Jennifer Smith: Welcome to You're Not Crazy, It's Perimenopause. If you're a woman over 40 and feeling more anxious, not sleeping well or disconnected from your body, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Jenny Smith, functional medicine health coach here to help you understand what the heck is happening in perimenopause. Each week we're diving into real life conversations about how our changing hormones impact anxiety, sleep and stress. and I'll share simple strategies to help you feel normal again. So grab a cup of tea or beverage of choice, get comfy and let's dive in. Welcome back to you're not crazy. It's peri menopause. Today we're talking about sleep and it is a timely episode. I got sick last week. So annoying because I pride myself on being healthy. I eat well. I eat pretty clean. I exercise. I love to sleep, which is why I'm so excited to talk about sleep today. And yet I still got sick. I honestly think I did get sick because of stress and stress will suppress our immune system. And I've been a little bit on the stress side lately, but I'm working on that. And I'm also going to be talking about an episode on stress. So stay tuned. But today we are talking all about sleep. And I want to start off with an experience that happened in July of 2012 was one of the saddest times in my life. I was a mom to toddler, three year old, rambunctious, beautiful baby girl. And I just had my boy who was almost six months old. And July 2012 was when I lost my dad suddenly to a massive heart attack. And if you've lost somebody that you love suddenly, unexpectedly, a loss in general is traumatizing. It's so difficult to manage. It just turned your whole life upside down. And I lost my mom to cancer. It was a loss that we were able to prepare for because we knew she was terminal and she wasn't going to recover. However, with my dad, he was there one day and gone the next. And it was just the worst time of my life. can't even explain it. It was very difficult. It was really difficult for me to eat, to sleep, all the things. And I had happened to be in counseling at the time. Thank goodness that I had this counselor and she was really good about reminding me that I needed to take care of myself to care for this small infant that was relying on me to feed him and to nurture him and to care for him. And she had said something to me and I thought, really? And she said that if you get less than six hours of sleep repeatedly, multiple days at a time, it's as if you are drunk. Like if you are getting less than six hours of sleep, repeated days of the week, I'm not talking just one night a week. I'm talking about repeated nights of the week, less than six hours of sleep, the brain begins to function. as if it's being impaired, like as if you had alcoholic beverages. And I thought, that's interesting. And I had to research it because I'm like, is she really, know, is she, is she, is she just trying to scare me? And no, about 17 to 19 hours of being awake, your performance, you're getting around, you're, you're trying to function during the day. is equivalent to somebody who has a blood alcohol level of around 0.05%. So it's like, okay, if we're not getting sleep, then it's almost like we're drunk. We're not making good choices. Our reaction times are slow. Our judgments get sloppy. We lose focus. ⁓ You know, we make mistakes at work. We shouldn't be driving. We shouldn't be behind the wheel. And that was really eye opening for me when she said that to me. because I had never heard it before. And she was right. I was caring for children that I love so much. And they seriously got me through that really devastating, difficult time. And I took it seriously because she's right. When people aren't sleeping, that's when car accidents happen. People are falling asleep behind the wheel. That's when people have like injuries at work because they're just not sleeping well or You know, it starts to ruin their relationships because they're snapping at everyone because they're so flipping tired. And this is why I think it's so important to talk about this episode to my audience, which are women over 40 who are possibly in perimenopause. Their hormones are fluctuating. Their bodies are changing. Their moods are kind of going wild and they're not sleeping. And when you're not sleeping, what happens? Our anxiety gets worse. We have increased cravings and we're eating all the time for energy. Our blood sugar is a mess, meaning that our body's not able to handle sugar and energy. And so we have these blood sugar swings, which is causing a lot of fluctuations in our moods and our energy levels and how we're feeling. And so when we aren't sleeping, it throws off just everything. And poor sleep raises cortisol, which is your stress hormone. And that will throw off your estrogen, your progesterone, insulin, making symptoms like weight gain, mood swings, and hot flashes even more intense. Not to mention the long-term effects of sleep deprivation leads to illnesses, chronic illnesses like heart disease, type two diabetes, and even cognitive decline. And that is something to seriously pay attention to. We want to make sure that we are identifying our sleep patterns, what is happening and what we can do to change it. So this episode, we're going to talk about why sleep gets a little bit more challenging as we get older and our hormones are shifting. We're going to talk about what happens when we sleep our sleep cycles. the four different types and why they matter and how each cycle is super important. And then I'm going to give you a couple of strategies to improve your sleep. If you are somebody who is struggling with sleep, you're going to want to stay to the end and pay attention to those strategies that I give you. Sleep in perimenopause starts to change and it changes because of our hormones. And when our hormones start to shift, we have more issues like hot flashes, which wake us up in the middle of the night. We are feeling anxious before we go to bed and we can't fall asleep or we get up because we have to use the bathroom because our bladder just can't hold our pee like it used to. So we're having to get up to go to bathroom multiple times a night. And then we get back in bed and we start thinking about all the things we have to do the next day. And then we can't go back to sleep. So it's like the cycle. And then we wake up in the morning and we're dragging out of bed. We have no energy to work out, no energy to make a healthy meal. And then we're snapping at our loved ones. And then we feel guilty about it because we realized that we were acting like a jerk and we didn't mean to. That's why sleep is important. And it can be a double edged sword because when