20/12/2025
Menopause can bring severe sleep problems, anxiety, and brain fog.
But a new study points to an unlikely helper: Cordyceps mushroom.
Long used in Eastern medicine, this mushroom is now proving to support energy, mood, metabolism and sleep.
Researchers in Korea created a menopause-like state in rats using hormone loss plus chronic stress.
Some got cordycepin (Cordyceps’ key compound), some estrogen, some nothing.
Over two weeks they tracked sleep, anxiety, stress hormones, and brain chemistry in detail.
Cordycepin helped across the board.
Rats fell asleep faster, spent more time in deep restorative sleep, showed less anxiety, and more resilience under stress.
At the highest dose, its effects were comparable to estrogen, but without the known risks of hormone therapy.
Cordycepin closely mimics adenosine, a molecule tied to energy, sleep, and brain signalling.
That lets it gently influence multiple systems at once: calming stress responses, boosting BDNF (brain growth support), balancing neurotransmitters, and restoring melatonin.
It’s not a cure, and this was a rat study. But it hints at a smarter approach.
Menopause isn’t one problem, it’s many systems drifting out of sync.
Cordyceps looks less like a blunt fix, more like a subtle reset, nudging biology back toward balance.
