Dr. Catherine On Wellness

A Letter to Your Perimenopausal Vagina

Nobody gives you the talk about where your vagina is headed after 40. Here's the honest version — what actually changes, what helps, and who to ask.

Do You Find It's Hard to Ask for Help?

Why so many women can give endlessly but can't receive a kindness — the childhood conditioning underneath it, and the week I practiced letting it in.

The Healing Is in the Music

Music is the language of acupuncture. Twenty years in, here's how sound became half the treatment in my practice, and why the powers that be have always found it dangerous.

21 Days of Being Enraged: What Women's Anger Is Trying to Tell Us

My acupuncturist gave me homework: write down everything I'm angry about for 21 days. Here's what suppressed anger does to women, and why it needs somewhere to go.

Your Body Is Screaming — Can You Hear It?

A 6 a.m. call with my college roommate turned into a reckoning: years of pouring everything into everyone else while our own bodies quietly broke down.

I Melted Down My Grandmother's Ring for My Daughter's 21st

On her daughter Ava's 21st birthday — a home birth in Providence, four generations of mother-daughter trauma, and a grandmother's ring remade into two pendants that rest over the heart.

Is Your Bone Density Quietly Declining? What Every Woman Over 40 Needs to Know

Women can lose up to 20% of bone density in early menopause. Here's the honest, evidence-grounded guide to protecting your bones through perimenopause and beyond.

Stuck Energy, Spring Body: The Ancient Science of Moving

Feeling stuck, angry, or restless this spring? Chinese medicine calls it liver qi stagnation — and movement is your best medicine. Here's why.

The Sexual Wellness Conversation Women Over 40 Deserve

Your OB-GYN probably isn't asking about your libido. Here's what midlife women need to know about sexual wellness, from vaginal estradiol to finding the right provider.

Second Spring: What Chinese Medicine Knows About Menopause That Western Culture Forgot

Chinese medicine calls menopause Second Spring — a renewal, not a decline. Here's why the end of your reproductive years might be the beginning of everything else.

Building a Body for the Future: Why I'm Training Now for the Woman I Want to Be at 80

Forget bathing suit season. Learn why sarcopenia and osteopenia matter for women over 40—and how to build a body strong enough for the adventures ahead.

The Four Rituals That Keep This Practitioner Whole (And Why Spring Is the Real Time to Begin)

Discover the four daily wellness rituals a Doctor of Chinese Medicine relies on to stay grounded in midlife — and why spring is the perfect time to start your own.