Menopause is a life chapter often shrouded in silence, stigma, and misconceptions – but it doesn’t have to be. Gerontologist, biohacker, and world traveler Zora Benhamou draws on science, lived experience, and global perspective to reframe what this transition can look like: empowering, individualized, and full of possibility.
When Science Meets Experience
1. You have a Master’s in Gerontology, you’ve studied aging from biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives, and then you hit your own perimenopause. What did that personal experience teach you that science alone never could?
At the time I was going through it, I didn’t even know what perimenopause was. I’m 55 now and much more educated about menopause, so when I look back, it’s clear that many of the symptoms I experienced were related to fluctuating or declining hormones.
One thing I’ve learned is that you can study something in a textbook and intellectually understand it, but it’s completely different to live through it. Personal experience changes the way you understand the science.
In my case, I actually had a relatively smooth transition into menopause. Because of that, I know I’ll never fully understand what it feels like for women who are dealing with severe symptoms without support or guidance. I can empathize with them, but lived experience is powerful, and sometimes it’s the greatest teacher.
What my experience has really reinforced, especially after speaking with hundreds and now thousands of women, is that menopause is incredibly individual. There are patterns and common symptoms, of course, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Menopause isn’t just about hormone loss or hormone fluctuation. It’s also about a woman’s lived experience, her health history, stress levels, lifestyle, and environment. It’s that combination of biology and life experience that makes this transition so unique for every woman.
Suffering Is Optional
2. You’ve said, “menopause is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” That’s a radical reframe for a generation of women who were told to simply endure it. Where does that suffering actually come from? Is it biological, or is it the story we’ve been told?
The inspiration actually comes from a quote by Japanese author Haruki Murakami in his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He wrote, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” He was talking about running, that physical discomfort is unavoidable, but how much we mentally suffer because of it is partly a choice.
I adapted that idea to both aging and menopause because I see so many women suffering through this transition, sometimes unnecessarily.
There is absolutely a biological component. Hormones fluctuate and decline, and that can affect everything from sleep to mood to metabolism. But a large part of the suffering also comes from a lack of preparation, information, and support.
For many women in previous generations, menopause was something you just “white-knuckled” your way through. Our mothers and grandmothers often had few options, or they were told the only “virtuous” way to go through it was naturally. There’s no judgment there, that was the culture and the medical understanding of the time.
The problem is that because it wasn’t talked about openly, the next generation wasn’t prepared either. Many women today still enter perimenopause without knowing what’s happening to their bodies.
What’s different now is that we actually have choices. Science has evolved, hormone therapy has been re-evaluated, we understand much more about lifestyle, nutrition, sleep, and strength training. And we have access to information and communities that didn’t exist before.
So menopause itself is inevitable. No matter how healthy we try to be, the hormones are leaving. But the level of suffering women experience can often be reduced when they’re informed, supported, and given options.
The Cost of Medical Silence
3. There are over 103 documented symptoms of menopause, yet most women only know five or six. Why has medicine failed so spectacularly to educate women about their own bodies, and what does that silence cost them?
You’ll see different numbers depending on the source, anywhere from about 30 to over 100 symptoms associated with menopause. But it’s important to say that not every symptom a woman experiences in midlife is necessarily caused by menopause. Many things overlap.
That said, what’s concerning is that the obvious clues, the low-hanging fruit, are often missed. A woman may come in with sleep problems, anxiety, mood changes, joint pain, or brain fog, and instead of looking at the hormonal transition happening in midlife, she’s often immediately prescribed antidepressants, sleep medications, or other treatments that address the symptom but not the root cause. And often coming at a cost of side effects.
One of the big reasons for this is education. Historically, menopause simply wasn’t a meaningful part of medical school training. Many physicians received very little instruction on how to recognize or treat women through the menopause transition.
Then in 2002, everything became even more complicated when the Women’s Health Initiative study was halted early and widely reported as showing that hormone therapy caused cancer. The message that reached the public and the medical community was essentially: hormones are dangerous.
Later analyses showed that the story was much more nuanced and hormones are safe, and beneficial for most women. The population studied, the age of the women, and the type of hormones used all mattered. But by then, the damage had largely been done. Research slowed, many doctors stopped prescribing hormone therapy, and an entire generation of women was left without guidance.
So for roughly the past two decades, many women were told to simply endure menopause. Meanwhile, estrogen loss was quietly affecting their bones, cardiovascular system, brain, and metabolism.
The cost of that silence is significant. Millions of women missed the opportunity to receive accurate information, appropriate treatments, and lifestyle guidance during a critical window of time. In some cases, when we talk about bone loss or cardiovascular health, that window matters.
