I've been meaning to post this for a while because I found it genuinely useful and I know a few people here have mentioned dreading GP appointments and then coming out feeling like they didn't say half of what they meant to. I had an appointment last month and for the first time I actually went in with a written list. Not a long one. Just a note on my phone with the date things started and roughly how often they were happening. I'd been tracking for about ten days beforehand, just a quick note each morning about how I'd slept and whether the anxiety had been bad the night before. What I noticed when I wrote it all out was that the symptoms were more connected than I'd realised. The nights I woke at 3am were often the nights I'd had a glass of wine with dinner. The anxious mornings were almost always after a bad night. I hadn't seen that pattern until I looked at it all in one place. The things I ended up writing down for the appointment: - sleep (when I wake, how long I'm awake, whether I feel hot) - anxiety (morning, evening, or both, and whether there's a reason or not) - brain fog moments at work, specifically the word-finding thing which I'd been too embarrassed to mention - cycle changes, because mine have been all over the place - how long this has been going on, roughly I didn't go in demanding anything. I just said I'd been tracking and showed her the notes. It felt so different to my usual performance of 'I'm fine, just a bit tired'. She actually listened. We talked about whether this could be perimenopause and what the options were. I'm not saying it'll go like that for everyone, genuinely, every GP is different and I know some people have had a much harder time. But having the notes meant I didn't forget the brain fog bit, which I definitely would have done. Just sharing in case it's useful. The evening walks I've been trying have also helped a bit with the winding-down thing but that's a whole other post 😊 x