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A compassionate approach to poor sleep during the perimenopause

Many women going through the perimenopause (or menopausal transition) experience disturbed sleep. It’s one, if not the, core symptom of this period. According to research, up to 60% of menopausal women suffer from poor sleep – which also has a knock-on effect on their family, work and social lives.

Adopting a compassionate attitude, i.e. taking a moment to respectfully observe yourself struggling with the aim to support yourself, can help to alleviate poor sleep and its daytime consequences.

From Climate Change to City Lights: How Environmental Factors Affect Your Sleep

How well do you sleep?
Chances are, you’ve experienced poor sleep — and not just once. That’s because sleep is influenced by a complex web of factors, from personal stress to environmental factors such as global climate change.

Sleep Equity for Global Health – World Sleep Day 2024

This year’s theme for World Sleep Day is Sleep Equity for Global Health. But what does it actually mean? In this short post I explain my take on it.

Your Future Self of Sleep

Sleep matters. And while we all know this on a deeper, felt level, many of us tend to ignore our need for healthy sleep. There will be different reasons for this depending on personality and circumstances. But I also wonder if this ignorance of sleep’s benefits for our health is because the harmful effects of not getting enough sleep aren’t always readily noticeable. In other words, sleep is ignored because the future self feels to abstract.

Social Jet lag – when social time wreaks havoc with your inner time

We all have an inner clock. It’s responsible for setting the circadian time of all the various processes and functions within the body. This inner clock takes its cue from the sun clock, the natural progression of the sun(light) over the course of the day.

Sleep Problems in Transgender People

Whatever the colour of your skin, or age, or sexual orientation, or your sex or gender – everyone needs a healthy sleep. Sleep is essential for our physical and mental health; it affects our desire to socialise and how we show up when around others. However, sleep is a bidirectional process such that interpersonal dynamics can affect it. Minority stress, which is socially based, can have a detrimental effect on sleep of transgender people.

Does daytime napping protect the brain?

Previous studies have shown that napping helps to boost performance. According to a very recent study by Paz et al.¹ regularly taking a nap during the day can help to slow down the natural decline in brain volume and maintain brain health.

A compassionate approach to poor sleep during the perimenopause
Download my free White Paper Poor Sleep During the Perimenopause here. Learn more about how a compassionate attitude helps you to alleviate your struggle with poor sleep and its daytime consequences.
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Want to make sense of sleep?

I wrote Sleep Sense to share my fascination with sleep with all of you. To help you understand why sleep is important for every single one of us. My aim is to empower you to take steps that are right for you to sleep well.

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Somnia

5 days ago

Things I learned from Vogue Wellness RetreatOne of our hosts shared with us, a thought that resonated with me, and I think it will with you, too! I recognised it in the lives of clients, friends, and as much as I don’t like to admit it, areas of my own life too. That is… the often performative, goal-oriented nature of ‘wellness’ in this day, age and society. The retreat was designed to sit away from this, to help to reclaim ‘joy in the pursuit of wellness’ and not perfection or performance. @funmifetto’s welcome note embodied at least 3 of the values that tie so closely to my sleep practices and that, if you’ve followed me for a little while now, you’ll have heard me speak about often.So here are the reminders I took away from the wellness retreat a couple of weeks ago…🩵There’s power in community.Community is important for health! I’ve spoken about this before (and will pin the post); a woman’s sleep quality is impacted by her social support. Her social life matters to her health.When we feel supported, we feel safe, and our nervous systems allow us to rest more easily.🙃 Joy nurtures our inner child - and that’s important.The benefit of embracing joy and looking after the inner child is that our approach to sleep is eased, it allows us to go into the state of rest with less tension, and carrying fewer ‘should’s’, allowing us to accept what is. A childlike attitude in our day-to-day can support sleep and naturally help to avoid fearing failure, both throughout the day and in finding restful sleep.Ask yourself, “What do I feel like doing?”. 🪷 Goals don’t always help us.Yes, consistently getting a good night’s sleep is the ‘goal’, but going back to Funmi’s note, having a goal-oriented mindset for any wellbeing practice can undo some of the good we’re trying to do, as we chase the end goal and negate the benefits.If we enter the state of rest thinking I must get to sleep and have a good night’s sleep, we’re putting pressure on ourselves, and the likelihood of that happening then reduces. More in the comments ⬇️ ... See MoreSee Less

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