At a glance

Two leading UK menopause specialists, Alison Bladh and Jo Fiddy, are challenging the traditional advice of simply "managing" menopause by offering practical tools and a positive approach to perimenopause. They have launched a podcast episode titled "Pressing Play on a Magnificent Menopause" to provide women with knowledge and strategies to thrive during hormonal changes, and they will further discuss their approach at the PAUSE Live! event in London. Their initiative aims to change the menopause narrative by focusing on understanding the body holistically, rather than just addressing individual symptoms.

Two of the UK’s leading menopause specialists have come together this week to start a different kind of conversation around perimenopause  - one based around practical tools and positivity, after having experienced an increasing number of perimenopausal women coming to them feeling confused, dismissed and alone, after being told by GPs that what they are experiencing is ‘normal’.

Award-winning Registered Nutritional Therapist, best-selling author and creator of the Meno Massage Method™, Alison Bladh, joins Menopause Coaching Specialist and EFT Practitioner Jo Fiddy on The Pressing Play Podcast as they commit to telling women the truth, meeting them where they are, and giving them practical tools to genuinely thrive, in advance of them both taking to the stage this weekend to further spread their message at PAUSE Live!, the UK’s largest women’s health event, this Saturday.

Between them, Alison and Jo bring more than four decades of experience working with women through hormonal change,  and a shared, unshakeable conviction that the menopause narrative still needs to change.

“Fighting against the mass of advice around simply  ‘managing menopause’ and minimising it, we set out to help women understand it fully, to address it as a whole woman, and watch what becomes possible.” said Jo Fiddy, host of The Pressing Play Podcast, who after years of pushing through grief, and burnout led to a stress-induced menopause in her thirties, after which she went on an intensive self awakening mission to understand her own nervous system, to take control back of her life.

Jo added “ We have been living under the male medical lens for 200 years and it is time that women rewrote and reclaimed the narrative, in our own language, in our own way. I can’t quite believe how much we covered with our  combined expertise, with Alison working through nutrition, lifestyle medicine and therapeutic touch and me looking at it through a neuroscience, energy psychology and nervous system coaching lens - but this is the reality. Women need to understand ALL of the factors at play, rather than obsessing over one of the more common symptoms and honing in on how to ‘fix that’ - understanding the body and how it works in its entirety, so we can help it function at its best, really should be the ultimate goal, but so often it’s not.”

Indeed the episode, titled ‘Pressing Play on a Magnificent Menopause’, spans the full landscape of hormonal change: the unexplained shifts in weight, energy, skin, sleep and confidence that arrive through the forties; the fundamental role of nutrition, protein and blood sugar in metabolic health at midlife; and the rise of GLP-1 medications (what they can and cannot do, and why nourishment and maintaining muscle matter more than ever alongside them).

There is also a frank, honest conversation about skin: what oestrogen decline does to collagen, why women feel embarrassed to admit they still care about how they look, and why they absolutely should not.

“It’s not pretending that menopause is wonderful, because it isn’t necessarily,” said Alison Bladh.

“Women suffer from a huge range of symptoms, and it can be incredibly challenging but magnificent menopause to me is about giving women the knowledge and the tools to understand their changing bodies, and to know they can do something about it.”

Running as a thread throughout the conversation is the nervous system,  - something Jo describes as ‘the overlooked driver behind much of the anxiety, stress and emotional turbulence of perimenopause’.

It is here that the two women’s worlds collide most powerfully.

Alison’s Meno Massage Method™ weaves together therapeutic touch, nervous system regulation and EFT tapping with nutritional support to create something genuinely new in women’s health.

Jo has spent nine years working with the female nervous system and supports women in perimenopause and menopause, enabling them to understand their bodies - and feel in control of a life where they can ‘press play’ on their  future.

“So much of the language around menopause is around surviving it, managing it. Who decided there’s some expiry date on wanting to look and feel your best? No! We can take care of ourselves and look good at any age.” said Jo Fiddy.

The episode on The Pressing Play Podcast is available now on all major podcast platforms and you can view it on YouTube.

This Saturday, 10 October, Alison and Jo are also bringing the conversation to life at PAUSE Live! - the UK’s largest menopause and women’s health event, now in its fourth year, at Convene Sancroft, St Paul’s, London, where they are both being called upon to offer their practical advice around the theme of ‘Where Hormones Meet Harmony’.

Alison joins on the “Food for Thought: What Your Body Really Needs” panel alongside Kate Cook, Gareth Langford and Dr Madusha Peiris on the Live Stage, as well as a Nutrition & Lifestyle Discovery Specialist in the Meet the Experts zone, offering focused one-to-one sessions for women who want to understand the ‘why’ behind their symptoms and leave with practical, personalised next steps, plus a Wellness Card, exclusive QR code resources and a 10-minute experience of the Meno Massage Method™.

Jo takes to the Experience Hub stage with The Healing Power of Tapping (11.45am-12.15pm), guiding the audience through the science of EFT and a live Rapid Tapping® experience they can use that same day for anxiety, overwhelm and the emotional weight of midlife hormonal change.

Alison Bladh said: “For too long, women have been told to simply get on with menopause ,  to manage it, minimise it, push through it. Jo and I are saying something completely different: understand it, address it fully and you can genuinely thrive through it. What excites me about what we are doing together is how much ground we cover between us. Nutrition, therapeutic touch, nervous system support, EFT - these are not separate conversations. They are all part of the same whole-woman approach, and I think women feel that the moment they start listening to this episode.”

Jo Fiddy said: “I started The Pressing Play Podcast because I wanted to have the conversations that actually help women,  not just the symptom checklist, but the deeper stuff: what is happening in their brains and bodies, what they have been told to feel embarrassed about, and what is genuinely possible for them. To empower listeners to go from the pause of the menopause and press play. Alison is one of those rare experts who brings all of that together. She connects the dots between nutrition, skin, hormones, touch and the nervous system in a way that shifts something for women. This is the kind of education that changes lives,  and I am so proud to be sharing the PAUSE Live stage with her this weekend.”

Editorial insight

While menopause awareness has grown in recent years, much of the public conversation remains focused on symptom management rather than practical, holistic support for women navigating perimenopause and menopause. This collaboration between two established specialists, timed for World Menopause Month and a major national women’s health event, aims to address a persistent gap in the way menopause is discussed and supported in the UK.

The approach taken by Alison Bladh and Jo Fiddy reflects a shift towards more comprehensive, evidence-informed guidance that recognises the complexity of hormonal change. For women who have felt dismissed or underserved by conventional advice, the emphasis on practical tools, nervous system support, and nutrition may offer a more empowering route to understanding and managing their health. The timing aligns with growing calls for better menopause education and support, both within the NHS and across the wider health sector.

Story ideas and journalist angles

Human interest

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