Midlife Overwhelm: 5 Simple Ways to Cut Through the Noise

There was a time when I couldn’t decide which cereal to buy. Not a life-changing decision. Just cereal.

If you’re a midlife woman who has walked into a room and forgotten why, or found your glasses case in the fridge (guilty), you might recognise that feeling. Midlife overwhelm isn’t a character flaw. A lot of it is noise: other people’s expectations, endless advice, a mind that won’t switch off, and hormones doing their own thing.

In November 2025, in what Kate Porter called one of the loudest weeks of the year (hello, Bonfire Night), I joined her on the Midlife Unlimited podcast to talk about how to cut through the noise as a midlife woman. Here’s what I’d still tell you over a cuppa.

[Or listen to the Spotify episode here.]

My own noise

I’ve always loved working with people. I started in a clothes shop, spent over a decade in banking customer service, then worked as a teaching assistant for about ten years. A lifelong bookworm, I then trained as a book editor.

In my own midlife, it all came to a head. Menopause symptoms arrived with ocular migraines that took my sight for an hour at a time, and I was crying at adverts. I couldn’t make simple decisions, which is where the cereal comes in. I had to cut my hours and take on fewer clients. My GP started me on antidepressants and later HRT. Both took the edge off, and I was grateful for that. What I wanted was to understand what was going on underneath. That curiosity led me to breathwork.

1. Spot the noise that isn’t yours

Many of our regrets, I find, come from expectations that were put on us. Perhaps they came from family, from the generations before us, or from a society that tries to mould us into the “perfect” woman. We squeeze ourselves into spaces about who we’re supposed to be, what we’re supposed to want and what the journey is supposed to look like.

For me, menopause turned out to be liberating. I could finally say, “Bollocks to that.” Midlife isn’t about becoming a different person. It’s remembering who you’ve always been underneath all the noise.

You might also notice that “coming home to yourself” means something different in every decade. I wrote more about asking whose beliefs you’re carrying in my post on breathwork for personal growth.

2. Midlife overwhelm: take 60 seconds to notice your breath

This is something I use constantly, and I led Kate through it live on the podcast. There’s no technique. You simply notice.

If it feels comfortable, close your eyes. Then, without changing anything, you might notice:

• Is your breath coming through your nose or your mouth?
• Is the air a different temperature on the way out?
• Does the breath reach your belly, or stay in your chest?
• Is it quick or slow, shallow or deep?

You may find your breathing slows by itself. You might notice tension in your shoulders or jaw softening. That’s it. Sixty seconds of bringing your awareness back to your amazing, unique body. If it doesn’t feel comfortable to close your eyes, soften your gaze instead.

3. Calm your body before you take the course

I have files and files of courses I’ve been on, all promising the world. Gold mines of information. Did I implement them? No, because my nervous system wasn’t in the right place to take any of it in. I was standing in my own way, and I’d bet I’m not the only one.

When we’re in a heightened stress state, the body is flooded with chemicals that make logical thinking and decision-making harder. That’s why midlife overwhelm and indecision so often arrive together. A calmer body doesn’t do the work for you. It gets you ready to. I’ve written about why this matters in why “just relax” is the worst advice.

The good news is that breathing techniques are tools you keep. Once you’ve got them, you’ve got them.

4. Keep the words that fit and bin the rest

“Find your inner goddess” can leave a perfectly capable woman feeling like she’s failing. When you’re just trying to get out of bed, or you’ve lost your phone (it’s in the fridge, of course), a goddess can seem a very long way off. Kate and I agreed it can slide into comparison, and into a new set of boxes to tick. It’s not all stars and fluffy unicorns.

Words only mean what we make them mean. Kate told me “hot” used to mean hot flushes to her, and now it brings to mind tropical beaches. I’ve done something similar with “woo-woo”. It began as a put-down, so I’ve taken it on and made it my own. Plenty of people feel safer with it than with “pagan”, and I’ve been walking a pagan path since the nineties.

If a word makes you feel smaller, you can leave it behind. My midlife mantra at the moment is “no permission needed”. I spent years shrinking, people-pleasing and apologising when someone bumped into me. Perhaps it’s time for you to try that on too.

5. Follow the season: it’s okay to slow down

As we move into November, nature is doing what it always does. There’s a time to grow, a time to harvest and a time to sleep and rest. Farmers used to leave fields fallow, because a field that’s asked to produce all the time wears out. We don’t often give ourselves that same permission.

My granddad was a keen gardener, and this was the time he’d pull out the seed catalogues and plan next year’s garden. You could do the same with your year. What worked well? What didn’t? What would you like to try next? Think of it as crop rotation for your life.

Or simply sit in a park with your phone away and listen to the birds and the breeze in the trees. Slowing down is allowed, and so is the guilt that tries to creep in. You can notice it without letting it drive.

A word on willingness

None of this asks you to be fearless. It asks for a bit of willingness: to feel comfortable being uncomfortable, and to step out of your comfort zone a little at a time. Butterflies in your stomach can be nerves or excitement, and how we read them is a choice. Kate calls it feeling “nervous-cited”, and I love that.

If you’d like help with midlife overwhelm

If this stirred something, there are a few ways in:

• Go deeper: Breathwork for Wellness is two months of one-to-one work, online or in Salisbury, with WhatsApp support between sessions. We start with functional breathing and build a personal practice you keep. Book a free suitability call and we’ll talk it through.
• Start with a free five days: my email course, Awaken Your Inner Magic, brings you one simple breathwork practice each morning, 10–15 minutes at most.
• If you’re near Salisbury: come along to a Breathwork Circle and see how it feels in your own body.

No pressure, just an open door. 💜

A big thank you to Kate for such a fun, honest conversation.

You can listen to the full episode on Spotify and find more episodes at Midlife Unlimited.

Which of these five would help you most right now? I’d love to hear in the comments.