As individuals age, they become more sensitive to cortisol, and high stress can worsen perimenopause symptoms by allowing cortisol to overtake progesterone and estradiol.

“as we age we become more sensitive to cortisol now when our ovaries stop making the progesterone and estrogen our adrenals actually start to make a small amount of it what happens though is if you're highly stressed out your body is going to be pumping out this cortisol and it's going to overtake what little amount of progesterone estradiol that the adrenal glands should be making so it makes your perimenopause much worse if you are stressed out it can exasperate all of the symptoms because the adrenal system takes over the production of those hormones”