Selfority

Selfority Female. Health. Prioritized. Evidence-based education for women—delivered with empathy, humor, and heart. Founded by Dr. Sarah Berg, OB-GYN

Seventy percent of people with PMOS, formerly PCOS, have no idea they have it.After my piece on the name change ran in ...
05/25/2026

Seventy percent of people with PMOS, formerly PCOS, have no idea they have it.

After my piece on the name change ran in , my inbox filled up with messages from mothers writing about their daughters. Women who had watched their children struggle for years with fatigue, weight that wouldn't budge, irregular cycles, skin that never cooperated, and a quiet persistent sense that something was off. Women who had sat in exam rooms and been told everything looked fine. Daughters who had been handed an incomplete diagnosis, or no diagnosis at all, because medicine spent ninety years looking in the wrong place.

Seventy percent undiagnosed is not an abstract number. It is someone's daughter.

It is possibly you.

I wrote a follow-up on Substack today with what to look for, what to ask your doctor, and why the new name changes what gets found.

Link in bio. Share it with someone who needs it.

Your brain is not just a collection of parts. It is a communication system.Three networks run most of your inner life. T...
05/22/2026

Your brain is not just a collection of parts. It is a communication system.

Three networks run most of your inner life. The default mode network: active when your mind is wandering or reflecting. The salience network: your brain's traffic controller, deciding what deserves your attention. The central executive network: focus, planning, working memory, decisions.

When these networks work well together, you feel sharp. When they don't, you feel scattered, foggy, and like you're trying to hold too many things at once.

Aging weakens the boundaries between them. Exercise restores them. A 12-week walking study improved connectivity across all three networks alongside measurable memory gains. A single 30-minute session improved network segregation in older adults. Cardiovascular fitness, not just movement volume, predicted stronger network integrity in a study of nearly 400 people.

This is series finale of the brain series. Four episodes, four systems, one universal that will help.

Not a supplement. Not a gadget. Movement.

Follow Selfority if you want to keep going.
And if this series has given you something, please send it to a woman who needs it.

I said sorry to my coffee maker this morning. And then I thought about my daughter. And then I thought about every woman...
05/22/2026

I said sorry to my coffee maker this morning.
And then I thought about my daughter.
And then I thought about every woman who has ever apologized for taking up space in a room she had every right to be in.

The full essay is on Substack. Link in bio.

Can we talk about something called BDNF for a second?Brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Researchers sometimes call it Mi...
05/20/2026

Can we talk about something called BDNF for a second?

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Researchers sometimes call it Miracle-Gro for the brain. It supports neuron survival, drives the formation of new connections, regulates mood, and protects memory. Your brain produces it. And it is one of the most important things happening in your head right now.

Here is the part that matters for midlife women. Estrogen actively stimulates BDNF production. When estrogen declines during perimenopause, BDNF levels follow. Research directly comparing pre- and postmenopausal women found measurably lower BDNF in postmenopausal women.
Less BDNF means less neuroplasticity. Slower repair. Reduced protection.

And here is what changes everything: exercise raises it back up. A meta-analysis of 12 trials across 994 older women found significant BDNF improvement across aerobic, aquatic, and multimodal training. A single session raises it. Consistent training raises your resting levels over time.

Swipe through for the full breakdown. And follow along for what's next, which is we get into the brain networks and how exercise upgrades the entire communication system your brain runs on.

Can we talk about the fog for a second?Not the kind that rolls in off the water. The kind where you are standing in the ...
05/16/2026

Can we talk about the fog for a second?
Not the kind that rolls in off the water. The kind where you are standing in the kitchen holding your phone, trying to remember what you picked it up for. The kind where a word you have used a thousand times just refuses to show up when you need it.

That is your prefrontal cortex telling you something. And perimenopause has a lot to do with it.

Estrogen supports the neurotransmitter systems this part of your brain runs on. Focus, working memory, decision-making, cognitive flexibility. When estrogen starts its decline, the prefrontal cortex is one of the first regions to feel it. This is documented and it is not permanent.
Research shows that exercise increases gray matter volume in the prefrontal cortex. Women in midlife who move consistently have measurably larger prefrontal volume than those who don't. And the changes can begin in as little as three months.
The fog is a signal, not a sentence.
Swipe through for the full breakdown with source cited. And follow along, because next up we get into BDNF, your brain's own growth factor and one of the most interesting stories in this whole series.

