I don't think there's a way to fully communicate what menopause feels like because young people are in denial they'll ever get old. I stopped sleeping more than 4 hours a night (interrupted) but the upside was I went on a campaign to fix it, and only had 1 year of hot flashes (removing sugar, alcohol, flour & wheat + exercising made the difference). It took about 5 years to solve the sleeping problem...although if I eat sugar, grains, alcohol, etc, I'll awaken at 3am. I do feel menopause is much worse if you have an underlying health/metabolic problem. I have Hashimoto's. Thanks for a great article about an important topic for all women!