The real reasons you feel more tired, hungrier, less motivated and emotionally flat when the seasons change — and why the answer might be simpler than you think.
Can I ask you something?
When did we all agree to feel exactly the same in every season?
Same energy in July as in January. Same appetite, same drive, same output, same body — regardless of whether the sun sets at 5pm or 8pm, regardless of whether we wake in pitch dark or in golden morning light.
Nobody signed up for that.
But somehow, that became the standard we hold ourselves to.
And every winter, when the body inevitably pushes back, we interpret it as failure.
I want to offer you a different interpretation. One that is grounded in nearly 30 years of clinical practice and a deep respect for what the human body is actually doing when the seasons change.
What you are feeling in winter is not failure.
It is biology.
And the moment that distinction lands, everything shifts.
Does Any of This Sound Familiar?
Let’s start here, because I want you to feel seen before we get into the science.
As the days shorten and the temperature drops, do you notice:
- A tiredness that sleep doesn’t seem to fix
- Cravings for warm, starchy, comforting food that feel almost impossible to argue with
- Motivation that has quietly packed up and left
- A flatness to your mood — not quite sadness, but a kind of grey
- Less desire to socialise, exercise, or push yourself
- A sense that you are a completely different person in summer versus winter
- Guilt about all of the above
If you are nodding, I want you to know — you are not alone, and you are not broken. You are simply experiencing the collision between your biology and a world that does not account for it.
And that collision has a very clear physiological explanation.
You Are a Seasonal Creature…
Here is the foundational truth that I think changes everything:
Your body was never designed to be the same in every season.
For most of human history, life moved with the seasons.
Summer brought longer days, more movement, more light, more activity, more exposure.
Winter brought shorter days, earlier darkness, slower rhythms, more rest, more nourishment, more inward focus.
The body adapted to each, and behaviour followed accordingly.
Those adaptations did not disappear when we built houses with central heating and lit our evenings with screens.
They are running in you right now — in your hormones, your neurotransmitters, your sleep chemistry, your hunger signals, your circadian biology.
Every day, your body is reading the environment and adjusting itself in response.
The problem is not your biology. The problem is that we have built a world that demands the same performance from you year-round — and then left you to wonder what is wrong when your body refuses to comply.
Nature does not produce the same thing in every season. Why would you be any different?
Why GABA Drops in Midlife Women
This is where the biochemistry gets really interesting — and where it explains so much of what you’re experiencing.
1. Chronic Stress Depletes Your Natural GABA Production
When you’re under sustained stress — the relentless, low-grade kind that doesn’t end, not the dramatic kind — cortisol remains persistently elevated.
High cortisol directly inhibits GABA activity.
Your brain gets stuck in a state of high alert because the very chemistry that should be turning it off has been suppressed.
The cruel irony?
The more stressed you are, the less GABA you produce.
The less GABA you have, the harder it is to feel safe enough to rest.
The harder it is to rest, the more your stress hormones rise.
And round it goes.
2. Progesterone Is GABA’s Best Friend — and It’s Declining
This is the piece that makes perimenopause so physiologically brutal for so many women, yet almost never gets explained. Progesterone converts in the brain into a compound called allopregnanolone. Allopregnanolone is one of the most potent natural activators of GABA receptors in the body.
In simpler terms: your progesterone was quietly keeping your GABA system switched on.
As progesterone begins declining in perimenopause — often from the mid-to-late 30s, long before periods change — that GABA activation starts to fall away with it. The anxiety that seems to come from nowhere in your 40s. The sleep that was fine until suddenly it wasn’t. The sense that your emotional baseline has shifted.
This is a significant part of what’s driving it.
This is not a mental health issue.
This is a hormone neurotransmitter interaction that your body has relied on for decades, now changing.
3. Your Gut Microbiome Plays a Bigger Role Than You Think
A substantial amount of GABA is produced in the gut by specific strains of beneficial bacteria. When the gut microbiome is compromised — through antibiotic use, a processed diet, chronic stress, or digestive conditions — GABA production drops at its source.
This is one of the reasons I rarely look at anxiety, sleep issues, or nervous system dysregulation in isolation from gut function. The two systems are intimately connected through the gut-brain axis, and supporting one almost always requires addressing the other.
4. Blood Sugar Instability Hijacks Your Nervous System
When blood sugar drops — which happens with skipped meals, high-sugar diets, too much caffeine, or not enough protein — your adrenal glands release cortisol and adrenaline to compensate. This is your body’s emergency response.
The problem is, this emergency response feels identical to anxiety. Your heart rate rises, your thoughts race, your body tenses. And it further suppresses GABA activity, keeping your nervous system locked in high-alert mode.
It’s also why that mid-morning crash, the 3pm slump, and the desperate need for something sweet or starchy by evening aren’t about willpower. They’re your body trying to regulate blood sugar — and with it, your nervous system.
5. Magnesium and B6 Are the Building Blocks of GABA
GABA synthesis depends on specific nutrients — particularly magnesium and vitamin B6. These are also two of the nutrients most commonly depleted by chronic stress.
Magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body and is rapidly excreted during stress.
If you feel that your sleep, muscle tension, and anxiety worsened during a particularly stressful period, this is part of the reason. Your body was burning through its magnesium reserves.
