Menopause Insomnia
Navigating menopause is challenging enough
without the added burden of sleepless nights.
- Highly Qualified Coach
- Trusted by Over 16,000 Women
Why Sleep Matters During Menopause
Many women experience insomnia during menopause, affecting their energy, mood, and overall health. Understanding the science behind menopause insomnia took me hundreds of hours of study. Much of the available sleep research isnât specific to midlife menopause or post-menopause, so Iâve done the work for you here at MyMTâą.
Sleep is crucial for your immune system, mental clarity, and overall well-being. During menopause, hormonal changes can disrupt your sleep patterns, leading to insomnia. This not only leaves you feeling exhausted but can also impact your immune health, weight, and daily functioning.
Understanding Menopause and Sleep Disturbances
Of the 500,000 + women that have taken the signs and symptoms of menopause quiz, 81% report symptoms of insomnia. Whilst fluctuating reproductive hormones get âthe blameâ, as this is what women are led to believe, there are other reasons too. Low Vitamin D, iron, poor calcium levels (related to Vitamin D), elevated stress hormones and of course, an irritable bladder, causing women to wake up and use the bathroom night after night, even when they are taking HRT. Itâs exhausting.
Furthermore, these disruptions can lead to persistent sleep problems, affecting your cardiovascular health, immune health and leading to worsening hot flushes, brain fog and menopause weight gain.
The Importance of Deep Sleep
Deep sleep, particularly between 2 am and 4 am, is vital for:
- Healing and repairing tissues
- Lowering blood pressure
- Stimulating growth hormone release
- Activating the immune system
Without sufficient deep sleep, your body struggles to repair itself, leading to sore muscles, weight gain, and increased stress levels. For those of you who are regular exercisers, not getting enough deep sleep also doesnât bode well for retaining your muscle and bone integrity. Without a good nightâs sleep, all those visits to the gym and training in an exhausted state, may not be doing your immune health any good.
The Importance of Restorative Sleep
Why Deep Sleep Matters
When you enter non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, your body undergoes essential repair and healing. Blood pressure falls, the pulse slows, and your brain becomes less responsive to external stimuli. This deep sleep stage is vital for your immune system and overall health.
The Impact of Poor Sleep on Your Health
High Blood Pressure & Hot Flashes
Skipping out on deep sleep can lead to ongoing inflammation (especially in your gut), sore joints, aching muscles, and more frequent hot flashes, because your blood pressure may remain higher overnight. So too, do insulin levels. If you are waking up in the morning to hot flashes, then itâs time to restore your sleep, which means focusing on reducing blood pressure too.
If you donât get on top of your sleep quality and duration, then over time, this lack of restful sleep can become the new normal, leading to daily fatigue, irritability, and weight gain as well as changing cardiovascular health – this is the highest health risk for women who are moving into their post-menopause years.
This is why itâs vital to decrease blood pressure before bedtime. It helps you to fall into a deeper sleep. Itâs this deep sleep that is really important for us to have during menopause because this is the time that your body heals, and cells and tissues both repair and renew.
Sore Joints
When we get this deep, restorative sleep (between 2 and 4 am), blood flow is directed less toward your brain, which cools measurably. At the beginning of this stage, the pituitary gland releases a pulse of growth hormone that stimulates tissue growth and muscle repair.
But if we are lying awake between 2 and 4 am, then this release of growth hormone does not reach the threshold it needs to for healing and repairing our body.
Women who exercise a lot don’t realize their sore muscles and joints are not just from low oestrogen, but also from not sleeping! A full nightâs sleep helps you to build and retain muscle. It is also necessary for weight management too.
Weight Gain
Women who arenât sleeping well during menopause, can put on an additional 1-2 kilos a week, leading them into changing metabolic health. For those of you who continue to put on weight AND you arenât sleeping, then itâs important to get on top of this. Thatâs what I teach you on the MyMTâą programs – yes, itâs that important!
When we arenât sleeping well and our growth hormone is low, our blood sugar hormone called insulin remains high. So too, does our chronic stress hormone called cortisol. Did you know that a lack of sleep interferes with fat mobilization? We cannot lose weight without sleep since overnight, when our insulin, blood pressure, and cortisol levels are lower, fat is burned.
Poor Gut Health
For millions of women, insomnia is a hallmark symptom of menopause. It may surprise you to learn that your gut health can also affect your insomnia.
Brain-gut-microbiome research shows that the gut and brain communicate constantly. One of our brain hormones, called serotonin, is produced by our gut microbiota, which helps to produce our sleep hormone, melatonin.
Sleep quality and duration can be affected if the gut microbiota aren’t healthy or if women have Leaky Gut Syndrome. Optimizing your gut health could potentially alleviate menopause-related insomnia.
Why Sleep is Crucial During Menopause
Sleep is essential for maintaining overall health, especially during menopause. Quality sleep can:
Reduce Symptoms
Better sleep helps manage hot flashes, night sweats, and other menopause symptoms.
Boost Immune Health
Adequate sleep strengthens your immune system, making you more resilient.
Control Weight
Good sleep helps regulate hormones that control hunger and metabolism, aiding in weight management.
The Cycle of Sleepless Nights
When you lie awake night after night, your symptoms can worsen. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) can help initially, but without lifestyle changes, sleep issues may persist.
