When it comes to understanding ageing, whose voice carries more weight — the researcher with a library of data, or the person who’s lived the story?

The truth is, both matter deeply. Lived experience and academic knowledge are two halves of the same whole, each offering something the other cannot.

Lived experience gives ageing its heartbeat. It captures the subtle realities of growing older such as the changing body, the shifting sense of self, and the wisdom gained from endurance. Those who have walked the path understand the quiet art of resilience, the beauty of perspective, and the power of connection. Their insights reveal how ageing is not simply a biological process, but an emotional and social journey shaped by context, relationships, and self-perception.

Academic or studied knowledge, meanwhile, brings structure and validation. It provides the data that underpins public policy, health programs, and social understanding. Researchers map trends, test interventions, and identify how beliefs about ageing influence wellbeing. This is the evidence that turns experience into change to inform care models, workplace policy, and community planning.

Neither approach stands alone.

When they meet, something powerful happens. Personal stories give research meaning; research gives those stories strength and reach.

Together, they create a feedback loop that improves how we age as individuals and as societies.

Nowhere is this integration more important than in the study of menopause.

For decades, menopause was treated as a private struggle or a medical inconvenience, rarely spoken of openly.

Today, women’s lived experiences are shifting that silence.

Women’s personal stories and perspectives of brain fog, sleepless nights, workplace pressures, and rediscovered freedom are reshaping how menopause is understood.

Academic studies confirm what women have long known: that knowledge, support, and community can transform the experience entirely.

When research listens to lived voices, policies improve, workplaces adapt, and stigma fades. When lived experience draws on science, women are empowered with understanding and practical tools. The result? A more complete, compassionate, and truthful picture of life’s later transitions.

In the end, it isn’t a contest between experience and expertise. It’s a collaboration between what we live and what we learn.

And as ageing itself teaches us, the richest understanding often comes when we stop asking which is better, and start asking how they can work better together.

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World Menopause Day

Saturday 18 October