The Command Centre: Brain. Sleep. Stress.

No, you're not losing your mind . The forgetfulness, the brain fog, the word you can’t quite find. It’s not decline. It’s just your brain adapting to everything hormones, sleep loss, and life throw at it.

Forgotten names. Missing words. Walking into a room and forgetting why. Reading the same paragraph twice. Moments that are so common they’re almost a punchline among women my age (48), yet they’re unsettling all the same.

For decades we’ve interpreted these experiences as personal failings. We’re stressed. We’re overwhelmed. Anxious. Bad at multitasking. Burning out. Getting older. As the daughter of a mother in the late stages of dementia, I’ve often wondered whether these moments are simply part of life, or the beginning of something much bigger.

But increasingly, neuroscience suggests we’ve been looking at our brains all wrong.

What if many of those “brain lapses” aren’t signs of not coping or decline, but evidence that our brains are doing exactly what they’re evolved to do: respond to the extraordinary biological transitions that shape a woman’s life?

The female brain is one of the most hormonally responsive organs in the body. It doesn’t simply sit above the neck issuing commands. It’s in constant conversation with the rest of the body, responding to puberty, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and everything that follows.

When major hormonal shifts and prolonged stress hit, they don’t just overwhelm us, they reshape our neural circuits.

“Cortisol isn’t a bad hormone, it’s a survival hormone,” says naturopath Alessia Cantale. “It’s designed to help us respond to stress and navigate challenges. The problem is that many women are living with chronic stress, keeping cortisol elevated for far longer than it was ever designed to be.”

Over time, that can influence everything from mood and memory to sleep, attention, motivation and the way the brain produces energy, adding another layer to the cognitive changes many women experience.

At Monash University’s HER Centre Australia, the work of Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM and Associate Professor Caroline Gurvich is helping redefine how we understand the relationship between reproductive hormones, mental health and cognition.

Their research explores how hormonal fluctuations can influence attention, memory, mood and executive function across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause, helping explain why symptoms such as brain fog and anxiety have a biological basis rather than reflecting failures of resilience or willpower.

(Importantly, adaptation doesn’t mean every experience is normal or should simply be endured. For most women, these everyday lapses are not early dementia; they’re far more likely to reflect the complex interplay of hormones, stress, sleep and the brain’s remarkable capacity to adapt. Everyday forgetfulness and hormonally driven cognitive changes are not the same as dementia. But persistent, progressive or severe cognitive changes, or symptoms that interfere with daily life, should always be discussed with a healthcare professional.)

So, let’s meet your brain.

First, it learns, pruning millions of neural connections through adolescence as it prepares you for adulthood.

Then it adapts. Unlike many organs, your brain is constantly remodelling itself. Scientists call it neuroplasticity: the ability to form new connections, strengthen existing ones and adapt in response to experience.

We tend to think of this as something unique to children, but neuroplasticity continues into adulthood. The decisions you make in your twenties and thirties aren’t simply shaping your present. They’re building the brain you’ll rely on decades from now.

During pregnancy, it overachieves, rewiring itself in ways scientists are only beginning to understand (see Welcome to Matrescence). Until recently scientists hadn’t watched a woman’s brain transform through pregnancy in real time. Then neuroscientist Dr Emily Jacobs helped change that. In what became the first precision

Imaging study[3] of its time, one volunteer underwent 26 MRI scans from before conception through pregnancy and into the postpartum months. What emerged wasn’t a static organ but one in constant conversation with hormones, rewiring, reorganising and adapting week by week. Then during perimenopause and menopause it recalibrates again, responding to one of the most significant hormonal transitions of adult life. Talk about adaptation.

A woman may feel her cognitive gears grinding to a halt under the weight of such major hormonal shifts, but what we’re witnessing is a brain under construction, navigating a complex biological migration. And honestly, it’s high time we started treating it that way.

Researchers call the brain’s ability to compensate for ageing and disease by developing richer, more resilient neural networks over time cognitive reserve. It’s one reason education, learning new skills, regular exercise, quality sleep, social connection, managing chronic stress and good nutrition are all associated with healthier cognitive ageing. You’re not waiting until seventy to think about your brain. You’re already building it. Every walk, every good night’s sleep, every conversation, every new skill, every meal is helping build the brain you’ll rely on decades from now.

My mother has taught me many things. One of those I didn’t realise at the time was what an extraordinary brain looks like. It carried her through childhood. Love. Work. Motherhood. Grief. Joy. Decades of change. Millions upon millions of tiny adaptations that allowed her to keep becoming herself. Dementia doesn’t erase that story. It simply reminds us how remarkable the healthy brain was to begin with.

Mine may forget the odd word. It may lose my car in a shopping centre. It may occasionally leave me standing in a room wondering why I walked in there. But perhaps that’s no longer the story I’ll tell myself. Because the more neuroscience discovers about women’s brains, the less I believe mine has been failing me.

I think it’s been adapting all along.

Reviewed by healthcare practitioner Alessia Cantale