A Free Menopause App That Feels Like a Friend: Meet MySakhi

It's 11pm. You're in bed with your phone, typing "why do I wake up at 3am hot and anxious" into a search bar for the third night this week. The answers are either frightening or trying to sell you something. You close the screen feeling more alone than when you opened it.

That feeling is exactly why MySakhi exists.

In short: Yes, there is a free menopause app made for how you actually feel. MySakhi is free to download on the App Store, and on any phone you can listen free at mysakhi.life. Inside are short guided breathing practices, most about 5 minutes or less, sleep stories, original 432Hz music built on Indian ragas, and Sakhi, a free AI companion. She is a friend, not a doctor.

What is MySakhi, in plain words?

MySakhi is a free app for women in perimenopause and menopause, with short guided breathing practices, sleep stories, calming 432Hz music and Sakhi, an AI companion who suggests what might help tonight.

The name comes from सखी, the Hindi word for a close female friend. The one you call when something feels wrong and you don't want to explain it all from the beginning. That is the feeling MySakhi is built around. Not a clinic. Not a guru. Not a programme you have to keep up with. A friend who happens to know a lot.

Nandita, founder of MySakhi, built it because so many women go through menopause mostly alone and in silence. On the first episode of the MySakhi Permission to Breathe podcast, she describes Sakhi as a companion, not a doctor and not a guru: a friend who says, I see you, I hear you, let's figure this out together.

Who is this free menopause app for?

MySakhi is for women, roughly 35 to 60, somewhere in perimenopause, menopause or after. Maybe your periods have gone unpredictable and your sleep has gone with them. Maybe you're a year past your last period and still waking at 3am. Maybe nobody has said the word "perimenopause" to you yet, but something has shifted and you can't quite name it.

It was made with Indian and South Asian women in mind, wherever in the world you live, and it's for any woman who wants support in English. You don't need to know anything about meditation. You don't need a quiet house, a mat or a spare hour. You need five minutes and somewhere to sit or lie down. A parked car counts. So does the bathroom floor.

For a little context: perimenopause lasts about 4 years on average, though it can be a few months or up to 10 years. Most women reach menopause between 45 and 55, and studies in India often report an earlier average, around 46 to 47. Hot flushes and night sweats affect around 3 in 4 women. An estimated 1.2 billion women worldwide will be menopausal or postmenopausal by 2030. You are very much not the only one awake. If you want to check what you're feeling against a proper list, start with the full list of menopause symptoms nobody gave you.

What is inside MySakhi?

Everything in the library is pre-made and carefully chosen, so you're never handed something random. Here is what you'll find:

• 30 English guided practices, each made for a specific symptom or feeling, from hot flushes and night sweats to rage, brain fog and the 3am spiral
• Hindi guided practices, free on the website at mysakhi.life/hi
• 3 sleep stories: The Night Garden, The Train to Jaisalmer and Naani Ki Rasoi, which is in Hindi
• 29 original music tracks tuned to 432Hz and built on Indian ragas, each also in a 20-minute and a 1-hour version

Most practices are about 5 minutes or less. A few are longer, for evenings when you have more room. Not a course to complete. A shelf you can reach for.

If you'd like to try one right now, this is a gentle first press of play. It's called I Am Here, a short grounding practice for when anxiety is loud.

Meditation

I Am Here — Grounding Meditation

4 min

You can browse everything in the MySakhi library, on any phone.

Meet Sakhi, your free AI companion

Sakhi is the heart of the app. You tell her how you feel, in your own words: a symptom, a mood, a hard night. "Hot and wide awake at 3am." "Snapped at everyone today and now I feel awful." She listens, then suggests a practice, a sleep story or a piece of music for that moment.

She is free, she speaks English and Hindi, and you can find her in the app or at Sakhi on mysakhi.life. If you're curious how she chooses, here is how Sakhi picks what might help tonight.

What Sakhi is not: she is not a doctor. She won't diagnose you and she won't prescribe anything. She's closer to the friend who sits with you at the kitchen table and says, "Okay. Let's breathe first. Then we'll think about the rest."

What does the app do day to day?

