Menopause and Sleep
How well do you sleep? This is such an important time in our lives, and we lose so much sleep.
What are the reasons we don’t sleep?
Brain Racing
Hot Flashes/Night Sweats (Same thing)
Itchy Skin
Trying to get comfortable.
Noise
For some of us, spouses, kids, grandkids, pets, etc.
How do we cope with all of this and survive each day?
My routine has been pretty standard the last year or so. But menopause changes and we have to roll with the punches.
Most nights, starting about 8:45pm, it’s some decaf coffee with an Irish cream topper, then a half milk/half Irish cream heated up, and a homemade 420 brownie (very small), then 2 cups of Chamomile and Lavender Tea (the second cup comes to bed with me).
The hope is to be in bed by about 10:30pm.
Hopefully, around 10:30pm, I grab the tea, my ever durable sweat towels, a book, and plop into bed. My sweat towels are kitchen towels from my deceased mother in law. We got them years ago and they are perfect for my hot flashes. They can be wrapped around the neck, slept on between you and the pillow, and they are big enough to wrap a smaller sized head of hair.
This is for what I hope is a good night.
When I start having bad nights with no inkling of sleep whatsoever, I down a Melatonin. The bad nights seem to last for about four days, and this happens monthly. The Melatonin is 10mg and allows me about 4-5 hours of sleep during those sweaty, uncomfortable nights.
WARNING: I have read studies on melatonin and spoken with my doctor. I know Melatonin has risks. DO NOT TAKE THIS DRUG WITHOUT SPEAKING TO A DOCTOR.
Obviously, I never know when these bad nights are coming so there is no way to prepare for night one. Just expect me to be slightly not in a great mood the next day. Once I realize the pattern my menopause is in, I can prepare differently.
Bad Night Prep: So, I do everything I did before BUT: A little more Irish Cream goes in the coffee and milk, the brownie gets a bit bigger and so do the towels.
For these 3 glorious nights I sleep on an extra large beach towel, have a hotel size beach towel under my head as well as the M-I-L towels.
If I sweat through the sheets too much, I will wrap my body and head in a couple of large towels and try and go back to sleep. For me, it is quite uncomfortable but at least it’s dry.
Every now and then I have to get up in the middle of the night and blow dry my sweat soaked hair.
This part is the real bummer for me: I used to be able to sleep in until noon. I miss it. I have been getting up around 7am now for more than a year and I am not fond of this time of the day. How about just giving me one day a month where I can sleep past 10am? I miss that.
But once you are up, you are up, and it’s time to start over.
Rinse and repeat baby. Rinse and repeat.