Would You Like To Understand Why Your Hormones Keeps You Awake?

Are you worried about how perimenopause insomnia impacts your…

• Health
• Career or
• Relationships?

As an antenatal Midwife with lots of responsibility, my perimenopause insomnia is a worry. Understanding how midlife hormone imbalance affects my sleep, has helped me uncover ways to manage my perimenopause insomnia.

Here’s what I learnt about how hormones cause perimenopause insomnia and disturbed sleep.

What Are Hormones?

Hormones are chemical messengers that are made by endocrine glands or cells. Once made, hormones are transported via the blood, to the target organ.

Once the hormone reaches the target organ it enters…

• The cell
• Binds with the cell’s DNA to
• Create a reaction within the cell or organ.

This works in a similar way to a lock and key system.

This is the purpose of hormones, to create a physiological reaction within a nearby or distant organ or tissue. For example, during the childbearing years, your menstrual period works like this…

• The pituitary gland release follicle stimulating hormone to mature an egg, which in turn
• Increase levels of oestrogen from the ovaries, and as oestrogen rises
• The hypothalamus senses this rise in oestrogen and
• Signals the pituitary gland to release leutinizing hormone to release the egg from the ovary
• As the egg is released the capsule or corpus luteum release progesterone to sustain a pregnancy (if the egg is fertilised)
• If the egg is not fertilised, the egg is absorbed back in the body
• The corpus luteum breaks down and progesterone decreases
• The hypothalamus senses the decrease in oestrogen and progesterone and
• The lining of the uterus breaks down as your monthly menstruation

What Happens To Your Hormones During Perimenopause?

During perimenopause…

• The ovaries become less efficient
• Less eggs are available to be released
• Irregular release of eggs mean
• Less progesterone is released
• Lower oestrogen and progesterone means
• There is less feedback for the hypothalamus
• As a result the hypothalamus goes into a bit of an overdrive and starts pumping out more hormone messages to the pituitary gland
• This results in hormones going off all over the place out of sync

And voila, you get lots of perimenopause symptoms because your hormones are out of balance.

If you have other things going on such as what we look for during nutritional therapy consultations, you may experience perimenopause symptoms that may affect your daily life.

There may be factors that puts added demand on your already stressed hypothalamus.

Your Hypothalamus And Sleep

In order to maintain hormone balance, your body has a negative feedback mechanism. This means that when a hormone gets too low, the endocrine gland(s) involved begin production and release of other related hormones.

The hypothalamus, found in the brain is the main endocrine gland that monitors hormone…

• Balance and
• Hormone levels from your internal and external environment

It is the link between your outside environment and how your endocrine system maintains hormone balance.

Whether you are stressed or have an infections, chemical messages get sent from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland, to stimulate, or stop the release of hormones to target organs.

The Hypothalamus, Melatonin And Sleep Regulation

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is a tiny area of the brain, found at the front of the hypothalamus.

It regulates our sleep and wake cycles as part of our circadian rhythm through our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

The hypothalamus also receives stimulus from our photosensitive retinal ganglion cells in our eyes.

As the hypothalamus receives signals of light and dark cycles, it sends signals for the pineal gland to produce melatonin.

Daylight suppress melatonin, whereas darkness stimulates release of melatonin. Hence, we feel sleepy as daylight turns into evening darkness.

The Effects Of Lower Oestrogen And Progesterone Levels

Menopause is a natural progression in a woman’s life, as the ovaries age and become less efficient.

Perimenopause or menopause is not a disease.

It is the result of declining ovarian function. As the store of eggs in the ovaries decline, there is also a decline in oestrogen and progesterone production.

This provides little or no feedback for the hypothalamus. As a result, the hypothalamus increase stimulation of hormones so the pituitary gland stimulate ovulation.

This creates hormonal imbalance that result in some women experiencing excessive perimenopause or menopause symptoms that affect their quality of life.

