Women’s Mental Health Across the Lifespan: Hormones, Work, Menopause & Digital Harm

How does women’s mental health change across the lifespan—from puberty and reproductive years to pregnancy, postpartum life and menopause? And what happens when biology meets work, caregiving, relationships, sexuality and the pressures of an increasingly digital world?

In this episode of The Listening Commons, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with psychiatrists Dr. Aninda Sidhana and Dr. Sugandha Gupta about the biological, psychological and social forces shaping women’s mental health at different stages of life.

The conversation explores hormonal changes, puberty, pregnancy, postpartum mental health, menopause, workplace stress, caregiving, gender expectations, relationships and sexuality, alongside newer challenges including social-media comparison, cyber harassment, online abuse and digital harm.

It also examines an important clinical question: Why can women’s psychological distress be overlooked, normalised or dismissed—and what would earlier recognition and better support look like?

Dr. Aninda Sidhana is a psychiatrist and psychosexual medicine specialist and National President of the WICCI National Women’s Mental Health & Psychosocial Wellness Council. A Next Generation Leader Fellow with ISDRC Geneva, her work spans women’s mental health, trauma-informed care, psychosexual medicine, gender-based violence, dignity, responsible storytelling and psychosocial wellbeing.

Dr. Sugandha Gupta is a senior psychiatrist and Founder & Director of Delhi Mind Clinic, New Delhi. Her clinical work encompasses adult psychiatry, women’s mental health, child and adolescent mental health, addiction, psychotherapy and community mental-health education.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder, Creator & Editorial Lead of The Listening Commons. His long-form interviews engage with mental health, human rights, science, culture and contemporary social questions, with careful listening at the centre of the conversation.

Together, they ask what families, partners, clinicians, workplaces and digital communities can do to support women—not only during periods of illness or crisis, but throughout the changing stages of life.

Women’s mental health is not one diagnosis, one hormone or one stage of life. It is the evolving conversation between body, mind, relationships and the world around us.

🎧 The Listening Commons

Conversations where listening is given the time, dignity and depth it deserves.

Topics: Women’s Mental Health • Psychiatry • Hormonal Mental Health • Pregnancy & Postpartum Mental Health • Menopause • Workplace Mental Health • Psychosexual Medicine • Trauma • Gender & Mental Health • Social Media • Cyber Abuse • Digital Wellbeing • Women’s Health • Mental Health Awareness