We Spend Over $20 Billion A Year On Anti-Aging. But Are We Missing the Most Important Step?
Part Two: What You Can Actually Do About It
Welcome Back
In Part One of this series, I introduced you to inflammaging, a blend of the words inflammation and aging, and the single most important word for understanding what is happening in your body on the meno-journey.
Here is the essential recap before we move into what you can do about it.
As estrogen declines during the meno-journey, its powerful anti-inflammatory protection withdraws from virtually every system of your body simultaneously. The result is a measurable and accelerating increase in systemic inflammation.
And it is that inflammation, not simply the passage of time, that is behind so many of the signs and symptoms of aging that women experience during this passage. The joint aches. The brain fog. The skin changes. The weight shifts. The sleep disruption. The cardiovascular and immune vulnerabilities.
Addressing that inflammation is the most important thing you can do for your health on the meno-journey.
And you have more agency over this process than you have probably been told.
A Note on HRT
Many women on their meno-journey, myself included, start HRT and experience real and meaningful relief. Hot flashes gone. Sleep improved. A heaviness or apathy that has never been experienced before suddenly lifted.
But here is something most doctors do not explain.
Even with HRT, estrogen levels in postmenopausal women remain far below premenopausal levels. Research confirms that by the time natural menopause is complete, estrogen levels are approximately one tenth of what they were during a woman's reproductive years.
HRT approximately doubles that postmenopausal level, which means that even with treatment, estrogen remains significantly lower than the body was accustomed to for decades.
Which is why HRT alone, as helpful as it is for many women, does not fully address the inflammatory cascade of the meno-journey. It is one important tool. It is not the complete picture.
The complete picture requires addressing inflammation directly. And one of the most powerful systems for doing exactly that, the endocannabinoid system, is one that HRT does not touch.
More on that shortly.
What You Can Do About It
Inflammaging is highly responsive to the right support. Here are the most evidence-supported levers available to you right now. Start with one or two that feel most accessible and build from there.
Get Your Steps In
Consistent daily movement is one of the most well-documented anti-inflammatory interventions available and one of the most accessible places to begin.
Research supports 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day as a meaningful target for reducing inflammatory markers and supporting metabolic health. If you are not there yet, start where you are. Even 5,000 steps daily creates measurable anti-inflammatory benefit. The goal is consistency over intensity.
The Power of Strength Training
This one deserves its own conversation. Because during the meno-journey, strength training is doing something that walking alone simply cannot.
Women begin losing muscle mass as early as their mid-30s, a process that accelerates significantly as estrogen declines. By the time a woman reaches her 50s, she may have lost 10 to 15% of her peak muscle mass, and the rate of loss continues to climb without intervention.
This matters enormously for inflammaging. The Copenhagen Sarcopenia Study, examining over 1,000 adults across multiple decades, confirmed that chronic low-grade inflammation is directly and measurably associated with muscle loss and reduced physical function.
Less muscle means more inflammation. More inflammation means more muscle loss. It is another compounding cycle, very similar to the sleep and inflammation loop we explored in Part One.
Strength training interrupts that cycle.
Exercise physiologist and women's hormonal health researcher Dr. Stacy Sims, whose work has transformed how we understand training for women on the meno-journey, recommends heavy compound movements, squats, deadlifts, presses, at high intensity, at least three times per week.
Her research confirms what the broader literature supports: strength training preserves muscle mass, reduces inflammatory markers, improves bone density, supports cognitive function, and helps the body do what declining estrogen can no longer do on its own.
Investing in a gym membership during the meno-journey is genuinely one of the most powerful investments you can make in your long term health, vitality, and longevity. But if that is not accessible right now, know that meaningful strength training can happen at home with a set of dumbbells and the right guidance. Women like @builtbybecky and Dr. Won Dolegowski @wondwellness have built entire strength training practices from their living rooms and share it all on social media.
You are absolutely worth the effort.
Eat to Reduce Inflammation
The Mediterranean diet pattern has the strongest evidence base for reducing systemic inflammation. Prioritize colorful vegetables, leafy greens, berries, fatty fish, nuts, olive oil, and whole grains. Reduce processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and excess sugar, all of which directly elevate inflammatory markers.
Regulate Your Nervous System
Chronic stress elevates cortisol, which drives inflammatory signaling. For women on their meno-journey, whose nervous systems are already under significant physiological pressure, nervous system regulation is not a luxury. It is an anti-inflammatory practice.
Meditation, breathwork, time in nature, and genuine rest are not soft recommendations. They are evidence-based inflammaging interventions.
Know Your Numbers
Ask your doctor to test your inflammatory markers. CRP and IL-6 are the primary ones to track. Knowing where you are gives you the ability to measure where you are going. Inflammaging is not something you have to simply feel your way through. It is something you can measure, monitor, and meaningfully influence.
