Welcome to Midlife Moments
Making sense of the changes at midlife
'Is it menopause, me or...?'
Short course coming soon
A self-paced 4 week online course on menopause, midlife, mood, and confidence.
Delivered in 4 short Modules by
Dr Mandy Deeks, a psychologist and educator with over 30 years experience working in menopause and midlife.
Midlife is generally defined as being
between the ages of 35-65 years.
Midlife Moments
1. Hormonal changes affecting sleep, mood, energy, memory, libido, temperature regulation, tolerance to stress, weight and body shape changes. Sounds fun!
2.Increased emotional sensitivity - less patience, less tolerance for BS
3. Identity checks: Why don't I feel like me anymore? Who am I now? Who do I want to be?
4. Times of grief: for your younger self, the things you haven't done, missed dreams.
5. More interest in meaning and purpose: what actually matter to me now? A time of opportunity and a time for you.
Are any of these sounding like you?
Midlife Moments
The what, the who, and the how
The what
Midlife moments is an education space with short courses, resources,
research and short articles,
things to help you think about where you are up to and where to from here.
The who
Dr Mandy Deeks is a Psychologist with counselling, education and research experience. She has always had a passion for learning about the different ways midlife impacts on our lives, particularly the effects of menopause on mental and emotional health.
The how
Because we are all different and at different stages of life, you will find different ways of exploring midlife. There will be questions to ask yourself, short courses, information to collect, things to listen to and watch.
What this website is
This is a space to explore how midlife may be affecting you and how you can start being kinder yourself. Mental health is personal. We are all individuals and what works for one person doesn't always work for someone else.
What this website isn't
The information and strategies are not intended as a treatment space. If you are struggling with your mental health and it impacts on your day to day living please see your doctor and put some things in place to feel better. There are also some suggested places you can go for more help in the resources section.
Courses
"Is it menopause, me or ...." coming soon
A short course on the effects menopause and age have on mood, brain fog, stress, irritability, patience, and tolerance for BS.
4 modules delivered weekly in short video form with an accompanying workbook each week. Created and presented by Dr Mandy Deeks a psychologist and educator with over 30 years experience researching, educating and counselling in the menopause and midlife space.
Self-paced, this will be an opportunity to learn about the effects perimenopause and menopause has on you, what else might be going on that impacts on your mood, and most importantly, strategies and resources to try.
A live Q & A to share information and stories where you can contribute or just watch and listen (optional).
Resources
An exercise in the stories we tell ourselves: questions to ask yourself
The experiences you have had and the beliefs you hold affect how you operate in the world, how you show up, and the way you view the world. This can end up as the stories you tell yourself, which in turn can affect the choices you make, the people you hang around with, the meaning you give to your life. You may tell yourself you are not good enough or you don't deserve love for eg.
What are your stories? Are you carrying stories that aren't actually yours to carry? What stories might you want to let go of?
Check out the examples below of the different stories we tell ourselves. If you would like to, you can just think about (or journal) your answers to the questions that follow.
The 'what is my purpose'
story
What makes your life feel important to you? What gives your life meaning and what do you want to be remembered for?
These are big questions and it is often hard to know where to start. Yet purpose in life is important to our mental health, wellbeing and overall quality of life. We know that if we have purpose in our life we are less likely to have illness, be depressed and are more motivated to get out of bed every day. If you are stuck you may want to think about the following questions?
Your purpose story:
1. What is the theme of your life? For e..g. your colours, theme music, movies, books...?
2. What matters most to you?
3. Who relies on you?
4. Who inspires you?
5. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
6. What causes do you care about?
7. What are your 'be' goals? For e.g. who do you want to be...a good friend, leader, teacher, fun loving, carefree, a difference maker?
8. What are your 'do' goals? It can be helpful to align your do goals with your be goals. For e.g. if you want to be a difference maker how can you do that?
Your story about
confidence
Self confidence is having the belief in yourself that you can accomplish things.
It is believing you can make the right choices for you, your health and your life.
Having confidence in who you are helps you to be mentally stronger.
People who believe in themselves tend to have less sickness and better mental health. How confident are you? Do you believe in yourself?
