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Tween flips the script on his perimenopausal mom in hilariously spot-on 'cougar puberty' bit

Touché, kid.

Courtesy of Kristina Kuzmic/TikTok

Kristina Kuzmic and her son Ari nail the reality of perimenopause, aka "cougar puberty."

Women who've found themselves thrust into the throes of perimenopause know that symptoms in the years preceding actual menopause can be extreme. The family members who live with perimenopausal women are well aware of it, too, bless their hearts and stable hormones.

So when a tween boy talks about his mom's perimenopause period the same way a parent talks about their child going through puberty, it's an apt comparison. But when it's delivered with a deadpan delivery using terms like "cougar puberty," it's comedy gold.

Kristina Kuzmic and her 11-year-old son, Ari, hit the nail on the head with their video comparing perimenopause to puberty, and people can't get enough. Ari sits at a kitchen counter in a robe, coffee cup in hand, and says right to the camera, "My mom is going through puberty—cougar puberty. I knew this day would come—I just didn't think it would happen this fast."

Watch:

@iamkristinakuzmic

He’s not wrong. #cougarpuberty #perimenopause #menopause

"This is a very confusing time in her life," Ari continues. "There are some complicated feelings. I don't even know if she knows how to process them all."

Uh, yeah. Accurate. The video goes on to cover "coug-erty" realities like mood swings, bodily changes, sleep disturbances, fashion choices, hormone replacement therapy, and shifts in attitude, all while Kuzmic cries over cheese, shaves her face, wears PJs and slippers to the store, and shoves ice down her shirt.

"At the end of the day, it's my job to love her through it and remind myself that this is all normal development," Ari concludes before telling his mom, "Growing up is tough, but I'm really proud of the woman you're becoming."

perimenopause, menopause, hot flash, women's health, aging Menopause Hot Flashes GIF by Kino Lorber Giphy

Ari's delivery and Kuzmic acting it all out is perfection, and women who relate are sharing the video widely with commentary like:

"Calling menopause cougar puberty is hilarious and sounds so much better than menopause 🤣🤣"

"My mustache is coming in and soon my sons will be coming in too. At least we have something to bond over."

"BUT… why is this 100% accurate?!"

"This is so accurate! I haven't had this many bodily changes since I was a teen 😂😭"

"But why do I have to hit cougar puberty as my kids are hitting theirs? It's a perfect storm. 😵💫"

"I’m so glad that perimenopause is being talked about. I’m currently in menopause but would have loved knowing more years ago."

perimenopause, menopause, hot flash, women's health, aging Menopause GIF by Better Things Giphy

Perimenopause is no joke, but it's something that simply wasn't talked about—or even studied on a large scale—until fairly recently. Most of us grew up hearing about menopause and learned that it's when women's menstruation ends. We may have heard hot flashes come along with that change, but that's about it. The fact that the hormonal changes start years before menopause happens and that there are dozens of possible symptoms—many of which no one would guess could be associated with it—has only been a recent revelation to the general public.

As Kira Merman writes for Yale School of Medicine, "Long-lasting misconceptions around menopause linger. A simplistic view of menopause as a sudden, binary change has shaped decades of inadequate care. We don’t expect any of our other organs to shut down overnight as we age; why is it that we’ve come to expect such an abrupt change for our ovaries?"

There have been more studies since the 1980s, when the term "perimenopause" first came into use, but some of the conclusions from the research have been confusing. For instance, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) became widely used up through the 1990s, but when some research showed it increased the risk of breast cancer and other health problems, its popularity dropped. Since then, more research and analysis has come out that counters those risks, but not all medical providers are fully educated on the subject. Considering that fact that half the population will eventually go through this transition, the lack of knowledge and training is bizarre.

perimenopause, menopause, hot flash, women's health, aging Doctors need to be better prepared to help patients through perimenopause.Photo credit: Canva

Berman shares that even OB-GYNs don't receive adequate education on the subject: "A 2023 survey found that over 90% of obstetrics and gynecology residency program directors in the U.S. agreed that residents should have access to a standardized menopause curriculum, yet less than a third reported that their programs actually offer one. This critical knowledge gap risks leaving many health care providers ill-equipped to address menopause causes and symptoms effectively, ultimately compromising women’s access to appropriate care."

