A keynote speaker Brown’s session titled "Brain Fog, Lost Words, Fierce Moods: You’re Not Losing it, You’re Upgrading" focuses on the psychological issues women face during the transitional phases of perimenopause and menopause and centres on how to adapt and grow through these changes.
Brown said the conference was an opportunity for knowledge sharing and had a great lineup of speakers.
"It’ll be fun, it’ll be really entertaining and the programme looks fantastic.
"I’m talking about it through the lens of what are our superpowers. Some of those issues are not permanent. They are just a transition and they will change.
"The focus is about thriving through the transitions. We’ve been through transitions before and we can do it again — so how can we adapt to that?"
The one-day conference is the brainchild of exercise physiologist Stacey Pine, also the director of the Movement Hub, and yoga teacher Margie Mitchell, who have both recently completed further study on menopause and wanted to create a holistic event to deliver all the information to women in the area.
The conference also features menopause coach Marja Captjin, lifestyle medicine practitioner Dr Erika Hollows and clinical nutritionist Melissa Smith among other Otago-based health and wellness professionals and topics range from menopause hormonal therapy to exercise for pain management and there will be a better-sleep workshop.
Mrs Pine said even though menopause had come more into open conversation in the past five years, in general little education and few resources were available to women, good-quality research into women’s health having started only about 10 years ago, and they wanted to correct that.
"This is based on very recent research. There is no one thing that is going to fix menopause or balance hormones, so we thought it was important to run a holistic event with a variety of speakers that addressed a variety of aspects of the biopsychosocial approach," she said.
Brown won Outstanding Comedy Award at the Auckland Fringe and Breathtaking Performance Award at the Dunedin Comedy Awards last year for her show Space Invaders, which tackled a common pelvic health problem she has suffered, pelvic organ prolapse.
She said helping people become more informed without scare tactics and bringing a sense of humour and her personal experiences to those health challenges women faced was what she was passionate about.
"I love combining medicine and psychology; I love doing a deep dive into history and finding out funny things about what was thought before — because there is so much sort of fearmongering.
"It’s great that people are talking more openly about perimenopause and menopause, and learning how we can look after ourselves and support each other."
