The New York Times bestselling author of The Female Brain explains how menopause fundamentally changes the brain for the better, and how women can harness this upgrade to feel fearless, focused, and free--in short, becoming their most empowered selves. When Louann Brizendine published The Female Brain ten years ago, it was a gamechanger for its profound scientific understanding of the female brain. Now, Brizendine brings her unique ability to make science approachable to offer an empowering vision of years in a women's life that have too often been ignored. Brizendine has found that in midlife, the inclination to cater to the needs of others relaxes, allowing women to become more centered while retaining their gifts of perception. The change in ratio of estrogen to testosterone makes women more direct and able to speak out. There's also a drop in anxiety that allows the female brain to flip its attentional style from multi-tasking to focusing on one thing at a time. What the patriarchal medical institution has named menopause, Louann reframes as The Upgrade (never using the words perimenopause or menopause in the book). Her message? That the upgraded female brain is centered, direct, validated, focused, fearless, expansive, and free. In this sweeping look at the second half of life, Brizendine dives deep into the microscopic workings of your mitochondria one moment and zooms out to the bigger picture--family, relationships, identity--the next. With clear prescriptive advice, she also offers surprising new research on specific ways women can fend off dementia, increase longevity, wellbeing, and sexuality, and find their best selves at this stage of life. Ultimately, The Upgrade amounts to a celebration of how women step into their power and an entirely new--and radically positive--understanding of aging.