Did you know, 1 in 7 people suffer from clinical insomnia? It is worse for women, with 1 in 4 suffering from insomnia. In this article, we explore why women are more likely to suffer from insomnia and simple steps to get a good night's sleep.
Stress and adrenal function
Stress is a daily challenge for many women. Work, relationships, children, and financial pressures constantly add up, leading to elevated cortisol levels. Cortisol should be a short-term hormone however, long-term elevation through chronic stress disrupts your circadian rhythm.
Cortisol levels should spike early in the morning, allowing us to wake refreshed and energised in a healthy person. Then they should slowly drop throughout the day and melatonin increases leading to tiredness before sleep. Chronic stress flips this situation, with cortisol remaining elevated into the evening and not allowing melatonin to kick in.
Finally, cortisol levels drop through the night, leaving you feeling fatigued in the morning. Happy Calm contains adrenal adaptogens to assist with elevated cortisol levels.
Anxiety and nervous tension
Along with stress, often comes anxiety and nervous tension. Our nervous system has two main components—the sympathetic and parasympathetic. Stress disrupts hormonal production and balance. It is a throwback to primitive times of famine, where the reproductive system would be shut down. We still see this phenomenon in the natural world with animals.
One of the most common symptoms of hormonal imbalance is anxiety. Anxiety, coupled with chronic stress wires the nervous system and it becomes sympathetic dominant. When the nervous system is operating predominantly in sympathetic state, sleep then suffers.
Happy Calm is indicated to assist with managing mild anxiety and nervous tension.
Hormonal shifts
Our bodies are cyclical beings. Women especially. Every major process in the body works in cycles. Some are short-term, some medium, and some long. The short-term is blood sugar, a medium-term would be your daily sleep cycle, and a longer monthly cycle would be the reproductive cycle.
All these cycles are interconnected, however, and when one cycle is disrupted there is a cascade effect. Too much sugar, for example, can disrupt sleep and then the reproductive cycle. It is well known that reduced progesterone levels during peri-menopause commonly reduce the duration and quality of sleep. Testosterone levels dropping in men has a similar effect.
Hot flushes
For menopausal women hot flushes are one of the most common disruptors of sleep. During sleep the body phases through several different levels of sleep. Any disruption to these phases such as an unwanted thermic event causes the body to come out of these phases and often leads to chronic insomnia.
The reason the body is having a hot flush is due to reduced levels of oestrogen. Menopause is a natural process where the body shifts hormone production from the ovaries to the adrenals. The secret to managing menopause naturally is to stimulate this natural process to allow the adrenals to take over production of the necessary hormones.
Thousands of women take Happy Hormones daily to manage their hot flushes and menopause naturally. Spend some time ready our reviews to see other women's experiences.
Weak bladder
One of the most common disruptors of sleep patterns is having to get up to use the bathroom. 50% of women over 50 suffer from some form of urinary urgency or incontinence. Having to get up to urinate more than 2x a night will disrupt normal sleep cycles and make it difficult to get back to sleep.
Happy Bladder can be a good option to reduce urinary incontinence and frequency, hence reducing the need for nighttime bathroom visits.
Restless leg syndrome
Finally, RLS, which affects approximately 20% of women during perimenopause and menopause, can be a common factor in sleep disturbances. There are many causes of RLS. Some of the most commonly reported natural therapies to assist RLS are magnesium, zinc, and B vitamins.
Summary
Sleep is one of the fundamental building blocks towards health. Poor sleep has clinically been shown to increase the risk of developing;
- Weight gain
- Blood pressure and cardiovascular disease
- Poor work performance
- Fatigue
- Hormonal imbalances
- Accelerated ageing
- Diabetes
- Mood swings, anxiety and depression
Therefore it is important to treat each of the main factors for women in increasing their chances of poor sleep.
At Happy Healthy You we have a range of treatment options mentioned above along with in-depth information explaining all the dietary and lifestyle factors contributing to poor sleep patterns. For chronic insomnia you may need extra support from our practitioner team via the online clinic.
