Sleep Deprivation it’s not just for workaholics anymore

Any woman out there over 45 knows what I’m talking about; it creeps up on you slowly.  At first it may be just waking up in the middle of the night to pee and then you can’t fall back to sleep. Or with me it was always my cat that wakes me up. Then you lie there watching the clock tick 3am 4am, 5am passes and you finally give up and start your day. A day or two of this is not so bad you drag yourself through the day thinking surly tonight I’ll get caught back up on my sleep.  But then the same thing happens and next thing you know months have passed and you feel a good night sleep will never happen again.

Sleep deprivation is a very bad thing.  Heart problems, weight issues, stress, and even car accidents have all been associated with inadequate and/or irregular sleep habits. And a woman nearing menopause knows that sleep is a precious commodity that she just can’t seem to cash in on. To me no sleep was the 2^nd worse symptom of menopause. Anxiety was the worst, and night sweats and hot flashes run a close the third. But not being able to sleep…it messes your whole system up.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, about 40 percent of menopausal women have sleep problems caused by hot flashes. But I believe at least 80% of us suffer from lack of sleep whether the hot flashes have started or not. Why? Because it is not just the female hormones that decline with age, all hormones do. 

Melatonin is the main hormone associated with sleep. With adequate melatonin you sleep soundly and deeply. You dream, you wake up rested in the morning.  This hormone is secreted from the pineal gland located in the brain that governs the sleep/wake cycle. Melatonin is important in regulating other hormone release and immune responses. Without it other systems in your body breaks down and causes you to age.

So those of you with very little menopausal symptoms may find that 3 mg of melatonin a night will be all you need to get your life back on track. It is easy to find at almost any health food store and it is inexpensive. I do recommend you buy a good name brand of any supplement you use. I find that capsules or sprays are more effective than hard to digest pills. I suggest you start slow you can try as little as 1mg and build up to as much as 10 mgs. I will warn you though most people have very vivid dreams with melatonin and if you have a lot of unresolved things going on in your life your dreams may not be so pleasant.

Before I started getting my hormones back in rebalance, I took melatonin nightly and it worked like a charm. Now after a year on BHRT I no longer need it nightly and may take it once every couple of weeks or so. But it is an inexpensive healthy way to gain back at least some of your sanity. If however you have tried it and it is not working for you there are other things you can try to help you get the sleep you need.

• Try Black Cohosh

Hot Flashes and night sweats come on due to declining Estrogen and progesterone so if you are not ready to supplement those hormones try herbs like Black cohosh, a perennial plant that is a member of the buttercup family. It has also been used to treat hot flashes for years with no ill effects.  Soy products also have an estrogen like quality that will help ease your symptoms and may help you sleep just Please I beg of you to make sure you ONLY use Organic products of soy, the processes used on soy that are not can be harmful to your health. IT must say Organic on the label, natural is NOT organic, don’t be fooled.

• Maintain a regular bedtime schedule

Going to bed at the same time every night can improve your sleep. Establishing regular bed and wake times helps your body to cycle properly. You need at least 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night, give up “Desperate House Wives” if you must; lest you become desperate yourself.  Improve the sleep environment. The Better Sleep Council recommends that the bedroom be dark, cool, and quiet. Also, women should sleep on mattresses that provide superior comfort and the right support — a mattress that’s been in use for years may need to be replaced.

• Exercising regularly but not right before sleep

“Exercise may help to ease sleep problems, as long as it is performed early in the day.” morning exercise could help set circadian rhythms, or the bodies’ internal clock, which in turn regulates sleep-inducing hormones such as melatonin. Lower levels of estrogen may cause sleep problems among older women, either directly, or indirectly. A lack of estrogen can cause sleep-disturbing hot flashes and night sweats. Exercise may help ease  some of these symptoms.

• Avoiding excessive caffeine

Especially if you are suffering from anxiety you will need to eliminate all caffeine from your diet at least for a while. I gave up a 30 year two cup of coffee habit for over six months but once on hormones I found I can revisit my coffee habit with no ill effects. Do what you must do to feel good… you will overcome your caffeine addiction and be a better person for it.

• Avoiding naps during the day, which can prevent you from sleeping well at night

 Like we modern women have time to nap. But if you do try and go without them you’ll sleep better at night.

Well I hope that will help give you some relief, if you are reading this at 3 am then know you NEED relief. As the days pass I’ll write more about over the counter supplements that will help with menopause symptoms and will be leading up to the wonderful world of Bio Identical hormones. Some women say the BHRT’s don’t work for them. My question is are they seeing the right Doctor doing the right test? Or am I one of the lucky ones who has found the answers to youth and wellness for myself. Only YOU know what is right for your body…just know you no longer have to suffer… there are ways through this and together we will awaken the world to the fact that aging women are viable and deserving of a healthy happy life.

To care or not to care that is the question

Oct. 20, 2009

Ok so I took a week off from posting. It turns out that yes I can still party like I am 19 but it takes me much longer to recover. I also discovered, as I pretty much blew off my maintenance the week after and did what I liked, that as with everything there are consequences. It sure was nice to let loose, but with that freedom, of no real diet or exercise for the week, I lost so much. This morning for instance, I have one of my headaches, the thing that has plagued me for years has returned. That and a small skin eruption that I too had thought was a thing of the past. One week of weakness, a cookie here, wheat bread there, and all hell brakes loose as my body declares “WHAT HAPPENED TO TAKING CARE OF ME?” 

