Restless Nights: How Hormones Impact Women's Sleep
If you’re new here, welcome!
Today kicks off a miniseries on women’s hormones + health.
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Sleep might be a weird place to start this hormone miniseries on but sleep is key to a lot of areas of our health, from our mood + energy to how well we focus during the day. It also plays a really big role when it comes to hormone cycles as women because it’s also impacted by our hormones. Or maybe it's that our hormones are impacted by sleep?
Either way it can feel a little like a which came first the chicken or the egg, scenario!
For many women, experiencing sleep disturbances around their periods or at other times in their monthly cycle are quite common. There’s a lot of research to support how foundational sleep is to our health overall but if you’re anything like me, entering into the early stages of perimenopause you may be experiencing more and more sleep disturbances. Whether that's not being able to fall asleep, not being able to sleep through the night or just feeling tired even after a ‘good’ night's sleep.
It can be incredibly frustrating when all you want to do is sleep but your body and/or your brain has other ideas.
We've all experienced the effects of being sleep deprived regardless of the reason and can impact everything from our moods being a little more haywire to foods we crave and even how well we focus during the day or handle day to day stressors.
We can easily see how important rest really is.
Maybe you aren't getting 7-8 hours but maybe we can work on getting better quality sleep if we're not getting the hours we need and so here are a few things that I've been doing that have been helping me to get better sleep
Recently I’ve been diving more and more into this topic to help with my own hormone related sleep issues and thought it was worth sharing what I’ve learned so far!
There are a number of reasons why sleep can be disrupted so we’ll talk about hormones but also some of the other things that add to this struggle that many women face.
Sleep is impacted from changes in hormones which could be related to puberty, pregnancy, perimenopause etc, to life stressors, mental health, aging, life/role transitions, and other factors.
Let’s talk hormones!
Being that hormones are the focus of this miniseries let’s get to know a little more about our hormones and how they can impact our sleep!
If you’re experiencing hot flashes or night sweats you likely already know the culprit is the rollercoaster ride of your hormones. But this isn’t the only sign that your hormones may be affecting your sleep.
Some women don’t EVER have hot flashes or night sweats but might frequently wake up at 3am every night.
Or maybe it’s having trouble falling asleep and feeling restless for hours before finally drifting off into lalaland
To better understand our hormones let's talk briefly about the main characters that we’re dealing with here.
This decline in estrogen and rise in progesterone can impact our energy,
make us sleepier, more fatigued, all things you would think make us sleep better
but isn’t always the case.
Complete menstrual cycle - Illustration by Marta Pucci
Many women experience restless nights the week before their period, which is usually when progesterone is reaching its highest point. In non scientific terms its like having temporary insomnia because of these hormonal ups + downs and usually resolves itself once this hormone phase passes.
Stresses impact on sleep
Now not all stress is bad, I'm not saying that every woman is weighed down by the weight of the world that would be horrible. But depending on what we have going on in our lies can play a significant role in how well we are able to rest and recover from each day or seaon we’re in.
It could be that you have small children, you’re kids are in the teenage years or they are entering young adulthood.
Maybe you’re a caregiver for a loved one or for our aging parents.
Maybe it's the stress of a high demand job or not being happy with our job.
Allof which are big life transitions and challenges that can be difficult to navigate.
Now not all stress is ‘bad’ either…
Some stress is that’s seen as ‘good’ or beneficial is something called ‘eustress’ and are things that may be uncomfortable for a short time but provide some benefits to us afterwards.
An example would be exercise.
It can be hard, uncomfortable, sweaty and leave you out of breath but when you’re finished you feel accomplished, stronger and maybe even a little stressed than you were before. You might even sleep better that night!
‘Good' or ‘bad, all of these things compound and can keep our minds busy at night when the world goes quiet because that's when our brains have time to process all of the things that we have going on in our lives - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Stress is a normal part of life. We all have responsibilities and things that we need to do; the key is finding ways to manage them as best we can so it's not robbing us of much needed rest and restoration in our lives.
Is there a magic bullet for better sleep?
The solutions will vary for each of you but let’s talk about some ways to help you get there!
So how do we find ways to get the rest of our bodies need that support our health and hormones all month long?
As a single mama who's carried a lot of responsibility on my own (yes I had a very supportive family however you're still a lot that is a single parent you do solo) there have been many seasons of my life where truly resting and relaxing just didn’t seem to be an option….I’ve learned a lot since then.
I was always on the go! Life was busy taking care of my son, I was at university, working part-time and did I mention my son was in a competitive sport too?
Saying all this to tell you - I get the busy season of life.
Since then, I've had to re-learn how to slow down because it just didn't really seem to come naturally to me which is why I wanted to started with the topic!!
Here are some things that I've learned along the way that I have found to be really helpful in putting sleep as a priority.
