Menopause and sleep

bamagiggles47

Hi everyone!! I am 50 and just entering the hell of menopause!! I can’t sleep more than an hour at a time. I’m losing weight however I’m exhausted. Any tips to get better sleep?

TracyL963

I don't know about menopause, but I have a few sleepless nights here and there.

A few things that I use -

4-7-8 breathing technique. This is based on yoga and relaxes me. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/4-7-8-sleep-method-to-fall-asleep-fast-expert-breathing-technique

To shut my brain off I sometimes use a white noise machine. You might try a phone app like "Calm."

Last, a type of meditation like progressive muscle relaxation. This is where you tense and release areas of the body to release stress. You move from head to toe (or the reverse).

bamagiggles47

Thank you Tracy !! I’m definitely going to try this!!

AnnPT77

I did begin having sleep problems in menopause, but the menopause was brought on by chemotherapy (for breast cancer), so I'm not sure which was the trigger. Maybe both?

It sounds like yours is sleep interruption insomnia - more about staying asleep than about falling asleep in the first place? Mine is sleep interruption insomnia, generally with no problem going to sleep in the first place, or with going back to sleep after I wake.

For one thing, have you ruled out sleep apnea as part of the picture? If not, and if you snore, you might want to pursue that. Sleep apnea can increase chances of heart disease (and other health problems), so it's not something to mess around with, if it's happening.

One question: Some of my friends reported sleep interruptions being triggered by hot flashes. If that's true for you, cooling strategies can help. There are obvious things like making sure the room/bedding/PJs aren't any warmer than they strictly need to be, using a fan, etc. (Hot flashes IMU are partly about disregulation of ability to cool, so not getting overly warm in the first place can help reduce the issue a little.)

Another thing that can help if hot flashes are a factor is to get some kind of cooling aid. I liked those soft-when-frozen gel packs that many drugstores sell. You put them in the freezer, and they get cold, but stay very squishy so it's not like a hard lump. I put a towel over one on my pillow, under my neck. They stay cold surprising well, but at extremes it works to put a small cooler next to the bed with a spare cold one in it, to swap out in the night.

The other thing that worked for me, very much to my surprise, was a course of hypnotherapy (in my case, self-paid, from a licensed psychologist). IIRC it was 6 sessions, the first one an interview, the others (at 2-week intervals) hypnosis sessions. The therapist would record each session and give me the recording, and I was to play that each night when I got in bed, until the next session. After the full course, she told me I could repeat the cycle of recordings whenever it seemed useful, and could switch them up at any frequency (one per day, same one every day for a week, whatever) but that I should use them in sequence each cycle.

I honestly didn't think hypnosis would help, but I was desperate: I'd tried ever intervention I could find, including being diagnosed with sleep apnea and getting that treated, various sleep drugs (I woke up just as often, but groggier), every folk remedy and internet "solution" (hot milk, chamomile tea, pre-bed yoga, blah blah blah) - no success. I hadn't had a decent night's sleep in several years by that point.

Don't panic at that "several years" thing: During the first 7.5 years of menopause, I was also taking daily estrogen blocking drugs because of my breast cancer. Our body does make some estrogens outside the ovaries, and the drugs blocked that, creating sort of an extra-menopausal state.

I did find that things improved over time, especially so after I was able to stop taking those drugs. Natural menopause symptoms might not drag on as long.

One last thing: Some people report improvement from taking a magnesium supplement a bit before bed. Magnesium glycinate is often recommended, but I take magnesium citrate (because I need that for other reasons). I didn't see much sleep improvement from that, until I learned that I needed to NOT take it close to the time I took calcium supplements, because the two compete for absorption. I think I've gotten a little benefit from the magnesium since making that change.

Best wishes!