How Does Menopause Affect My Sleep?

Many women experience sleep problems during perimenopause. This is most common during the period of time before menopause when hormone levels and menstrual periods become irregular, but can also carry on even after menopause into post menopause.

Disrupted sleep is a problem that is very troublesome for women and can leave sleep deprived women fatigued and tired ALL the time. Not to mention irritable hot flashes can disrupt the most restorative form of sleep. Women who have severe hot flashes every few hours are often waking up through the night and soaking their bed sheets.

In other women, it won’t be linked at all and they’re just going to have higher rates of insomnia. One reason this may occur is because of the impact that progesterone can have on the relaxing neurotransmitter, GABA, which helps us with sleep and reduces anxiety and tension.

So you can imagine if your body’s hormones are all over the place and has less progesterone than it’s expecting, this will result in less GABA. This can disrupt sleep, particularly sleep maintenance, meaning more issues with staying asleep rather than falling asleep.