“Is this just my age?”
I hear it in the clinic almost every week. A woman sits across from me, and somewhere in the conversation, she’ll say it — half question, half apology. As if getting older is something she should quietly accept the consequences of. Or they have been told by their GP or other specialist…
Here’s what I want to say to her, and to you: I don’t buy it.
I’ve had clients in their twenties who feel like they’re eighty — flat, foggy, running on empty before nine in the morning. And I’ve had clients in their eighties who are still on the tennis court, still walking the golf course, still doing Pilates twice a week, still volunteering, still sharp as a tack. Age was never the deciding factor for either of them.
What actually changes with age — and what doesn’t
There are real, expected physiological shifts that come with time. Hormone production changes shape. Muscle mass naturally declines if we don’t actively work to maintain it.
Recovery from exertion can take a little longer than it once did. These are genuine, well-documented changes, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But there’s a big difference between gentle, expected change and what I actually hear across the desk from me. You’re losing a word mid-sentence and laughing it off as “early dementia” while privately it unsettles you. You used to be the one everyone leaned on, and lately you can’t work out how you managed it before — let alone how to keep managing it now. You’re gaining weight without changing a thing. You’re waking at 3am for no reason you can point to. And somewhere underneath all of it, there’s a quiet, nagging question: where did I go?
None of that is a toll you pay for turning 40, or 45, or 55. It’s a signal. And a signal is worth listening to, not filing under “ageing” and moving on.
What happens if you file it under “age” anyway
I understand the pull to do that. Life is full. There’s a partner, kids, ageing parents, a job, and a house to run — and your own symptoms sit at the bottom of a very long list. “I’ll look into it when things settle down” feels like a reasonable plan.
Here’s the part I need to be honest with you about: your body has usually been compensating for far longer than you realise before it asks you to notice. That’s why it can feel sudden — “six months ago I was fine” — when really, something has been quietly adapting and adjusting for a lot longer than six months. Left alone, that compensation doesn’t tend to reverse itself. It tends to ask more of you, not less.
That’s not meant to alarm you. It’s meant to explain why “wait and see” so rarely turns into “and then it resolved on its own.”
Why the same symptom can mean two different things
This is the part that gets missed in almost every generic health article — including, I’ll admit, some of mine.
Two women can walk into my clinic with the exact same complaint. Both exhausted by 3pm. Both struggling to fall asleep, or struggling to stay asleep. Both convinced it’s “just where I’m at now.”
And the reasons behind it can be completely different. For one, it might be a nervous system that’s been running on high alert for so long it’s forgotten how to switch off. For another, it might be a blood sugar pattern that’s quietly wearing down her energy all day. For someone else again, it could be a digestive system that isn’t absorbing what she needs, no matter how well she’s eating.
Same symptom. Different body. Different story. Which is exactly why I can’t hand you a single answer in a blog article — and why I’d be doing you a disservice if I tried.
What I’d rather you believe instead
Your body and mind have an extraordinary capacity to adapt — to what’s asked of them, to what they’re given, and honestly, to what you believe about yourself. I’ve watched it happen in both directions, over nearly thirty years of clinical practice. Clients who assumed they were “just getting older” and settled into it. And clients who decided their symptoms weren’t a life sentence, went looking for the real reason, and got their energy — and themselves — back.
Age isn’t the excuse. It never really was.
Why I look at the whole picture, not just the age on your file
I’m a naturopath and a biochemist — one of the few in Australia trained formally in both — which means when a client sits down with me, I’m not just asking what’s wrong. I’m looking at what’s actually happening in your body: your nervous system, your blood sugar regulation, your digestion, your hormones, and how all of it is interacting to produce exactly what you’re feeling right now. That’s the piece a single symptom, or a single “normal” test result, can never show on its own.
What to do next
If you’ve read this and recognised more than one piece of yourself, that’s worth paying attention to — not worth waiting on. In an appointment, we sit down together and look at your whole picture: what’s changed, what your body’s been carrying, your history, and the patterns connecting your symptoms. From there, we work out what’s actually driving this for you, specifically — not for “women your age” in general.
Warmly,
Teressa,
Naturopath | Clinical Nutritionist | Biochemist