As helpless as many women feel during perimenopause, access to knowledgeable caregivers needs to change. In the meantime, we can keep talking about it and laughing about it. It's much better than crying into our cheese.

You can follow Kristina Kuzmic on Instagram and TikTok.

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Women's Health

Women may blame their pillow for having a stiff neck. Study shows it could be hormonal.

Perimenopause strikes again.

Photo credit: Canva

Women may blame their pillow for a stiff neck, it could be hormones

Waking up with a stiff neck or a tension headache is a pain...literally. For some women, it seems like a never ending cycle of searching for a new pillow. They walk out of the store confident they've found the perfect pillow only to wake up with a stiff neck or tension headache days later–rinse and repeat. If this sounds familiar and you're over the age of 35, your pillow may not be to blame at all.

As women of a certain age wonder what's going on with their necks while they sleep, researchers say the problem is likely hormonal. Menopause is no secret. While the word was once whispered to close confidants or replaced with the phrase "the change" (as if women were becoming vampires), conversations happen openly now. Because of this shift, women feel more prepared for the process to occur...when they're over 50...but many people are finding out "the change" starts happening years before menopause.

perimenopause; stiff neck; best pillow; pillow for stiff neck; menopause; women and stiff neck; tension headaches Struggling with hot flashes, woman tries to keep cool.Photo credit: Canva

This process is called perimenopause, which is essentially pre-menopause, and the process can start as early as 35 and last up to a decade. Of course, genetics, health, and other biological factors determine how early the perimenopause stage starts for a woman, but it always starts the same–declining hormones. According to researchers, hormones control a lot of what's going on in someone's body, so any influx or reduction of these chemicals can have negative effects (including musculoskeletal performance).

"Both estrogen and testosterone are present in males and females. Both hormones contribute to the wellbeing of skeletal muscle and bone in men and women, and there is evidence that the loss of sex hormones is associated with the age-related decline in bone and skeletal muscle mass," Marybeth Brown writes in the article "Skeletal muscle and bone: effect of sex steroids and aging" for the journal Advances in Physiology Education.

perimenopause; stiff neck; best pillow; pillow for stiff neck; menopause; women and stiff neck; tension headaches Woman experiences back pain at home.Photo credit: Canva

It's those decreases in sex hormones that researchers say may be a contributing factor to perimenopausal women's musculoskeletal issues—which would include a stiff neck. While currently researchers aren't specifically looking at the link between declining hormones and stiff neck isolated from the rest of the musculoskeletal system, declining hormones explains why these aches, pains, and injuries happen.

The Menopause Society, a nonprofit that empowers healthcare professionals with evidenced-based resources says, “Hormonal fluctuations during perimenopause and menopause can cause muscle tension. This tension can manifest in various body parts, with the neck being a common area.”

Recently, a woman sought answers to her stiff neck in a menopause group, saying, "I've seen a lot of blanket talk, but not much about pillows. I get night sweats and also lately I've had some neck pain that is unrelated to perimenopause (I think). I want a better pillow than I have, but it needs to be able to get washed from all the sweating. What works for you? And how do you wash it? Memory foam? Shredded...latex? or is it just plain shredded foam? Wool? Buckwheat husks? Something else?"

perimenopause; stiff neck; best pillow; pillow for stiff neck; menopause; women and stiff neck; tension headaches Waking up with a sore neck.Photo credit: Canva

Much to the woman's surprise, she was flooded with comments from other women sharing they are also experiencing a stiff neck no matter what type of pillow they use. While several women shared their favorite type of pillow (memory foam seems to be the winner), others commiserated or were happy they weren't alone in the struggle.

