The New York Times bestselling author of The Female Brain explains how the female brain changes for the better in midlife, reframing the patriarchal term "menopause" as "The Upgrade" and inspiring women to unlock their full potential. When Louann Brizendine published The Female Brain , it was a game-changer for its profound scientific understanding of how women think, communicate, and feel. Now, Brizendine uses her unique ability to make science approachable to offer an empowering vision of the years in a woman's life that have too often been ignored or misunderstood and creates a positive new framework for this life stage, never using the words perimenopause or menopause, with their suggestions of obsolescence, in the book. After analyzing the latest research, Brizendine has found that in midlife the inclination to cater to the needs of others relaxes, allowing women to become more centered while retaining their gifts of perception. The change in ratio of estrogen to testosterone makes women more direct and able to speak out. There's also a drop in anxiety that allows the female brain to flip its attentional style from multitasking to focusing on one thing at a time.