Anxiety After Menopause: What the GABA and Stress-Axis Research Shows

In this article - Why does anxiety rise around menopause? - What does GABA have to do with feeling calm? - What did the shilajit research find on GABA and stress? - What does the research not show yet? - Common questions about anxiety and menopause

Why does anxiety rise around menopause?

Many women describe the same shift. The mind that used to settle at night now runs, and a small worry arrives with a physical jolt.

Freeman and Sammel followed 233 women in the Penn Ovarian Aging cohort for 14 years as they moved through the menopausal transition. They published the results in Menopause in 2016. Somatic anxiety, the bodily kind, was the strongest signal. It raised the risk of hot flashes more than 3 times, and anxiety scores from the year before predicted a 71% higher risk the following year.

The word somatic matters. It means the anxiety lives in the body, as a pounding heart, a tight chest, or restless muscles, and not only as worry.

What the hormones have to do with it

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Women's Mood Disorders Center reviewed this in 2019. McEvoy and Osborne focused on allopregnanolone, a breakdown product of progesterone that strongly boosts the brain's calming receptor, GABA-A.

They found allopregnanolone dysregulation across several reproductive transitions, including the menopausal transition, and tied it to mood symptoms. They were also frank that the exact role and direction of the effect are still not settled.

Here is what the research does and does not say at this point.

• It does say that the hormones feeding the calming system change at menopause.
• It does say that the bodily form of anxiety tracks with the transition.
• It does not say that one hormone level explains every woman's anxiety.

What does GABA have to do with feeling calm?

GABA is the brain's main braking signal. When it works, a startle fades, a thought loop loosens, and sleep comes.

Progesterone's breakdown products help GABA do that job. When the supply of those products shifts, the brake can feel weaker, and the stress response, the HPA axis, can feel louder.

Three pieces work together here.

• GABA is the brake that quiets nerve activity.
• Allopregnanolone is the hormone byproduct that strengthens the brake.
• The HPA axis is the stress chain that ends in cortisol, or corticosterone in rodents.

What did the shilajit research find on GABA and stress?

Three rodent studies have looked at shilajit on these systems. None used women, and each is worth reading for what it measured.

The GABA study

Durg and colleagues (2015) gave shilajit at 25 and 50 mg per kg to rats and mice once a day for 15 days. They then exposed the animals to seizure-inducing chemicals and electric shock. Shilajit significantly reduced the seizures, and it brought brain GABA back toward normal in mice whose GABA the chemicals had pushed down. The authors suggested the effect may come from strengthening the GABA system.

The stress-axis study

Surapaneni and colleagues (2012) put rats through 21 days of forced swimming, a standard model of chronic fatigue and stress. They gave shilajit at 25, 50 and 100 mg per kg beforehand. Three results stood out.

• Anxiety-like behavior fell on the elevated plus maze, a standard anxiety test.
• Corticosterone, the rodent stress hormone, was restored, along with adrenal gland weight, which signals the HPA axis was modulated.
• Mitochondrial function held up in the prefrontal cortex, the brain region that handles planning and worry.

The mouse study

Bansal and colleagues (2016) tested shilajit in mice during alcohol withdrawal. Shilajit reduced withdrawal anxiety in a dose-dependent way. In that study it changed dopamine in the cortex and hippocampus and did not change GABA, so it shows an anxiety effect through a different route.

Put together, the three studies point the same direction. Shilajit acted on the calming and stress systems in animals, through GABA in one study and the stress axis in another.

What does the research not show yet?

This is the honest part. Every shilajit result above comes from rats and mice, at doses given per kilogram of body weight, and in models built to create stress, not menopause.

We have not found a human trial that measured anxiety in women taking shilajit. So the reading is narrow. The research shows a plausible mechanism, and it does not show a proven outcome.

That mechanism is still worth knowing about. Shilajit is not a hormone. It is a mineral-rich resin whose organic carrier, fulvic acid, supports the body's own signaling, including estrogen signaling, and it does not add hormones. Zero serious adverse events have appeared across any human shilajit study.

What to watch for in your own body

Freeman and Sammel's finding gives a practical clue. The bodily signs of anxiety came before hot flashes, so tracking them can show a pattern early.

• A racing or pounding heart at rest.
• Tight shoulders and jaw by the end of the day.
• Waking at 3 a.m. with the mind already running.
• A jolt of dread that arrives before any thought does.

Optimum Shilajit

Optimum Shilajit is purified resin from the Altai mountains, third-party tested for heavy metals with results published. Two tablets with breakfast, made in small batches by a family-owned company out of Florida, with a 90-day money-back guarantee.

See Optimum Shilajit