Day 4 - How to get a good night's sleep

Video transcript

Hello, and welcome to day four. How are you getting on so far? Now today I am going to talk all about sleep and why it's so important for us in the menopause.

Why is sleep so important?

Now Alfred Vogel who founded our company said that sleep is the one remedy that nobody can do without. And it's true, isn't it? We only need to have one bad night sleep and we feel awful the next morning, both physically, and emotionally, and mentally. 

Physical repair

So why is getting a really good night's sleep so important for us? Well, our body needs to repair itself. You think of all the physical tasks that we've been doing during the day, and that creates wear and tear on our joints, our muscles, and all other organs in the body. And we need that little bit of time for the body to make sure that everything's working okay.

Emotional processing

It's very good for our emotional self as well because at night, our brain sifts through all the emotional things that we've been going through during the day and puts away the ones that are not really particularly important.

The stages of sleep

And we need different stages of sleep. We need deep sleep for all those physical repairs, and we need a shallow sleep or REM sleep, it's called rapid eye movement sleep, that's when we do the dreaming and that's when we process all the emotional things that have been going on.

But we don't just have one stage and then the other. During the night, we go up and down through these different stages so we're...it's like a wave pattern, and that keeps us into a good night's sleep. 

How the menopause affects sleep

Oestrogen

Now, in the menopause, unfortunately, all sorts of things can affect this particular sleep, and we know that falling oestrogen will allow us to wake up more often. So when we're going in this sleep pattern, when we were rise into what we call the REM state, we can end up waking up. And we can do this maybe three, four, five times a night.

Anxiety

When you wake up, when you're actually in a dream state, there's a lot of emotional processing going on, and when you wake up, you can suddenly jump into worrying about things, getting anxious about things, you end up planning the next day and what's going on in the next few weeks. And once you get into that emotional state, it's then much more difficult to get back to sleep. 

Night sweats

We know that night sweats can actually affect your sleep quite badly. If you wake up with a night sweat, very often you end up very hot, you've got to throw the covers off, you might end up sweating quite a lot so you might have to actually get up and change your clothes or even the bedding. And when you do that, the minute you switch the light on, your mind starts going and it's more difficult to get to sleep.

Bladder problems

We know also that the bladder can be irritated a lot more during the menopause, which means we end up having to get up maybe once or twice during the night to go to the toilet as well. 

How poor sleep can affect menopause symptoms

So all these things can affect the quality of our sleep, and that in turn will affect our menopause symptoms.

Mood problems

If you're not getting a good night's sleep, you find that you might end up getting more mood swings, you can get angry the next day, you can get irritable, you can get really impatient, and you can get those mood swings, and you can be a real bugbear to everyone else around you.

Brain fog

It can cause brain fogging, as you can wake up in the morning and just find that you can't focus properly, you can't get your brain in gear, you find that you're forgetting things much more easily.  

Heart health and blood pressure

We know too, that poor sleep can affect your heart health and also your blood pressure. And we know that these, especially blood pressure can rise quite a bit during the menopause. And very often, we're not even aware that we have any blood pressure problems.

Immune system

We know that poor sleep can affect our immune system, and that can make us more vulnerable to colds and flu during the winter, it can make us more vulnerable to other infections, and it can make our immune system more jumpy. So we can end up getting a lot of allergies as well, things like hay fever and itchy skin.

Weight gain

We know that poor sleep can contribute to weight gain, and we know that weight gain is one of the biggest bugbears in the menopause. So even if we've got a reasonably good diet, just getting a few nights of poor sleep can actually affect our metabolism as well.

How to improve sleep 

So what can you do to improve your sleep? There's a number of things that you can try here.

Stick to a routine

The first thing is to get a really good bedtime routine going. Our bodies are creatures of habit, and if we try and get to bed at the same time every night, the body then is expecting us to get to sleep and we might manage to fall off that just a little bit easier as well. So try and set a time every night and stick to it if you possibly can.

Switch off

We don't want to be watching TV just before we go to bed, especially not violent films or adventure films. Any TV program that starts to get your blood pumping, or your heart pumping, or you start to get excited, or fearful, that will interfere with the way you get to sleep.

