Insomnia and inability to sleep are a 'perk' of midlife for many women.... and the flow on effect of bad or no sleep on to general health and other menopausal symptoms is massive. Weight gain, stress, hot flushes, anxiety, irritation, anger, brain fog and the list goes on.
It is a chicken and egg situation and no two women have the same hormonal response to perimenopause & menopause. But.... there a few hacks that you can put in place to help you sleep better.
UNWIND
For starters - start preparing for sleep a couple of hours before bedtime. Forcing your body and mind to wind down has many health benefits; in this case, as you approach the end of the day, your body needs to start creating the hormone, melatonin.
This hormone helps to regulate our body's circadian (sleep-wake) rhythm so that we sleep (and the body repairs and rests at night) thus allowing us to function well during the day. Melatonin production in the body decreases as we age and the modern lifestyle doesn't help this at all. So you do need to consciously work on this even if sleep has never been an issue in the past.
Melatonin is created in the body in response to darkness. Production in the body is hampered by light - especially the blue light that we get from TVs, PCs and devices. Thus the need to bring the lights down low, get off the computer and Netflicks, and only watch boring free to air TV, lol! Read a book perhaps? Or use a blue-light reducing app if you read on a Kindle or ipad. Essentially you want to avoid too much mental and visual stimulation. Ensure that your room is as dark as possible when you turn off the lights to sleep.
2. EVENING CONSUMPTION
Avoid eating late and indulging in heavy meals, caffeine, sweets and alcohol at night. It's hard to unwind when your digestive system has a couple of hours of work ahead of it to digest your dinner. The stimulation that caffeine gives your metabolism isn’t condusive to winding down.
Avoiding alcohol is often the hardest to cut as a glass of wine at the end of the day is the closest thing to stress release that most women have.
After consuming sugar or alcohol (which your body digests like sugar) , the body will either release dopamine which will make you crave more (which is why lack of sleep is often linked to obesity) or your liver will convert unused sugar to fat. Using alcohol to wind down is one of the worse things you can do for your health, but finding alternative methods of stress release is a topic for another time.
3) COOL IT DOWN
Having a bath or a shower before bedtime has two benefits. It helps you unwind, but it also cools the body temperature down…by the time you towel off and jump into your cold pyjamas. Avoid having your room and your bed too hot. When your body’s circadian rhythm is normal, sleep is brought on as your core body temperature is dropping.
4) BRIGHT MORNINGS
Make your mornings bright! Regardless of how well you have slept the night before, avoid sleeping in to make up for it, and ensure that you get as much natural light into your eyes as you can.! Force yourself to get out of bed and open up those curtains as soon as you are awake. This will help regulate your circadian rhythms, which will help you sleep better the next night.
Rome was not built in a day, and neither will your body respond to these sleep inducing changes immediately. It can take weeks. But if you persevere, you will see changes and even if you have the occasional night or nights that are tough, you will bounce back better from them in the long run!