Reflexology or HRT? Why I think that's the wrong question.

It's 3am. You're wide awake - heart thudding, mind sprinting through a to-do list that didn't seem urgent at all yesterday, the duvet too hot and then, ten minutes later, not warm enough. You're exhausted, but your body has decided the day starts now.

If you recognise that, you already know perimenopause doesn't politely confine itself to daylight hours.

So here's something you might not expect a reflexologist to say.

I'm on HRT. And it gave me back my sanity.

The question I get asked more than any other.

"Should I try reflexology instead of HRT?"

I understand why women ask it. Some are frightened of HRT. Some have been turned away or made to feel they're making a fuss. And a lot of the wellness world they then turn to treats HRT as something to be quietly avoided - as though "natural" and "medical" sit on opposite sides of a line you have to choose.

I don't see it that way at all. And I say that as someone who has sat exactly where you might be sitting: [in my forties, deep in perimenopause, wondering why I no longer felt like me].

HRT isn't the enemy of holistic care. In my own life, it's been the thing that made everything else possible.

What HRT does - and what reflexology doesn't

Let me be very clear, because this matters.

HRT replaces the hormones your body is making less of. That is a medical decision, and it belongs to you and your GP or menopause specialist - not to me, and not to a wellness blog.

Reflexology does not do that. It doesn't replace hormones. It doesn't treat or cure menopause. If anyone tells you a foot treatment can do the job of medicine, walk the other way.

What I do is different, and it sits alongside the medical picture, never in place of it.

Different lanes, same road.

Think of perimenopause as a road with two lanes running the same direction.

One lane is the hormonal driver underneath everything - and HRT is built for that lane.

The other lane is your nervous system: the part of you that's been running hot for months, the "wired but tired" hum, the sense of being braced all the time. That lane is where reflexology lives.

Take that 3am wake. HRT can address the hormonal reason you're waking. But by the time you're lying there at 3am, your nervous system has joined in - alert, switched on, refusing to stand down. That's the bit I work with: helping your body find its way back out of "on" and into rest. The two approaches aren't competing. They're working on different parts of the same night.

This is why "reflexology or HRT" is the wrong question. The better one is: what does each part of me actually need?

Why I'll always say "and," never "instead"

I've watched HRT change how women feel in their own skin - myself included. I've also watched reflexology give those same women something HRT was never designed to give: an hour where nobody needs anything from them, a nervous system that finally exhales, a few nights where 3am stays asleep.

You don't have to choose your sanity over your calm. You can have both.

So if you're weighing this up: please have the HRT conversation with your GP. Genuinely. I'm living proof of how much it can help, and I'd never want a fear of "going medical" to keep you from feeling like yourself again. And if, alongside that, you want support for the frazzled, can't-switch-off, wide-awake-at-3am part of all this - that's exactly what I'm here for.

Not instead of. Alongside.

If this is where you are right now, you know where to find me.

Disclosure: Reflexology supports relaxation and wellbeing and works alongside medical care - never as a replacement for it. If you're considering HRT or have concerns about perimenopause symptoms, please always speak to your GP or a menopause specialist.