Your confidence story:
1. Would you say you are a confident person?
2. Think about what affects your confidence in different situations and at different times?
3. Think of someone who you see as confident and list the things that make them appear confident.
4. Do you stop yourself from doing things because you lack confidence? If so, what have you stopped yourself from doing?
5. Looking at the list below which areas of your life do you lack confidence. Choose 1 or 2 areas and write about your thoughts and feelings:
Friendships
Relationships
Work/study
Managing money
My health
My body
Completing tasks
The story I tell myself about my body
Body image is what you think, feel and how you picture your body. How you think you look and how you think society, friends and families think you look can impact on your mental health. Media, social media, comments from others and just looking at images of models can affect negative feelings in as little as two minutes. Two thirds of people are dissatisfied with the way their bodies look, and frequently feel guilty about eating.
Your body image story:
1. How do you picture your body?
2. What do you think about your body?
3. How do you feel about your body?
4. As you were growing up, what were the messages about your body that you heard?
5. As you were growing up, did other people in your life comment on their own bodies in a negative way?
6. Do other people's comments about your body affect you?
7. When you look at pictures of people who you think have beautiful bodies, what do you see?
8. List 3 things you love about your body.
Resources: Places to visit if you need more help & information
Australasian Menopause Society is a place for health professionals and consumers to look at the latest knowledge and resources about perimenopause and menopause. Here you will find assessment tools, fact sheets and videos to learn more about menopause and most importantly what's happening for you.
The Menopause Society is an independent evidence-based resource for the public, health professionals, researchers and the media on all things menopause. Based in the US it has members from all over the world. Here you will find guidebooks, videos and podcasts.
Jean Hailes was a medical practitioner who wanted to improve the lives of women and she started the first menopause focused practice in Australia. Jean Hailes the organisation is a women's health organisation that focuses on research, clinical care and policy. They have information and tools to help you understand the changes to expect around menopause including fact sheets in many different languages.
Beyond Blue If you are wondering whether you have anxiety or depression or both, have a look at the resources and information on the beyondblue website.
Mindspot is part of Macquarie Health, Macquarie University. It is a free digital psychological website where you can do a depression or anxiety quiz and then get help with appropriate treatments if you need.
Interesting Research
Humans peak in overall functioning in midlife
Some positive news about getting older! While reasoning, memory and speed of processing of information tend to peak between the ages of 18-22yrs, this study found that overall functioning peaks in midlife around the age 55-60yrs. This includes things like emotional intelligence, moral reasoning and financial literacy. It is suggested this period of midlife may be the best time for roles such as in leadership and where emotional intelligence is important.
Gilles E. Gignaca, MJ.(2025) Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective. Intelligence, September, 101961.
Self-compassion in weight managment
Being kind to oneself when times are difficult and stressful may help people who are struggling with their weight management. In those studies where participants practised self-compassion, there were improvements in eating behaviours, physical activity behaviours and weight loss. Even more importantly these improvements were maintained in follow ups of those in the physical activity study.
Brenton-Peters et al. (2021). Self-compassion in weight management: A systematic review. Nov:150:110617. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2021.110617. Epub 2021 Sep 16.
Sleep quality and postmenopause
Many menopausal women report that sleep is one of the biggest things they struggle with.
This study of Indonesian women found that while stress and menopause symptoms together had the most impact on sleep quality, age, education level, anxiety level, and whether women had good social supports were also found to be important considerations to explore. This finding would make sense to a lot of menopausal women!
Susanti HD et al. (2025). Unraveling the factors shaping sleep quality among postmenopasual women in Indonesia. Sleep Science, 18(4):387-396.
About Me
Hi, I'm Dr Mandy Deeks. I have been a psychologist for 30 years.
Over 25 years ago I did a PhD on Menopause and Midlife looking at mood, relationships, body image, role and purpose, and quality of life.
I have worked in research, counselling and education. I have also published a book and been in the media a few times on radio, TV and in magazines trying to get the menopause and midlife messages out there.
My passion is taking complex information and making it user friendly so that it can hopefully make a difference in people's lives.
I went through menopause early myself and still have symptoms at nearly 60 years of age so I do get it on a practical level as well!
Helpful Midlife Thoughts
"You can't pour from
an empty cup."
-Norm Kelly
Self before others
"It's not your job to like me,
it's mine"
-Byron Katie
LIKE ME
"Talk to yourself like you would
talk to someone you love"
-Brene` Brown
TALK TO YOURSELF
© 2026 Midlife Moments | All Rights Reserved
Email:[email protected]
This website is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for medical advice. If you are struggling with your physical or mental health please seek medical advice.