Here’s a few ways to help you get better sleep
Stick to a routine
We've all heard that having a bedtime routine each day helps us wind down from the days and is actually really important for our circadian rhythms aka. our natural sleep patterns.
This will look different for everything based on YOUR life, work schedule etc. What works for me might not for you, it’s about finding what works for you!
If you work shift work or have evening shifts and day shifts mixed in through the week this is going to look different than someone who works a classic 9 to 5. Either way it can be incredibly helpful to create a wind down routine that will help your body realize that it's time to start winding down.
A few ideas:
create a simple skincare routine
turn off social media and read a light novel
set up your coffee maker for the next morning
do a short night time yoga routine or light stretching
take a warm shower or hot bath with some relaxing essential oils
write out your to-do list for the next day so that it’s not running through your mind
I’ve summarized all the tips and ideas in a FREE guide for you!
The 4, 3, 2, 1, 30 method
I came across this on various social media feeds and I don't know where I originally saw this but it's not a method I myself created so I can't take credit for this!
This past year my own sleep was suffering so when I saw this I started with one part of this method and added to it over a number of weeks and find it has helped me so much!
With any new habit or change I always say to start with one thing and slowly add more over time. This makes it easier to keep up with and make lasting changes with less overwhelming feelings of ‘I have to do it all or not at all!’
I recently listen to an interesting podcast where they talked about this method along with some other interesting things I didn’t know about sleep like how much we actually need. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Back to this method though, it can really help give a step by step guide or need more concrete ideas on what to start with first in terms of creating that night time routine. I like this method because once you get the hang of it it really does become this nice rhythm in the day and has helped me personally in feeling more rested regardless of where I’m at in my cycle.
It doesn't have a fancy name it's just 10, 4, 3, 2, 1, 30… in here is the breakdown
10hrs before bed no more caffeine (gasps of horror I know)
Caffeine has a half life of about 3-5 hours…a half life is a term used to tell us the time it takes for the ‘activity’ of something to fall to half its original strength.
Basically, this tells us that caffeine can last well into the evening even though its strength may have decreased but may lead to sleep disruptions, especially if you’re more sensitive to it’s effects.
4hrs before bed no super strenuous exercise.
Exercise is great for helping to improve the quality of our sleep over time. This varies from person to person but exercise stimulates our brain & body which can make it harder to fall asleep if we do vigorous exercise too close to bedtime.
A light walk or yoga can be great evening activities.
3hrs before bed no heavy meals.
The reason for this has nothing to do with weight gain much as the diet world would want you to believe. Its because your digestive system is very active for those couple hours after you've eaten and needs time to properly digest your food before you go into a rest state.
Eating a heavy or large meal too close to bedtime can leave you feeling gassy, bloated or with heart burn throughout the night!
2hrs before bed stop working.
This may be easier for some, harder for others depending on the type of work you do, what hours you have to work but ideally we want to shut down the heavy thinking so that our brain has time to wind down.
Nothing worse than being tired but your brain is wired and still processing the hustle & bustle of the day.
1hr before bed no screens…I said what I said
Yes, that includes TV which I know for some people might sound absurd but blue light stimulates the brain even if it makes your eyeballs tired it's not actually helping you wind down.
Blue light blocks that good stuff, melatonin, from releasing and promoting sleep!
30mins before bed start your nighttime routine
Mine is to start my diffuser with a calming essential oil like serenity or lavender + cedarwood, then I’ll do my skincare routine, brush my teeth and then I read a light fiction novel to close out the day.
Supplements
There might be times where no matter what you do you're still a little bit restless at night or maybe you need an extra support helping to wind down. In those cases there are some supplements that may help with that.
Personally I'm not a fan of supplemental melatonin not for any bad reason it's just that my body doesn't like it and it gives me crazy vivid and weird dreams so I don't take it. If that works for you that’s great and helps many people!
What I take instead is doTERRA Serenity softgels or Adaptive softgels.
Both of these supplements are great for helping to calm the nervous system and give you that little bit of extra support to help your body get into a restful state.
If supplements aren’t your thing another great option is to create a relaxing environment by having a diffuser in your bedroom with some calming essential oils. Aromatherapy can be a great way to help you drift off to sleep.
Here are some of my favorite oils to diffuse at night:
Even with the best laid plans we can experience sleep issues especially as women leading up to our periods, preganacy/post partum or perimenopausal/menopausal.
There’s no magical solution but there are so many practical ways to support your body during each life stage!
Wherever you’re at in your hormone life stage having tools and information that can help make sense of what’s going on is so important!!
I hope that you found this helpful and that you follow along with this hormone miniseries.
I’ve taken the main tips talked about in today’s blog and created a FREE 3-page guide for you!
I hope that you found this helpful and that you follow along with this hormone miniseries. Sign up below for my newsletter to be notified of the next blog in this hormone miniseries!
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