Medical literature produced up through the 1800s very seldom even mentioned menopause. When it did, it almost never referred to menopause as symptomatic or as a hardship that required a doctor’s care. Hot flashes and heart palpitations were practically nonexistent. That all changed in the modern era, around 1950.

Women born from 1900 on were the first ones to experience night sweats, hot flashes, fatigue, panic attacks, anxiety, hair thinning, and joint pain when they reached a certain age. In the middle of the 20th century, a tidal wave of women ages 40 to 55 were visiting their doctors with these symptoms—and doctors didn’t know what to think. Behold, mystery illness and the autoimmune confusion were born.

Medical professionals had never been so bewildered. Physicians reported the epidemic to pharmaceutical companies, and at first, the consensus was that it was all in women’s heads—it was just crazy women syndrome. They had to be making up their symptoms, because otherwise it made no sense. It was all a cry for attention, a sign they were bored. World War II had recently ended. The thought was that the war had kept women so busy with worry, hard work, and taking care of their families while many men were away that now, women were reacting to having less to do. Women were told to join the PTA. Yet through the 1950s, the wave of women experiencing memory issues, trouble concentrating, moodiness, weight gain, dizziness, and more grew larger.

The pharmaceutical companies and doctors consulted again and decided that the one thing these women had in common was their age. The medical establishment decided the cause must be hormones—even though men were experiencing the same symptoms at the same time. Plenty of men were having hot flashes; they were just labeled “work sweat” (even if a man wasn’t working when an episode hit) or “nervous sweat.” Men dealt with other “menopause” symptoms as well—depression, growing waistlines, and forgetfulness, to name just a few. It didn’t make news, though, because this was an era when men were taught to be stoic.

The responsibility of being the breadwinners weighed heavily, so out of fear of losing their careers, they concealed their private physical issues. Right away, a pharmaceutical company pursuit to exploit women and capitalize on the false discovery of female hormonal issues was born. By the late 1950s, the news was widespread that women must be suffering from hormone deficiencies. As the notion of this “women’s issue” gained popularity, men felt even more pressure to keep quiet about their parallel symptoms.

Women had faced plenty of difficulties leading up to this point. They’d been oppressed and told to suppress emotions, and only in recent history had they gained the right to vote—to count as human beings. In the middle of the century, they still felt like they were fighting to have a voice. It was easy to take advantage of women by making them feel heard. Doctors were baffled by women’s mystery symptoms, but at least, finally, the doctors believed them. So even though medicine had gone in the wrong direction looking for answers, the theories were celebrated because they gave a name to women’s health struggles. It was a well-intentioned effort by doctors. To this day, doctors operate off this hormonal misinformation. Countless women hear that hormonal imbalance or menopause is behind their suffering.

It’s not. Menopause is actually on your side. Believe it or not, the aging process slows down after menopause. That’s not the message that’s out there. Women think of menopause as the onset of aging and age-related health problems—when in fact it’s just the opposite. A woman’s most rapid aging happens between puberty and menopause. That’s because reproductive hormones can be steroid compounds that speed up the aging process. This time between puberty and menopause is also when the menstrual cycle is occurring, both menstruation and ovulation, the immune system shifts from other areas of the body to focus more on the reproductive system. This happens at pregnancy and childbirth, too.

That regular lowering of the overall immune system, while it serves a greater purpose, can create opportunities for the pathogens behind chronic illness to take hold. By reducing a woman’s levels of estrogen and progesterone (which signal these immune system shifts related to the menstrual cycle), menopause helps safeguard her from cancers, viruses, and bacteria.

Menopause and life after menopause aren’t anything to dread. Menopause itself isn’t meant to be a difficult physical process, and the wave of younger women who’ve begun to experience symptoms categorized as hormonal aren’t going through early menopause.

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