What Causes Menopause Insomnia?
Wakefulness, light sleeping and insomnia (not being able to get back to sleep), is not just linked to changing reproductive hormones during menopause – there are other lifestyle factors causing menopause insomnia too. Thatâs why it’s important to make lifestyle changes to accommodate these hormonal changes, otherwise sleep problems can persist for years.
The Link Between Circadian Rhythms and Insomnia
During the transition into menopause, changing hormone levels can disrupt our normal circadian rhythms. This internal clock, which gradually becomes established during the first months of life, controls the daily ups and downs of biological patterns, including body temperature, blood pressure, and the release of hormones.
Our body relies on these rhythms to regulate daily cycles, such as body temperature, blood pressure, hormone levels and liver and gut function. In general, this internal clock makes us feel most awake in the daytime and most tired at night. However, during menopause, this pattern can be thrown into chaos. That’s why it’s important to learn how to adjust our Circadian Rhythm to match the specific changes our body is going through during menopause. It is so important to understand how to do this, in order to set us up for improved health beyond menopause and as we age.
The Perfect Storm of Changes
The internal clock isnât the only thing disrupted. High insulin levels, changing cortisol levels, poor thyroid function and low melatonin levels can also play havoc with sleep during the menopause transition. Other factors such as low levels of vitamin D, iron, magnesium and calcium intake can also contribute to sleep disturbances.
Sleep is the Foundation for Our Healthy Aging
When we donât get deep, restorative sleep between 2am and 4am, our immune system and overall health may suffer. Perhaps more concerning, is that lying awake night after night may worsen your symptoms, weight gain, and immune health over time.
For millions of women, not sleeping during their menopause transition sends them spiraling into more health chaos as they age.
Not sleeping due to insomnia, night sweats, and wanting to use the bathroom, may lead to ongoing inflammation in muscles, joints, pancreas and heart. Itâs partly why women end up with sore joints, aching muscles, more hot flushes and feeling bad tempered too.
What About Supplements and HRT?
For many women, as I found myself, the menopause HRT kicks in for a while, but if we arenât changing our lifestyle to allow our body to adapt to midlife hormonal changes, then sleep problems can stay around.
âI was 15 kg overweight. My breast size had expanded considerably - I could almost balance a cup of tea on them, as my grandmother used to do! I was on Menopause HRT, exercising daily, trying to eat well, but despite the medications and supplements, there were three things which eluded me.
1- A good nightâs sleep and 2- Joints and muscles that no longer ached 3- An ability to put a stop to the continual weight gain.â
Most women joining me on the MyMTâą programmes are just like I was â spending huge amounts of money on supplements, hormone creams, weight loss diets, doctorâs visits, blood tests, Personal Trainers, HRT, health specialists and whatever else we can think of, to try and alleviate how we are feeling.
Waking night after night, endless hot flushes, aching muscles, mood swings and unstoppable belly fat, not only left me feeling exhausted, but left me concerned about my future health.
Thatâs how MyMTâą began more than a decade ago. Thatâs when I knew I had to use my physiology and healthy ageing research and experience, not only as a former nurse, but also as a leading exercise specialist in New Zealand and a University Lecturer, specializing in womenâs health and ageing, to figure out how to turn around menopause symptoms and my health, so I could âage-wellâ.
Improve Your Sleep Requires a Specific Approach in Menopause
Sleep restoration isn’t just about turning around the circadian rhythm as many self-help books lead you to believe. Itâs about following a specific strategy that is duited to your changing hormonal environment in menopause and ensuring that you get the right nutrients that are unique to menopause too. If you donât get the sleep you need for tomorrow, you feel exhausted. We all know that. And if it goes on and on, then you may also say goodbye to your healthy ageing goals too. All of these factors are covered in my program.
What Iâve Designed in the World-class MyMTâą Programmes is to Help You Problem-solve About:
- Blood pressure
- Dietary nutrients specific to your sleep
- Your changing gut and liver health
- Ensure you get the right amount and type of exercise
- Reducing stress levels
- Turning around your circadian rhythm based on restoring the correct levels of sleep hormones through powerful, evidenced lifestyle strategies.
As we transition into or through menopause, our circadian rhythms are disrupted, so it is important to restore this biological rhythm and make adjustments to get back to sleeping all night. If we don’t, then over time our brain and body begin to perceive this 2-3am waking period as “normal”.
Now if it Seems Like This is a lot to Get Your Head Around, Donât Worry.
The MyMTâą programs give you all the answers in simple, easy steps. Iâve done all the research for you. There is nothing complicated about my programs, and I step you through the exact strategies that have helped thousands of women around the world, turn around their sleep and other symptoms during menopause, using my scientifically-evidenced lifestyle solutions. I canât wait for you to join me.
Ready to get started and take control of your sleep? The first step is to figure out which program is right for you. In order to help my clients, I don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. There is a program tailored to your symptoms called Circuit Breaker, or my menopause weight loss program, called Transform Me. Both of these start with a module which Iâve simply called âSleep All Nightââ.
Find out which program is right for you!
Start Your Menopause Transformation Today!
Donât let menopause insomnia and other symptoms, or weight gain, overwhelm you! Improve the quality of your sleep and life with a step-by-step plan and most importantly, access my personalised coaching support every step of the way.
