Where’s your head at?

When Laura Barton, 45, first started feeling anxious, she put it down to stress. With a responsible job as a deputy head in a large London-based school and a busy family life, she assumed her lifestyle was to blame. “I’d always been a naturally upbeat, energetic, glass-half-full type, but now, I just felt gloomy, irritable and flat. Everything wound me up, I found it hard to concentrate and I’d often burst into tears for no reason. Some days I felt I was losing my mind.”

Worried, Laura made an appointment with her GP. Blood tests revealed). “This can last anything from four to 10 years. The average age of menopause is 51 in the UK.”