How To Deal With Sleep Problems and Menopause

The menopause transition can include some annoying developments, leading women to wonder how to handle sleep problems and menopause. Hot flashes are a classic example, but it does not stop there. Menopause and its attendant symptoms—including but not limited to hot flashes—can present challenges for falling or staying asleep.

At least 40% of women experience insomnia from their late 40s to early 50s, though some studies suggest that 56% of middle-aged women deal with insomnia globally. The fact that menopause can cause or worsen restless leg syndrome makes restful sleep even harder to achieve.

Many people looking for help getting good sleep during the menopause stage of life think of medicine first. Will sleeping pills do the trick? Well, yes and no. Sleep medication can help someone reach a state of unconsciousness, but it will not necessarily provide high-quality sleep.

To offer the rewards of top-notch sleep, your slumber needs to include certain unique types of brain waves that only occur during particular stages of a healthy sleep cycle. Medication can interfere with those brain waves, so it may be wise to try non-medicinal approaches first.

Hormonal treatments can also have drawbacks (though we encourage you to listen to your doctor’s advice), so gentler interventions like sleep hygiene, relaxation methods, and hypnotherapy are also recommended.

Tips for a Healthy Transition

Before you try complex interventions to treat your sleep problems, you can tidy up your sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene is a form of self-care that makes it easier for your body to achieve full restfulness.

Follow these tips to polish up your sleep hygiene:

• Avoid all screens for at least an hour before heading to bed. The blue light from TVs, computers, phones, and tablets can disrupt your body’s natural release of melatonin, preventing sleep. If you want to use a screen to read before bed, try one that does not emit notable amounts of blue light. Some e-readers fit the bill.
• Try exercising more. Studies show that regular exercise can increase sleep quality.
• Consistency is vital. Try to go to bed and get up at the same time each day. That will help your body internalize the rhythm you want it to follow.
• Set your bedroom temperature on the low side. You can always add more blankets if you are cold, but you cannot just keep taking blankets away if you are hot. Studies show that humans sleep best in rooms between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit (or 15 and 20 degrees Celsius).
• Keep your room dark. If you consistently wake up too early, use blackout curtains or an eye cover.
• Try a fan or a white noise app to lull you to sleep.
• If you consume caffeine, keep it to the morning. A coffee you drink in the afternoon could contribute to your wakefulness at midnight.
• Skip alcohol before bed. It lowers sleep quality, and though it may help you become unconscious more quickly, the sleep that follows will be low-quality and full of interruptions.
• Try to avoid eating in the two to three hours before bed.

Relaxation Methods for a Good Night’s Sleep

What if you have already done everything possible to perfect your hygiene for a good night’s sleep? If that is the case, it is time to think about other ways to calm your mind and body to deal with sleep problems and the effects of menopause.

The process of falling asleep requires relaxation. If you cannot feel calm on your way to dreamland, the trip there will be an unpleasantly long one.

Meditation and breathing exercises are two of the most common relaxation techniques, and we encourage people to try them. But there is another method that can induce deep relaxation and achieve many more benefits.

Hypnosis for Sleep Trouble

Hypnotherapy is a particularly effective method to improve sleep.

Decades of research show that it is not some gimmick. Hypnosis is a state of focused awareness. From within that state, you have greater access to your unconscious mind and can work to alter things that have your conscious mind stumped.

This is how hypnotherapy for women’s health and wellbeing usually goes: An experienced practitioner uses carefully formulated suggestions to relax you and guide you toward a state of focused awareness. Once you have achieved that state, the therapist provides more gentle guidance urging you toward whatever change you want to make.

Turkish research showed that women in a menopausal age range were 3.9 times more likely to suffer from sleep problems if they also suffered from depression. Since hypnotherapy is also helpful for depression, using it to feel better emotionally could also improve sleep quality.

Hypnotherapy is a classic treatment for issues like addiction, but it can also change how your body feels. However, we know that not everyone has easy access to personal hypnotherapists. That is why we created the UpNow app.

UpNow for good sleep during menopause

UpNow downloads guide you through self-hypnosis. Though seeing an in-person hypnotherapist is great, it is not necessary. Professional hypnotherapists developed UpNow to guarantee that the app uses best practices while making self-hypnosis easy—even for novices.

Download it today to use hypnosis for women’s health and achieve high-quality sleep throughout your menopause transition.