One woman responded, "Just saw this post. Glad I did. My neck has been killing me over the last 3 months. I've bought so many pillows. Right now the shredded memory foam seems to be ok right now. Then I decided to do a quick search about neck pain and perimenopause....I'm pretty sure I have every symptom under the moon.... Currently on STD because of perimenopause is absolutely debilitating for me. Neck pain is a common symptom during perimenopause and menopause, often linked to declining estrogen levels and their impact on joint health and muscle function. This can manifest as aches, stiffness, and even frozen shoulder."

perimenopause; stiff neck; best pillow; pillow for stiff neck; menopause; women and stiff neck; tension headaches Office worker stretching to relieve back pain.Photo credit: Canva

Researchers Nkechinyere Chidi-Ogbolu and Keith Baar explain in their article "Effect of Estrogen on Musculoskeletal Performance and Injury Risk" in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, "Consistent with a role for estrogen in regulating musculoskeletal function, menstruating women suffer more ACL ruptures than men and menopause is characterized by increased risk of musculoskeletal injury, accelerated bone and muscle wasting, and decreased sensitivity to anabolic stimuli. To counteract many of the negative aspects of menopause, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been used to reduce muscle and bone loss, and restore muscle protein balance."

So if you've been struggling with neck pain and are over the age of 35, have ruled out injury or another cause by your doctor, it just might be hormones. There's no stopping a decline in your natural hormone levels as you age, but there may be things that can help when working with your physician. In the meantime, here's to restful nights and a good memory foam pillow.

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Woman starts the 'We Do Not Care' menopause club and it's both informative and hilarious

People are sharing "what they don't care about today."

Photo by Ali Mkumbwa on Unsplash

A woman looks annoyed in her car.

There's something exciting happening for menopausal and perimenopausal women. (Now there's a sentence you don't see often.) Ready? Here it is: discussing menopause is becoming normalized. We might even take it a step further and say—celebrating menopause is becoming normalized.

Back in the day, this very topic, which eventually affects about half of the world's population (that's over four billion people for those counting) was merely called, "The Change." Women were often too embarrassed to discuss their very real symptoms caused by a drop in estrogen and other hormones. I recall my mom having a hot flash and later crying in the car from embarrassment. Then she cried more because she was crying in the first place.

hot flash, menopause, rue mcclanahan, menopausal symptoms, hormones Rue McClanahan sprays herself during a hot flash. Giphy NBC

Though studies continue evolving on how to tackle these symptoms and overall women's health, talking about them now has become quite popular. And it's awesome.

One woman, Melani Sanders, is actually building an entire online village around normalizing menopause, to the delight of many. Going by the name @justbeingmelani, she has over one million followers on Instagram alone. The concept? Stop caring about what people think about your hormones. Stop caring about things that don't matter.

Calling it the "We Do Not Care" movement, she has tons of reels where she discusses hot flashes, forgetfulness, and other fun effects from the new normal. In one, she sits in her car behind a steering wheel and announces, "We're about to start a perimenopause/menopause club, okay, and it's gonna be called the 'We Do Not Care' club." She then proclaims, "Listen to the acronym - We…do…not…care. W -D - N- C. That's the name of our club. And we don't care."

She further explains, "Let me tell y'all what that means. That means like right now, I just came from the grocery store. Baby, I got on the too little sports bra, okay, cuz I couldn't find no bra. This is all I have and guess what? I don't care. W-D-N-C. I do not care! Okay? And you know when the bra be too little, everything is hanging to one side. That is my situation, and I don't care. I do not care. And it's funny, but it's not funny because for real, this is what's in my head."

She gives another example of her incredibly inspiring apathy. She pats her hair, which is pulled back. "Look at this. I could have put some Edge Control on. No I don't. No, I'm not. I don't gotta put on no Edge Control and I'm not gonna do that."

She then urges the community to leave word in the comment section about the things THEY don't care about. "Everybody in the comments, let's all talk about what we don't are about today, okay? So today, I do not care that I don’t have no real bra on. And I do not care that I don't have Edge Control in my hair. I don't care. That's it. That's the story. Period, point blank, period, poo."