The good news is that the conversation is finally changing. Research is accelerating again, clinicians are becoming better educated, and women themselves are demanding answers about their health.
Biohacking Beyond Conventional Medicine
4. You’re a gerontologist who is also a biohacker, combining cutting-edge science with ancient wisdom. What does that combination unlock for women over 40 that conventional medicine simply isn’t offering them?
The reality is that conventional medicine is constrained. The average doctor has about 15 minutes per patient, and in that amount of time it’s very difficult to truly educate a woman about what’s happening in her body during the menopause transition.
What the biohacking approach does is shift some of that power back to the individual. As medicine and technology evolve, we now have access to tools that used to be limited to clinics or research labs. Women can learn about their biology, track their health data, order certain labs from home, and educate themselves in ways that simply weren’t possible a generation ago.
Doctors are still incredibly important, but they’re no longer the only gatekeepers of health information. We now have access to research, emerging therapies, new technologies, and even AI tools that can help us understand our data and ask better questions. That allows women to become active participants in their health rather than passive recipients of care.
That said, taking charge of your health does require effort. It means becoming more health-literate, understanding your own biology, sometimes experimenting responsibly with lifestyle changes, and occasionally challenging or collaborating more deeply with your doctor.
But the foundation of biohacking is actually quite simple and mostly free. It starts with the fundamentals: good nutrition, appropriate strength training and movement, managing stress, prioritizing sleep, and cultivating strong social connections and purpose.
Those basics are incredibly powerful, especially for women over 40. Once those foundations are in place, then depending on someone’s resources and curiosity, they can explore more advanced tools and therapies.
But it always starts with the foundations. And those are available to almost everyone.
Possibility Has No Age Limit
5. You’re 55, a digital nomad who has lived in 8 countries, traveled to over 50, speaks 7 languages, and kept moving even through two hip surgeries. What does that life say about what’s actually possible in this chapter, and what excuses does it quietly dismantle?
In life we all encounter barriers and walls. But I don’t believe those walls are there to stop us. They’re there to reveal how much we truly want something.
If you want something badly enough, you usually find a way around the wall, over it, under it, or through it. You adapt. You problem solve.
For me, that meant continuing to travel, learn languages, and explore the world, even while going through major challenges. That lifestyle brings me joy. But the point isn’t that everyone should live the way I do.
Some people love travel and novelty. Others feel happiest staying rooted in one place. There’s no right or wrong way to live, and certainly no moral judgment attached to either choice.
What my life really shows is that possibility doesn’t suddenly disappear after 40 or 50. We often internalize the idea that this stage of life is about slowing down or shrinking our world, but that’s not necessarily true.
In many ways, this chapter can be incredibly expansive. You have more wisdom, more self-awareness, and often a clearer sense of what actually matters to you.
So it’s less about dismantling specific excuses and more about recognizing that the limits we assume are often self-imposed. If something truly matters to you, you’ll usually find a way to move toward it.
And if it doesn’t matter enough, you’ll find a reason not to.
Both are choices.
Your Menopause Five
6. You talk about the importance of finding your “menopause five,” the people who support you through this transition. How much of how a woman experiences menopause comes down to who she’s surrounded by, and what she believes about herself?
Hormones absolutely drive the biological transition of menopause, but they’re not the whole story. Research shows that psychosocial factors can account for roughly 20 to 30 percent of the variation in menopause symptoms. Things like stress levels, social support, cultural beliefs, and how a woman perceives herself can significantly influence how intense symptoms feel. Crazy, huh?
For example, stress from your environment can amplify symptoms like hot flashes, sleep problems, and mood changes. On the other hand, strong social support and a positive outlook can help buffer those same symptoms.
So while biology sets the stage, the surroundings we live in and the beliefs we hold about ourselves can either make the experience harder or easier.
That’s why I often talk about building your “menopause five”, the five people around you who support you, understand what you’re going through, and lift you up rather than dismiss what you’re experiencing.
There’s a well-known idea that we tend to become the average of the five people we spend the most time with. If those people are optimistic, curious, and supportive, that mindset tends to rub off on us.
So yes, we need to support ourselves through this transition, but we should also be intentional about the people we surround ourselves with. The right environment and the right community can make a surprisingly powerful difference in how we experience menopause.
Showing Up Unapologetically
7. You’ve made it your mission to disrupt ageist stereotypes, particularly on social media, where youth is the dominant currency. What does it take to show up visibly, unapologetically, and defiantly at 55?
First of all, I love the way you put that, youth really is the dominant currency on social media.
The truth is, the ability to show up unapologetically exists on a spectrum. For some people it comes naturally. They’ve always been confident or a little rebellious. For others it takes much more inner work.
What I’ve found is that the more you know yourself, the easier it becomes. When you understand your values, what matters to you, and what doesn’t, you stop performing for other people’s expectations.