05/15/2026

Unbiased Science Podcast brought us together to talk women’s health and it’s glorious!

"My rantings, your saving grace. My soapbox, your forwarding arrow. My strongly-worded medical opinion, your very casual...
05/15/2026

"My rantings, your saving grace. My soapbox, your forwarding arrow. My strongly-worded medical opinion, your very casual hey I thought you might find this interesting."

I wrote a thing.

It is about colonoscopies and cl****al anatomy and the supplement your friend is absolutely convinced is going to fix everything.

It is also about how you never have to be the annoying one again.

Think of me as your George. Your Dora with the map. The one who says the hard thing out loud so you can stand there looking shiny while you send the link.

You didn't say it. I did. You're welcome.

New piece up on Substack today. Link in bio.

Your hippocampus is the size of a seahorse. It holds your memory, your learning, your ability to find words — and it's o...
05/13/2026

Your hippocampus is the size of a seahorse. It holds your memory, your learning, your ability to find words — and it's one of the first things perimenopause affects.

The brain fog isn't weakness. It's biology. But here's what nobody told you: exercise is one of the only tools we have that actually grows this region back.
Peer-reviewed, published, measurable.

All of it is real science. All of it is yours.

Next up this week: your prefrontal cortex — and why perimenopause makes focus and decisions feel so much harder.

Follow so you don't miss it.

Hangry. You know the word.Hungry and angry because of hunger.She was hungry for answers. Just one. One completely reason...
05/12/2026

Hangry. You know the word.

Hungry and angry because of hunger.

She was hungry for answers. Just one. One completely reasonable question about what was happening to her body.

So she did what any reasonable woman does.

She Googled it.

One question turned into a rabbit hole. The rabbit hole turned into 47 tabs. The 47 tabs turned into three contradictory answers, four things to be alarmed about, and approximately zero actual help.

And that is how HANGRY was born.

Not difficult. Not dramatic. Not a lot.
Just a woman who wanted one answer, got a hundred unhelpful ones, and has officially run out of patience for information that doesn't actually inform.

She deserved better than that rabbit hole.
You deserve better than that rabbit hole.

Real answers to real questions — from a board certified OB-GYN and Menopause Certified practictioner who knows exactly what you were trying to find and exactly why Google couldn't give it to you.

That's Selfority. The course is in the link. 🔗 🔵

05/11/2026

We talk about exercise like it’s a vanity project. It’s not.
Only 7.2% of midlife women consistently meet minimum exercise recommendations (SWAN study, via AHA). And a study published just this month: 11,000 women, 15 years found that consistently active women had half the risk of early death.
Half.
But what really brought me here? What exercise does to the brain during perimenopause and menopause. The hippocampus. The prefrontal cortex. The networks that govern memory, focus, and how we feel like ourselves.
This series walks through it, region by region, in plain language. Because the information exists. You just deserve to have it.
Follow along. Starting this week.

05/09/2026

This is the university world premiere of Balance: A Perimenopause Journey. And Texas Woman's University didn't just host it once. They hosted it at all three of their campuses because they understood what so many of us already know: this conversation is long overdue.

I am a featured panelist at every stop of this tour. Denton. Dallas. Houston. All three. Because the film is only the beginning of what needs to happen in that room.

Every single time the lights come up, almost every hand goes up. Women who finally have the words for something they've been living through alone. Women who have been told they're fine, they're just stressed, they're just getting older. Women who, without answers, quietly blow up their lives and don't even fully understand why.

Answering those questions, being in that room, watching something shift for women who have felt invisible for years. This is why I do what I do.

And I have to acknowledge the two extraordinary women behind this film. These amazing women behind the film are monks. Literally. They have dedicated their lives to giving voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, moving from documentaries on human trafficking to animal cruelty, and now to this. Because they recognized something important: what women experience in perimenopause is its own kind of violence. Silent. Invisible. And long overdue for the spotlight.

One stop left. Houston, we are coming for you on May 14th at TWU Houston.

If you are in the Houston area, come. Bring someone you love. Details at TWU.

Balance is streaming now on Apple TV and Prime Video.

Address

Houston, TX

Website

http://selfority.com/menopause-course, http://selfority.com/menopause-survival-checklist, htt

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