The Missing Piece: Supporting Your Endocannabinoid System
Now for the lever that most conversations about women's health leave out entirely.
Your body has a system specifically designed to regulate inflammation, sleep, pain, mood, and immune response. It is called the Endocannabinoid System, or ECS. And as I explored in depth in an earlier blog on this topic, which I encourage you to read, the ECS and the estrogen system are deeply interconnected. As estrogen declines on the meno-journey, ECS function declines with it.
This is why supporting your ECS is not optional during this passage. It is essential.
CBD, a plant-derived compound that interacts directly with the ECS without any psychoactive effect, has documented anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, neuroprotective, and sleep-supporting properties specifically relevant to the meno-journey.
Research confirms CBD's ability to reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines, support sleep architecture, protect joint tissue, support the gut, and modulate the neuroinflammation associated with brain fog and cognitive changes in postmenopausal women specifically.
Here is a simple way to understand the relationship between what is declining and what CBD can support:
As estrogen declines → ECS function declines → inflammation rises → sleep disrupts → inflammation accelerates further.
CBD works at multiple points in that cycle simultaneously. Supporting the ECS, improving sleep quality, reducing inflammatory markers, and modulating the stress response that drives cortisol and further inflammation.
For a full exploration of the ECS and its role on the meno-journey, read my dedicated piece here.
From My Body to Yours
I started CLEA Midlife at 55 because I could not un-know what I had learned.
I had watched the signs of inflammaging accumulate in my own body for years, tried the interventions that helped with some things but not others. And then experienced something I can only describe as a turning point when my husband formulated cannabinoid products specifically designed to support my ECS and address the inflammation that HRT alone was not touching.
Not for a market. For me.
The difference was profound. Measurable. Life-changing in ways that went far beyond the absence of symptoms.
And I felt an obligation. Not to build a business. To make what had worked for me available to every woman navigating this passage without the information, the support, or the tools she deserved.
This is my mission. Because I know from the inside what it feels like to have your body finally supported in the ways it was asking to be supported.
Women have been underserved by medical research for too long. The connection between the meno-journey, inflammaging, and the endocannabinoid system is real, documented, and still largely absent from mainstream conversations about women's health.
CLEA Midlife exists to change that. One woman at a time.
Our products at CLEA Midlife were formulated with deep scientific expertise and deep personal investment to support the specific physiological systems most vulnerable on the meno-journey.
They are a heartfelt, research-backed invitation from a woman who found something that worked and could not, in good conscience, keep it to herself.
Start wherever feels best for you. And when you are ready to explore what targeted ECS support might add to your meno-journey, we will be here. A growing community of women is already finding their way to CLEA Midlife, and I would love for you to join us whenever the time feels right.
SHOP FOCUS, EASE, SLEEP, NOURISH, and CALM
Research References
HRT and Estrogen Levels
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Hormone Replacement Therapy. StatPearls. NIH. Confirms postmenopausal estrogen levels are approximately one tenth of premenopausal levels and that HRT approximately doubles postmenopausal levels without restoring premenopausal levels.
Muscle Loss, Sarcopenia, and Inflammation
Buch, A. et al. (2021). Associations Between Inflammatory Markers, Body Composition, and Physical Function: The Copenhagen Sarcopenia Study. Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle. PMC8718077
Sims, S.T. (2025). Heavy Resistance Training Protocol for Women on the Meno-Journey. Cited via BoxLife Magazine and Human Performance Center. Recommends heavy compound movements three times per week.
Strength Training and Bone Density
Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research (2025). Meta-analysis of 17 RCTs confirmed resistance training improves bone mineral density at the lumbar spine and femoral neck in postmenopausal women.
The Endocannabinoid System and Estrogen
Suárez-Pinilla, P. et al. (2021). The Complex Interplay Between Endocannabinoid System and the Estrogen System in Central Nervous System and Periphery. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. DOI: 10.3390/ijms22020972
CBD and Inflammation
Nagarkatti, P. et al. (2021). The Effects of Cannabinoids on Pro and Anti-Inflammatory Cytokines. PMC. DOI: 10.1177/20503121211021232
Lacagnina, M. et al. (2023). Cannabidiol Decreases Intestinal Inflammation in the Ovariectomized Murine Model of Postmenopause. PMC. DOI: 10.3390/nu15030604
Northwell Health. CBD for Joint Pain Study. More than 80% of participants reported reduced pain.
Binkowska, A. et al. (2025). Cannabidiol and Cognitive Function in Older Adults. PMC. DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2025
CBD and Nervous System Regulation
HealthDataConsortium.org (2026). CBD and Anxiety in 2026. Citing 2024 meta-analysis showing consistent anxiolytic effects.