Beyond Sakhi and the library, the MySakhi app has three simple things built in:

• Daily symptom and mood check-ins, so you can notice patterns over weeks instead of guessing
• Bedtime mode, for a quieter, sleep-friendly end to the day
• Circles, small topic groups such as Restful Nights and Cool Down

The check-ins are quietly useful when you see a doctor. Instead of "I've just been tired, I think?", you can say "I've woken up most nights this month, and it's worse the week before my period." There's more on that in why a menopause symptom tracker changes the doctor conversation. Circles exist because silence is heavy, and midlife women need a space to talk.

What MySakhi is not

It's worth being clear, because you deserve honesty more than a sales pitch.

MySakhi is wellness support. It is not medical care. A breathing practice may help you feel calmer and more in control while a hot flush passes, but it won't stop hot flushes, and nobody should promise you that it will. Hormone therapy (HRT, sometimes called MHT) is the most effective treatment for hot flushes for many women, and that is a conversation to have with your doctor. The UK's NICE menopause guidance also includes CBT as one option for hot flushes, night sweats, sleep problems and low mood linked to menopause.

So please keep your doctor in the loop. And some things are not for an app at all. Chest pain, fainting, breathlessness, or palpitations that don't settle need urgent care. So does a sudden severe headache, a change in your vision, weakness or confusion. Any bleeding after menopause needs a doctor. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline now.

There's a longer, honest look at all this in what Sakhi can and cannot do.

Why five minutes is enough

What if the thing standing between you and feeling a little better isn't discipline, but the belief that you need an hour?

You don't need a perfect practice. You need a few slow breaths, on purpose. In a 2023 Stanford study published in Cell Reports Medicine, five minutes a day of cyclic sighing (two inhales through the nose, then one long exhale through the mouth) for a month improved mood and lowered breathing rate. In that study, it helped more than mindfulness meditation. Slow breathing at about 6 breaths a minute is also linked with calmer heart-rate patterns and the body's "rest and digest" response.

That's why most MySakhi practices are short. Not because you aren't worth more time, but because five minutes is the time you actually have. You can't do this wrong. If your mind wanders forty times, you have come back forty times. That counts. If you want a gentle way in, the 5-minute practice for a day that has no room shows you where those minutes hide.

Can I use MySakhi in Hindi?

Yes. Sakhi speaks English and Hindi, so you can talk to her in whichever language your feelings arrive in. Hindi guided practices are free on the website at mysakhi.life/hi. And one of the three sleep stories, Naani Ki Rasoi, is in Hindi too.

Sometimes "मुझे नींद नहीं आ रही" says it better than any English sentence ever could. It's okay to switch between the two halfway through a thought. Sakhi will follow you.

Where else can I listen to MySakhi?

You don't have to be inside the app to press play. MySakhi's music is on Spotify under the artist name MySakhi, and you can search MySakhi on Apple Music, Amazon Music and other stores. The MySakhi YouTube channel has 20-minute and 1-hour music for drifting off, plus guided practices.

Albums include Deep Sleep Music 432Hz, Music for Anxious Hours 432Hz and Evening Raga Healing Music 432Hz. A gentle honesty note: the evidence for 432Hz is limited. One small 2019 study found a slightly lower heart rate with 432Hz music than with 440Hz. What matters most is whether a sound calms you. The full guide is in where to listen to MySakhi music.

The River Moves At Night: original 432Hz music for when sleep won't come.

Music

The River Moves At Night.

5 min

See in library→

There are podcasts too. MySakhi Permission to Breathe is Nandita and Sakhi talking honestly about menopause. MySakhi Meditation, Sleep & Wellness for Women has all 30 English guided practices as episodes. And MySakhi Sleep Stories has all three stories, ready for bedtime.

How to start tonight

Not a big commitment. Just this:

1. Find MySakhi: Menopause Companion on the App Store, free to download, or open mysakhi.life on any phone.
2. Tell Sakhi one honest sentence about how you feel right now.
3. Press play on what she suggests, lying down or sitting wherever you are.
4. Notice one thing afterwards. Your shoulders, your jaw, your breath. That's all.

It's okay to start small. It's okay to start messy, at 2am, in tears. Not a fresh start on Monday. One breath tonight. If you have more questions first, here is every question women ask before they try MySakhi.

When you're ready, talk to Sakhi tonight, or find MySakhi: Menopause Companion on the App Store. She'll be there, whatever the hour.

5 minutes. No mat. No mantra. Just you.