Oestrogen is also known to be an effective antioxidant. Therefore, lower oestrogen increases risk for oxidative stress. If the body is over powered by reactive oxygen species (ROS), it may lead to damage in the neurons of the forebrain.

Menopause Transition And Sleep

So how does menopause transition affect sleep patterns? To put all this together, lower female sex hormones may mean that…

• There is little feedback for the hypothalamus to send the hormone to stimulate the pituitary to release the hormones to activate target organs
• This creates hormone imbalance that affect the whole endocrine system and other body systems
• Stress from poor sleep and general stress creates over stimulation from our nervous system to affect the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus to affect sleep patterns
• Hormone imbalance creates further imbalance that affects the release of melatonin from the hypothalamus
• Lower oestrogen levels mean lower antioxidant protection and increases the risk of damage to neurons in the forebrain that may affect the hypothalamus

Hopefully this mini endocrinology lesson, explains how hormone imbalance creates poor sleep in perimenopause and menopause.

However, poor sleep in menopause transition may not be just down to lower female sex hormones. As I mentioned above, nutritional therapy consultations helps us uncover underlying issues that may make your menopause symptoms worse.

By knowing about underlying issues, we are better able to support the physiological changes of menopause.

Just simple changes to your diet and lifestyle, may go a long way to reducing sleep problems and other menopause symptoms.

As a Nutritional Therapist, I use the Functional or Lifestyle Medicine approach to take control of my perimenopause sleep problems and get back sleeping through the night.

Why Sleep Disturbances May Not Be Just Down To Low Oestrogen

To begin with, we have to remember that we are all different. We all have different…

• Lifestyles
• Food choices
• Stress levels
• Previous illness or infection
• Level of physical activity
• Genetic influence
• Environmental influence

These factors affect how our body adapts to the change and decline of hormone levels.

This is why it is difficult for HRT or other menopause supplements to be a one size fits all, for every woman.

Lower oestrogen, progesterone and other female hormones are just one aspect of the intricate system that support our health.

It is true that oestrogen is an anti inflammatory and protective hormone. Nevertheless, we have body systems that provide us immune support.

In order to counteract the side effects of lower oestrogen, we must support our immune and other systems to protect our health. By supporting our other systems, we minimise perimenopause and menopause associated risk factors.

Treating Every Woman As An Individual

The National Institute For Health And Care Excellence (NICE) Guidelines, recommends that Menopause: Diagnosis and Management should …

1.1 Individualised care
1.1.1Adopt an individualised approach at all stages of diagnosis, investigation and management of menopause. Follow recommendations in the NICE guideline on patient experience in adult NHS services.

National Institute For Health And Care Excellence (NICE)

Worries around my low moods and constant fearfulness were what led me to see my GP. I had a ten minutes appointment to try and explain my symptoms and worries.

My question is, how can care possibly be individualised within this time frame?

I am not knocking the GP or the NHS. After all, I work for the NHS and I know how little time each person gets.

My GP sent me for blood tests and suggested HRT. Knowing what I know about how the body works, I really did not want to resort to HRT.

I also believe that there must be natural remedies for perimenopause insomnia and other symptoms, out there!

So I set out to use my knowledge of Nutritional Therapy and Functional Medicine, to uncover natural treatments to manage my perimenopause symptoms.

In this article, I give tips on what I do to manage my perimenopause insomnia. These tips work for me because I know my body and I have taken the time to find out what may be at the core of why I get disturbed sleep.

I support the body processes that reduced oestrogen, progesterone and other female hormones affects in my body.

How To Take Control Of Your Perimenopause Insomnia

So how can you manage your perimenopause insomnia?

You can try the tips I provide in my other blog post. However, they are simple tips to try.

If you have…

• Underlying illness
• Take medications
• Genetic complications
• A Poor diet
• Unresolved medical issues
• Stressful lifestyle
• Nutrient deficiencies

You may need more personalised support to manage your insomnia or other peri menopause or menopause symptoms.

If you would like to uncover natural remedies to support your through perimenopause or menopause, get in contact and we can begin to support you to get back to sleeping again.