The comments were direct and electric. The first commenter declares, "I do not care that what my roommates eat tonight aka (kids &husband) I’m eating dry cereal out the box." This comment alone has around 8000 likes and counting. Another writes, "We do not care that it's 11:00am and we still in pajamas." Another writes, "I do not care that I used cornstarch this morning as a dry shampoo and now the sweat running down my neck is white. I do not care."

Some people got more serious, saying, "I don't care about being in a relationship."

And this one spoke to many of us: "I don’t care that I walked into a room and don’t remember why I entered the room. I will remember on my own time."

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Golden Years

Study discovers people don't age steadily, but in dramatic bursts at two specific ages

This explains SO much about your 40s.

Photo by Nati/Pexels

If you feel "old" practically overnight, there may be a good reason for that.

Aging is weird. You're trucking along, enjoying your middle-aged life, finally feeling like a real adult, when you look in the mirror one day and gasp. "Where did those wrinkles come from?" "Is that skin on my arm…crepey?!?" "Why am I aching like that?"

Somewhere in your mid-40s, you start noticing obvious signs of aging that seem to arrive overnight. You assumed it was a gradual process that you just hadn't noticed, but it sure as heck felt like it happened really fast.

New research indicates that may very well be the case. A 2024 study from researchers at Stanford tracked thousands of different molecules in people age 25 to 75 and found that people tend to make two big leaps in aging—one around age 44 and another around age 60. These findings indicate that aging can actually happen in bursts.

aging, age, old, growing up, growing old, 40s, 60s Simpsons Gif y.yarn.co

“We’re not just changing gradually over time. There are some really dramatic changes,” said senior study author Michael Snyder, Ph.D., a geneticist and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s. And that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.” The researchers assumed the mid-40s changes would be attributed to menopausal or perimenopausal changes in women influencing the overall numbers, but when they separated the results by sex they saw similar changes in men in their 40s.

@suddenly_susan_

The accuracy 🤣 #40s #genxtiktok #womenover40 #relatable

"“This suggests that while menopause or perimenopause may contribute to the changes observed in women in their mid-40s, there are likely other, more significant factors influencing these changes in both men and women. Identifying and studying these factors should be a priority for future research,” said study author Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar who now teaches at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

elderly couple, aging, age, growing old, aging in bursts Aging happens in bursts, scientists find.Canva Photos

The study included 108 participants who submitted blood and other samples every few months for several years. The scientists tracked age-related changes in 135,000 different molecules—nearly 250 billion distinct data points—to see how aging occurs.

The study may shed light on the reasons for jumps in certain diseases and maladies at certain ages. For the 40-somethings, scientists found significant changes in molecules related to alcohol, caffeine, and lipid metabolism, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle. For those in their 60s, changes related to carbohydrate and caffeine metabolism, immune regulation, kidney function, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle were found.

body, human body, anatomy, study, aging Research shows the body goes through specific changes in our 40s and 60s.Canva Photos

The study authors did note that lifestyle might play a role in some of these changes. For instance, alcohol metabolism may be influenced by people drinking more heavily in their 40s, which tends to be a period of higher stress for many people. However, the researchers added that these bursts of aging in the mid-40s and early 60s indicate that people may want to pay closer attention to their health around those ages and make lifestyle changes that support greater overall health, such as increasing exercise or limiting alcohol.

The research team plans to study the drivers of these aging bursts to find out why they happen at these ages, but whatever the reasons, it's nice to know that the seemingly sudden onset of age-related woes isn't just in our imaginations.

It's understandable that we worry about aging, as physical signs of aging remind us of our own mortality. We also have all kinds of social messaging that tells us youth is ideal and beautiful and old is bad and ugly, so of course we give aging the side-eye. But none of us can avoid aging altogether, so the more positive and healthy we are in our approach to aging, the better off we'll be, no matter when and to what degree aging hits us.

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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