So try and cut down the TV. Switch it off maybe for the last hour that you're actually up before you go to bed. Don't have any TVs, or your phone, or iPads in the bedroom because if you're using these, especially before you go to sleep, we know that the blue light that's emitted will stimulate the brain, so this is a really bad one.  

Stick to light reading

If you must read, then, again, don't go for really exciting books because that will rev up your nervous system. Go for books that you can read quite happily and maybe that will help you fall off to sleep as well.

Food and drinks to avoid

Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, fizzy drinks, high salt and sugar foods in the evening, again, will rev up your nervous system and that can stop you from getting to sleep. So they should really be avoided maybe from 5:00 or 6:00 at night if you possibly can. And go for nice calming teas, herb teas such as chamomile tea can be really lovely.

Tackle hot flushes and night sweats

If you are getting the hot flushes, if you're getting the night sweats, you can look at Sage or Menoforce, you can take a tablet maybe with your evening meal to help reduce the night sweats.

Sleep herbs

You can look at herbs like Dormeasan, which is a combination of valerian and hops. These are very calming herbs that are known to help to get you off to sleep quicker, and to help you actually stay down in sleep that little bit longer. 

Eat the right foods

Don't have a big meal late in the evening because your digestive system will be in full flow just as you're ready to go to bed, and that will actually keep you awake.

But it is quite important, especially if you're getting a lot of nervous tension during the night, is to have a little snack before bed, but go for sustaining snacks, not your high sugar ones. So that would be things like, maybe oatmeal, maybe oatcakes, and a little bit of cheese, or peanut butter, or plain yogurt, and a little bit of fruit, and/or a handful of nuts and seeds, they're really nice evening night snack. 

Avoid exercising too late

Don't do exercise in the evening if you possibly can. You know, early evening is fine, but if you are one of those that tend to go to the gym late at night, that's going to rev your whole system up and it can sometimes take a couple of hours after you've finished exercising before everything calms down. So you want to try and avoid doing that if you possibly can.  

Deep breathing

Remember the deep breathing. This is a lovely one to help you to get to sleep. It's one of my favorite ones if I find that I'm tossing and turning. So just learn to deep breathe very slowly, maybe for a count of four, hold for one, and next, exhale for a count of four as well. And it's amazing how quickly you can fall off to sleep doing that one, too.

Don't forget about water!

And remember the water. Dehydration will rev your nervous system up that can stop you from getting to sleep.

And the problem here is if we're having bladder problems during the night, we tend to think that if we cut down drinking in the evening, then we won't go to the toilet so much during the night.

But if you don't drink in the evening, especially if you're getting hot flushes or night sweats, then you're actually going to start your sleep off in a state of dehydration, and that will rev up your nervous system, and that can actually wake you up in the middle of the night as well. 

Look after your liver

Remember your liver. This is another important one, especially if you find that you're waking up between 1:00 and 3:00 every night, that's usually an indication that your liver is a little bit overworked. So again, remember not to eat late at night and to have maybe a simple meal in the evening. You can look at herbs such as milk thistle if you want to do a little bit of gentle liver support work, maybe for a month or so.

Get started tonight!

So as you can see, there's a huge number of things that you can actually do for yourself to help get a better night's sleep. So what I'd like you to do, hopefully you've got your diary handy, is to make a list of all the suggestions and try and see how many that you can actually tick off before you go to bed.

Don't forget about your sleep environment

Oh, and one more thing, what is your bedroom like? Is your bedroom a lovely place that you walk through the door and feel really relaxed? Is it made for relaxation? Is it made for sleep? And unfortunately, you know, we are all always busy, we don't always have a tidy bedroom. But if your bedroom is cluttered, even if you've got the wrong colors in your bedroom, that can be enough to stop you getting a nice sleep. So make your bedroom a little haven.

It might be time for a new mattress!

Look as well at your mattress. Even having an old mattress and old pillows can affect you when you go to sleep. And very often, our joints and our muscles can be quite uncomfortable during the menopause, so we need a mattress and pillow with really good support. So if you haven't changed the mattress, haven't changed your pillows for a good number of years, then maybe it's time you treated yourself to something nice. 

See you tomorrow!

So remember the diary, remember to tick everything off, and I will look forward to seeing you tomorrow where after a good night's sleep, hopefully you're going to be full of energy, and I'm going to tell you about ways how to combat fatigue, and to give yourself a nice little boost.