God it’s like a nagging spouse that won’t quit. My body revolts and I have no choice but to listen. So today I’m back on track. The thing is I want to feel good. I want to have the energy with no headaches, no outbreaks. But a week? Give me a frickin break! I often wonder had I not been so abusive in my past would I be any better off? I mean I thank God. I have no cancer. No real illnesses’ to speak of, but these pesky reminders of my past keep nagging me to stay the course.

I guess I am lucky; so many women have it worse.  At least I no longer deal with the night sweats and sleepless nights. That has been resolved, thanks to bio identical hormones, something I will get into with much more depth later on. In fact if it wasn’t for those, I would not even have the energy to write this. They have literally saved my life. And they can be the answer to millions of women who are now suffering the effects of menopause. But what I am discovering is they are only part of the answer. The fact is with aging you just can’t ignore the signs of self-abuse. Our bodies are miraculous miracles that truly can heal themselves but like beating a dead horse if you keep beating it it’s …well ….. still dead.

We have choices. We can give up our health and die slow miserable deaths or we can pick ourselves up off the bathroom floor where we have been wallowing in self pity and do something about it. The choice is ours. What are you going to choose?

High School Reunions make you Feel Old

So today I am preparing to go out-of-town for yet another milestone, my 30th High school reunion.   I hated high school. I was not one of the popular girls and that was ok with me. In fact if it weren’t for Facebook and coming across other ‘normal people’ I went to school with, I wouldn’t even bother going, but now many of us have reconnected and people who would have never gone to these things are going. Three of my girlfriends and I are leaving our husbands behind, renting a room together, and I think we will create a slumber party atmosphere as we pig out on cookies and popcorn and catch up on 30 years of our lives apart.

Wow 30 years! If you had asked me at 17 what I’d be doing 30 years from now, I probably would have suspected I’d be dead. And honestly with the lifestyle of my teens and early 20′s, I probably should be. When you are that age you don’t think of the consequences of your actions. I try every day to instill that thought into my two boys.  If I had known that little fact 30 years ago I may have done things differently, but then again probably not.

Ah youth, something so easy to take advantage of and yet so fleeting. What I’d give for a wrinkle free face, a tight ass, and a flat stomach. And the energy, my god what I’d trade for that energy! I truly think the heavens got this aging thing all wrong, we should start old and grow young, like Benjamin Button. What good is the knowledge of 50 years when you no longer have the energy to do anything with that knowledge?  It’s sucks!

I think back to that time especially my early 20′s and how I abused my body. It was one never ending party. Yep I was a party girl, up all night trying pretty much everything that came my way. I was living the high life, literally. Never sleeping, drinking ,drugs, you name it, most likely I tried it. It’s a wonder I came out whole on the other side…or did I? Flash Forward about 25 years and I find out I am hypo-thyroid, now on thyroid medicine for life. Forward another 4 and I had reached full blown adrenal fatigue. I couldn’t hardly get out of bed, I started having major skin infections, and then the anxiety set in, sleepless nights of worry and panic, maybe I was going mental. Life as I knew it had ended. I was a mess.

Now some of this is natural aging it happens to every woman, but I can’t help but think had I taken better care of myself, I may had been able to have kids, (my boys are adopted) my transition into menopause would have been easier, and I think much later. I mean menopause at 46? What’s wrong with that picture?  But my body came to a screeching halt> My very cells screamed… NO MORE ABUSE! TAKE CARE OF US OR WE>>>YOU>>>WILL DIE!

 Let me tell you I listened. It’s only been one year since that protest and I must say I feel better than I have in probably 15 years and I’m getting better everyday. I may never have that flat stomach of 25, but by god I’m getting close. And my energy is returning too. And believe it or not, this weekend I will be that party girl once again, within the limits of wisdom of course.

So how did I come about this transition? Stay tuned and I’ll tell you how.

Open dialog between women, their problems, their solutions

Here I sit a year over the time I intended to start this blog trying still to get going. I look at the changes I have made in the past year, in order to heal myself where my Doctors have failed. As I sip on my miso soup, full of vegetables I didn’t even know existed a year ago, I can’t help but wonder. Is it all in vain? Am I destined to be old before my time? Or is this road to self discovery a path I was intended to take, to help the women of the world to finally speak up and speak out about their silent suffering?  To save countless women after me the detriment of menopause and aging, to heal ourselves where the medical world has deceived us. I do feel it is time that we, as women, need to demand what is rightfully ours. Our health, our mental well being, and our place on the throne.

That is what this blog and my website www.womenhealyourselves.com is going to be about.  A place to open a dialog between women, their problems, their solutions to those problems that we all face. You may not have hit that wall yet, but you will. We all do. Many of your friends already have yet you will know nothing about it. Why? Because we don’t talk about it. We suffer in silence, until now. Come along on a journey of self discovery with me and let’s see where it leads.