Why You Reach for Wine, Chocolate, and Carbs at Night
This is one of the most important things I want you to understand, because so much unnecessary guilt gets attached to it.
Alcohol activates GABA receptors in the brain. That’s why it makes you feel temporarily calmer and more relaxed. Your body isn’t craving alcohol — it’s craving the GABA activation that alcohol temporarily provides.
Similarly, sugar and refined carbohydrates cause a rapid rise in blood glucose, which triggers a brief release of dopamine and temporarily quiets the stress response.
Chocolate contains compounds that interact with GABA and serotonin pathways. These are not random cravings. They are intelligent, if short-sighted, self-regulation attempts.
Your body is not sabotaging you.
It is trying to calm itself down with the fastest tools available to it.
The problem is that both alcohol and sugar ultimately worsen GABA function over time.
Alcohol disrupts sleep architecture, reduces GABA receptor sensitivity, and raises cortisol. Sugar destabilises blood glucose further, perpetuating the cycle.
The goal is never to shame yourself for these patterns. The goal is to address the underlying GABA deficit so the cravings naturally diminish — because they no longer need to be there.
Overstimulated, Reactive, and Running on Empty
One of the symptoms my clients describe most consistently — and find most distressing because it feels so out of character — is sensory and emotional overwhelm.
The noise that used to be background now feels unbearable.
The demands that were manageable now feel crushing.
The patience that came naturally is suddenly gone.
Sound familiar?
GABA has a critical role in filtering sensory input. When it’s low, your brain loses its ability to prioritise and quieten incoming stimulation. Everything gets through at full volume. You become reactive rather than responsive, not because you’re failing as a person, but because your neurobiology is no longer buffering you the way it used to.
The “tired but wired” state many describe — physically exhausted, yet unable to switch off — is a hallmark of high cortisol combined with low GABA.
Your body is screaming for rest. Your nervous system doesn’t know how to get there.
What Actually Helps: A Root Cause Approach
Let me be clear here: supplementing GABA directly offers limited benefit for some people. At this stage, research can’t confirm or deny whether GABA molecules can cross the blood-brain barrier.
The real work is in restoring the conditions your body needs to produce and use GABA properly.
Here is where I start with clients who present with this picture:
Support GABA production through nutrients
- Magnesium glycinate or threonate — highly bioavailable forms that support both GABA synthesis and sleep quality
- Vitamin B6 (especially the active form, P-5-P) — essential for the conversion of glutamate to GABA (It is essential to check your levels before taking this)
- L-theanine — an amino acid found in green tea that enhances GABA activity without sedation
- Taurine — acts as a GABA mimetic and supports nervous system calming
Address the cortisol/GABA relationship
- Regulating blood sugar is foundational — prioritise protein at every meal, reduce refined carbohydrates, don’t skip meals
- Adaptogenic herbs such as ashwagandha and holy basil can help modulate cortisol response
- Sleep quality is both a cause and a consequence — improving sleep structure directly helps cortisol regulation the following day
Support progesterone if you’re in perimenopause
This is where working with a practitioner becomes genuinely important.
Progesterone support — whether through herbal medicine, targeted nutritional support, or bioidentical hormones where appropriate — can have a profound effect on GABA function, sleep, and emotional resilience.
This is not an area to self-manage without clinical guidance.
Prioritise gut health
There’s a reason I rarely look at nervous system symptoms in isolation from gut function.
A significant amount of GABA is produced in the gut by specific strains of beneficial bacteria — and emerging research suggests that even supplemental GABA may work partly through the Enteric Nervous System (ENS), the vast network of neurons lining your digestive tract. It’s not called the second brain without reason.
What this means, practically, is that healing your gut also heals your nervous system. Add these to your daily eating plan:
- Fermented foods (kefir, yoghurt, kimchi, sauerkraut) — these directly support the bacterial strains responsible for GABA production
- Prebiotic fibre from vegetables and legumes — this feeds and sustains those beneficial bacteria so they can do their job
- An anti-inflammatory dietary foundation — reducing gut inflammation addresses both systems simultaneously, because a gut under fire is a nervous system under fire
Create consistent ‘nervous system downshifts’ throughout the day
Long walks. Slow breathing. Morning light before screens. A consistent wind-down routine in the evening.
These are not nice-to-haves. ……
For a depleted GABA system, they are physiologically important signals that it is safe to slow down.
This Is Not Who You Are — It’s What Your Body Is Missing
If you have recognised yourself in this article, I want you to take something away from it that has nothing to do with supplements or protocols.
You are not too sensitive. You are not failing to cope. You are not broken.
You are a woman whose nervous system has been running on depleted resources, in a body that is changing in ways nobody ever properly explained to you. There is a physiological reason you feel the way you feel.
And when you address the underlying chemistry — rather than just pushing through, or writing it off as ‘just stress’, or numbing it with wine and chocolate at night — things genuinely change.
I’ve spent nearly 30 years helping women get to the bottom of exactly this. Not just managing symptoms. Instead, finding out why they’re there in the first place.
If this resonates and you’re ready to understand what’s actually driving your symptoms, I’d love to help you connect the dots.
Warmly,
Teressa,
Naturopath | Clinical Nutritionist | Biochemist