And the other piece, as cliché as it may sound, is self-acceptance. The more comfortable you are with who you are, your age, your story, your body, the less power those outside judgments have over you.
By the time many women reach their 50s, something interesting happens. The pressure to please everyone starts to fade…for some, not all. You realize how precious time is, and you become much less willing to waste it shrinking yourself.
So showing up unapologetically at 55 isn’t really about defiance. It’s about clarity. You know who you are, and you’re no longer asking permission to live fully.
What Culture Teaches About Aging
8. You’ve studied how different cultures around the world experience and perceive menopause. What has traveling to 50+ countries taught you about the relationship between how a society values older women and how those women actually feel?
One of the most interesting things I’ve seen traveling and studying aging across cultures is how strongly society’s attitudes toward older women shape how those women feel about themselves.
When a culture values older adults, women tend to carry themselves with more confidence and dignity. They often feel that they still have a meaningful role, whether that’s as mentors, matriarchs, caregivers, or keepers of knowledge. That sense of purpose and respect supports emotional well-being as they age and as they move through the menopause transition.
In cultures where aging is viewed negatively, especially where youth is idealized, the opposite tends to happen. Women can begin to feel invisible or undervalued. Around 75 percent of older women report feeling overlooked by men, and about 60 percent feel that society strongly favors youth over age.
When ageism combines with sexism, it can increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and social isolation. Research also shows that negative beliefs about aging can actually predict worse mental health outcomes later in life.
So the cultural lens matters a lot. The more a society respects and values older women, the more likely those women are to feel confident, capable, and empowered as they age.
Unfortunately, many modern societies still struggle with this. That’s why it’s so important to challenge ageist stereotypes, not just for women but for men as well.
At the same time, strong social relationships can make a huge difference. Supportive communities, friendships, and family connections can boost self-esteem and help women push back against negative cultural messages.
Ultimately, when we value the contributions, wisdom, and experience of older women, we create an environment where aging becomes something to grow into, not something to fear.
Midlife Is a Window of Opportunity
9. A woman in her 40s or 50s+ is rewriting what this season of life looks like on her terms. From a gerontologist’s perspective, what does the science actually say about what’s possible for her body, mind, and vitality right now?
From a gerontologist’s perspective, the science is actually very encouraging. At almost any age, women can significantly improve their healthspan, meaning the number of years they live with vitality and minimal disease.
For a long time, many of the changes that happen in midlife were considered inevitable. But research now shows that many of these “natural” declines can be slowed, offset, and sometimes even reversed with the right interventions.
For example, we know that muscle mass begins to decline by roughly 1 percent per year starting around age 40. Bone density also peaks in our 30s, and both muscle and bone loss can accelerate during perimenopause due to declining and fluctuating estrogen levels.
But the exciting part is that these systems are highly responsive to lifestyle interventions. Resistance training and impact-based exercise have been shown to increase bone mineral density in areas like the lumbar spine, femoral neck, and hip in postmenopausal women, while also building muscle, strength, and power.
We also see strong connections between body composition and brain health. Higher muscle mass and lower visceral fat are associated with better metabolic health and even younger brain-age markers.
Hormone therapy, when appropriate and individualized, can also support bone remodeling, muscle, motivation and help reduce some of the biological aging discrepancies that occur during the menopause transition.
So the message from the science is very clear: midlife is not the beginning of decline. It’s actually a powerful window of opportunity. With the right strategies, women can build strength, protect their brains and bones, and set themselves up for decades of vitality ahead.
Changing the Narrative Around Aging
10. If you could change one thing about how the world talks to women about getting older, just one, what would it be
If I had to choose just one thing (gosh that’s hard!), it would be this: that women are no longer valued primarily for their youth or their ability to reproduce.
For centuries, a woman’s worth has been tied to those two things. Once those phases pass, society often treats her as though she’s fading into the background. That narrative is incredibly limiting and deeply ageist.
The reality is that midlife and beyond is when many women are at the peak of their wisdom, experience, and capability. By this stage, they’ve spent decades solving problems, building families or careers, supporting communities, and reinventing themselves multiple times.
Ageism is one of the few forms of bias we still casually accept. Even small comments reveal it. When someone says, “You look great for your age,” it’s meant as a compliment, but it still frames aging as something negative.
Imagine if instead we simply said, “You look great.” Period. And beyond appearance, we started valuing women for their intelligence, resilience, empathy, leadership, and the ability to get things done.
When we change that narrative, we’re not just supporting older women today. We’re also shaping how we treat our future selves.
Because if we’re lucky, we will all grow old. Aging is not a failure. It’s a privilege that not everyone gets to experience.