When counting sheep doesn’t work…
Sleep.
Something we all need, and we know we need it.
Some days it can feel like a long lost lover.
If you have ever had trouble sleeping, you know how much of an impact it can have on your functioning. Brain changes happen within days of getting incomplete sleep along with changes in mood and how fast we digest our foods which then leads us to craving things that are not the best food choices.
Good sleep habits (sometimes referred to as "sleep hygiene") can help you get a good night’s sleep.Some habits that can improve your sleep health:
Be consistent. Go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning, including on the weekends
Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature
Remove electronic devices, such as TVs, computers, and smart phones, from the bedroom
Avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime
Get some exercise. Being physically active during the day can help you fall asleep more easily at night.
But what if you have tried all of these things to no avail and still can't seem to get to sleep (or wake up throughout the night).
Here are some hormone related causes that you might be able to relate to.
Adrenal Dysregulation
The adrenal glands control our stress response, and dysregulation in the adrenal system can mean an imbalance of the fight-or-flight hormone cortisol. You are supposed to get surges of cortisol during the day, but none at night. When the adrenal system is out of balance, the opposite happens: you have low cortisol in the morning, but then it peaks in the evening, leaving you with that wired-but-tired feeling when you’re trying to fall asleep — and feeling groggy and unable to get out of bed in the morning.
Cortisol is one of the body’s master hormones and when it is dysregulated, the body’s other master hormones, like insulin, estrogen, and progesterone, will be dysregulated, too. If you hope to heal your hormone imbalances and erase period problems like acne, bloating, heavy or irregular periods, and severe PMS, you need to address adrenal fatigue, and that means making sleep a priority.
How You Know If You Have Problems with Your Adrenal Glands
If you get a really good night’s sleep — say, you’re in bed by 10pm and sleep a full, uninterrupted 8 to 10 hours — but you still feel hungover in the morning (and didn't drink a bottle of wine the night before), you might be experiencing the start of adrenal problems.
Other symptoms of early-stage adrenal dysfunction include:
Low libido
Inability to deal with stress
Problems with concentrating and memory
Getting sick often
Feeling depressed
PMS-Related Insomnia
In order to improve the quality of your sleep, it’s critical to adopt lifestyle strategies that help balance your hormones. That’s because imbalanced hormones can affect the quality and quantity of your sleep.
Take PMS-related sleep problems, which is driven by hormone imbalances. When PMS strikes, you’re already feeling bloated, cranky, tired, and moody the week before your period. Now add insomnia to the list, which makes the PMS symptoms you’re experiencing even worse.
It’s a vicious cycle, one I know firsthand. When my period problems were at their worst in my mid 20s, I was always tired but could never fall asleep.
But PMS-related insomnia doesn’t discriminate based on age. It can strike every menstruating woman, and it can be especially bad for women over age 35 when the hormonal shifts that happen during perimenopause start to kick in.
What Causes Insomnia the Week Before Your Period?
The week before your period (when PMS strikes) is called the luteal phase. During the luteal phase, you have a big surge and then a rapid decline in estrogen and progesterone. When your estrogen and progesterone are balanced in relation to each other, this rise and fall shouldn’t trigger any symptoms.
But when you have too much estrogen relative to progesterone—a condition called estrogen dominance—you can experience PMS symptoms, including insomnia. Estrogen dominance is triggered by a long list of common factors, including stress, lack of self-care, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and exposure to environmental toxins.
This hormone imbalance is made worse if your progesterone levels are low overall—which can affect women of every age, but which happens more often to women over age 35. That’s because overall progesterone levels start trending downward during perimenopause, and lower progesterone negatively impacts the production of melatonin, which is required to fall asleep and stay asleep. Progesterone also promotes relaxation, and without enough of it, you will have trouble falling asleep easily.
Some common environmental factors make the situation even worse. Drinking caffeine is one, using alcohol to unwind is another. If you have adrenal fatigue, you may experience PMS-related insomnia as feeling "tired-but-wired," where you lay in bed exhausted but can’t fall asleep. Micronutrient deficiencies, including low levels of magnesium, zinc, and/or selenium can also fuel the problem.
If you are looking to sleep great again, book a free call with me here.
I look forward to talking to you soon.
Yours throughout your cycle,
Hannah Greig
