Lisa Snowdon's Menopause Journey: From Intimacy Loss to Renewed Hope
Television and radio presenter Lisa Snowdon has spoken candidly about how the onset of menopause dramatically affected her sex life and relationship with her fiancé George Smart. The 53-year-old, who previously dated George Clooney, revealed that wanting to be intimate "just wasn't on my radar" as hormonal changes took hold.
The Impact on Her Relationship
Snowdon described how her "mojo deserted her" during her early forties, leaving her feeling completely disconnected from intimacy. She explained that the "really close" relationship she'd enjoyed with entrepreneur George Smart, whom she's been dating for eleven years, was significantly challenged by these changes.
"For women, sex is such a mental thing, and when I didn't know what was happening to me, the last thing I wanted to do was get sexy between the sheets," she told the Daily Mail. "I was just trying to put one foot in front of the other each day."
The This Morning presenter credited Smart, whom she first dated over twenty years ago when she was an MTV DJ and reunited with in 2014, with helping her through the most difficult times. She admitted she could be "a bit of a b****" at times as frustration and mood swings took over, but praised her partner's patience and understanding throughout.
The Struggle for Diagnosis
Snowdon's journey to understanding what was happening to her body was neither quick nor easy. In her early forties, she was misdiagnosed with depression after visiting her GP. At 42, she found herself weeping in her doctor's surgery, unable to explain why she suddenly felt so lost.
"I just remember bursting into tears," she recalled. "It was the first time I'd acknowledged that I'd hit rock bottom."
Although prescribed antidepressants, Snowdon says her intuition told her something else was happening. At that time, she noted that no one was talking openly about perimenopause, and the term was barely part of mainstream conversations about women's health.
Her symptoms included anxiety, low moods, uncontrollable emotions, weight fluctuations, changing periods, and hot flushes. "The panic and sadness then goes to an angry rage," she described of her experience.
Finding Solutions and Moving Forward
In 2019, Snowdon finally received confirmation that she was experiencing full-blown menopause. After consulting private doctors and trying various approaches, she was put on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which she credits with helping everything start to make sense.
"It was like a kind of hallelujah moment, because then I could kind of identify what was happening," she explained.
Her libido returned after taking hormones, but she emphasized that recovery involved a "journey of communication, patience and feeling confident and connected again in myself and my body."
Snowdon also implemented significant lifestyle changes, focusing on sleep hygiene by keeping her room cool and dark, avoiding screens before bed, and establishing evening rituals including baths with lavender-scented products from Baylis & Harding's Goodness Sleep Range.
She returned to weight training, walks 10,000 steps daily, eats plenty of protein, drinks lots of water, and avoids sugar where possible. "Protein with every meal," she advised, "whether that's eggs, chicken, or fish."
The couple, who got engaged in 2017, also had to confront fertility questions when they discovered Lisa was perimenopausal in her early forties. Smart's response that he "just wanted to be with her" took the pressure off completely.
Snowdon now advocates for better menopause education and awareness, noting that HRT was "demonised in the early 2000s" but is now more accepted. She encourages men to become part of the conversation, emphasizing that menopause affects everyone through the women in their lives.
"Menopause doesn't directly affect them, but it indirectly does," she said, "because we've all got men in our lives, and men have all got women in their lives."
She believes menopause needs a rebrand - not as an ending but as the beginning of a new chapter where women can find fresh purpose and confidence. "You start to kind of care less what people think," she reflected, "and go out there and grab life by the balls."
