopause last?" The longer I thought about the question, one that I felt I could so flippantly answer at first, the more I came to see its complexity.

Menopause gives women little insight into the true significance of this major life event, mandated by nature to occur in the life of every single woman and having so much more meaning than the end of periods! Loss of the menstrual cycle is just the obvious manifestation of this whole-body event. Menopause, as you will shortly come to realize, involves the entire female body in a myriad of ways, which for reasons I cannot fathom, remains little appreciated by the medical world and not known at all by many women. But just as ignorance of the law is no excuse, so, too, ignorance of the laws of nature doesn’t mean that you will not be affected by them.

Now I’m going to shatter your preconceived notions of menopause and what it means to go through it, before I finally tell you how long it lasts. The very big take-home message from me to you is that menopause, with its loss of fertility and the monthly bleeding cycle, also has huge implications affecting virtually every aspect of a female’s body and her overall health and well-being. Menopause is a universal health challenge for all women. This may come as quite a surprise because not many people are talking about the enormity of the impact, but regardless of what is generally being said, it is without a doubt the truth. Menopause is a huge thing all women have to confront because the reproductive processes of the female body are intricately interconnected to the health and function of the entire female body. This is especially true when it comes to metabolic health.

Pregnancy requires enormous amounts of energy to be a success. It requires a healthy metabolic state for a healthy baby to be produced, delivered, and ultimately raised. Nature only wants success, so it puts obstacles in the path of women who aren’t healthy enough to deliver and care for a healthy baby. To accomplish this, nature shuts down or alters the lunar menstrual cycle to lower the chance of fertility. It's something of a fail-safe system designed to protect the woman. If she can’t reproduce now, hopefully in the future she will be able to do so safely and successfully.

And as a technicality, one’s final period is when the official clock starts ticking down the time. Officially, you’ve arrived at what has been labeled menopause after you’ve had no periods for a total of 12 months. But does that definition even matter? Menopause must be looked at far differently than that simplistic definition would imply. Menopause does involve the end of our cycles, but now you’re realizing that menopause, and the loss of estrogen, can itself be looked at as a vital sign of metabolic state.

Estrogen receptors reside virtually everywhere within our female bodies, in every nook and cranny of our organs. Some organs—like the brain, fat tissue, the uterus, the intestinal tract, the lungs, and the breasts—love estrogen so much, they can even make their own supply. And to some degree, it is the production of estrogen in these other organs that keep us going postmenopause. That being said, they simply don’t produce enough of the right type of estrogen to make up for the great loss we face as our ovaries cease production. Menopause is a universal truth for women, but if we take some positive steps to optimize our health, we can thrive despite this metabolic "hit."

If I had my way, I’d banish the word menopause and call it what it is, the ever so gradual, lifelong process of ovarian senescence, with our master hormone, estrogen, fading out into the distance, softly but with great impact. I love estrogen and miss very much the fact that my ovaries long ago ceased making it. But I, like you, cope with this inevitability of female existence and look forward to sharing much more with you in the future, now that you’re ready to move on from the question of "How long does menopause last?" to bigger and better questions, such as "What natural remedies can help me ease the transition?"

So whatever words are thrown your way—perimenopause, menopausal transition, change of life, menopause, postmenopause—see them for what they are—label creations for the gradual and inevitable process of ovarian aging and loss of estrogen production. And despite the fact that estrogen is our master hormone, losing it doesn't have to mean losing our life force, happiness, energy, and good health. As strong women, we will prevail over the bump in the road known as "menopause."