we have poor sleep, it makes our hormones worse. And that makes everything else harder. So let's talk about the sleep cycles. What's actually happening when we go to sleep. So we have four stages of sleep and each night your body cycles through four important sleep stages. And the stages are important because it helps balance our hormones. It helps with our metabolism. It helps with our brain health and making sure that we are storing our memories and making our brain function so that we're not having the brain fog. And we need four cycles of it, not just a couple of hours a night of sleep. We need to be going through these four stages of sleep. These stages get disrupted thanks to, like I said, hormonal fluctuations, hot flashes, anxiety, stress. So let's talk about stage one. This is light sleep zone. So this is when you start to fall asleep. You get into bed, you're in your jams, you're all cozy, lights are off and you start to relax. Your body starts to relax. Melatonin, if everything's working wonderfully, melatonin begins to rise and your heart rate begins to drop. Your body temperature begins to drop and this is where your body starts to shift into more restorative sleep, which is stage two. Stage two is our restorative drifting off into deeper stages of sleep. This is when your body temperature drops even more, your muscles begin to relax, you are losing awareness of your surroundings. And this stage just really starts to get you ready into that deeper stage of sleep, which is stage Three deep sleep is stage three of the four stage cycle. This is when your body is repairing. This happens about one hour into your sleep. It's the hardest to wake up from. We can wake up from a light stage asleep or that drifting off into that restorative stage, stage one and two. But once you're in stage three, it's harder to wake up from. And this is when your hormones are released to help with your immunity. to help with appetite control. This is where your body is starting to repair your tissues, muscles, strengthening your bones. When you get less deep sleep, that's when you have more sugar cravings, you feel more foggy brain the next day, your metabolism's a little bit slower, and your immune system is weakened. So your body needs this stage, stage three, deep, deep sleep to reset. And then the final stage is stage four, which is REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. This is where the brain, I like to think of it as like a shower for your brain. And this is where you have the most vivid dreams. Your brain's very active. This is where your brain activity spikes. Your body will stay still. You know, like when you have those dreams where you're like trying to fight something off and you like won't move, but your brain's like, you know, fighting it off in your dream. Like you're, I don't know, you're fighting like a tiger or something and your brain is active, but your body is still in that REM sleep. This is where you're starting to store those memories from the day. It gets stored in your brain during REM sleep. Your mood is also regulated and you know, everything that you learn from the day is getting stored in this phase of sleep and it's really essential for your brain. Without enough REM sleep, you are going to feel forgetful, you're going to feel just like kind of foggy and mentally off. so hormonal changes already impact our mood and poor REM sleep makes it worse. And so these are the four stages, the very, very light stage, which is one to 10 minutes when you're starting to drift onto sleep. Stage two is where you start to get a little bit more relaxed. Body temperature is dropping more. Stage three is at deep sleep where it's really hard to get woken up from. And then stage four is that REM sleep where your brain's very active and REM sleep tends to occur towards the end of our sleep cycles. So if you go to bed too late, it's hard to get REM sleep because it, it happens towards the end of our night. It happens towards the end of our, our sleeping. And ideally you want to go to bed by 10 at the latest. because it's between the hours of 10 and two when our hormones are released to help regulate mood. So when you get to bed earlier, it helps you get more of that deep sleep and that REM sleep, which is so important for our bodies repair for our hormones, balancing our hormones, our metabolism and for our brain. So you need multiple full sleep cycles for recovery and for your health. And this is why I always say, Sleep is your superpower. It is something you have to prioritize, especially now after 40. And just thinking about dementia and the various types of dementia that are out there that people are getting, a lot of it is because they're just not getting good sleep. I mean, there's so many other factors, don't get me wrong, but sleep is a big part of that. Getting good sleep protects your brain. And if you're not prioritizing sleep, and getting the full sleep cycles. So you're getting that deep sleep and repair and you're getting that REM for your brain cleansing. You're going to struggle with health issues. used to think, you know, when we were younger, it's like we were superstars. If we were able to like go out till two o'clock in the morning and wake up at six o'clock to go to work the next day, we're like, we could do it. You know, we're sleep is, you know, I'll sleep when I'm dead. You're going to be a dead, you're going to be dead a lot earlier if you don't get good sleep. Unfortunately, it's so important and we're just not those youngsters superstars anymore where we, we need to sleep now so that we live a good quality life. That's really what it boils down to. And if you're waking up all night, you're not getting enough of the deep sleep and the REM sleep. And so Why is this happening? Our sleep gets disrupted because of hormone fluctuations. We tend to have lighter sleep as we get older. We are not getting that progesterone, that boost of progesterone that really kind of helps calm us and relax us. And I hear that so often from women who they just have so much anxiety when they go to sleep. And oftentimes they are missing a lot of that progesterone that used to keep them kind of relaxed and even keel. So sometimes when women add a progesterone supplement or hormone replacement can really, really support them and help them with getting better sleep. You don't need to do that, but that's sometimes why, because the hormones are fluctuating and that's why you're having more of that anxiety. You're waking up in the middle of the night really upset. And sometimes it's because we have that mismatch of melatonin and cortisol. because when we start to go into that light sleep, melatonin starts to elevate. And when melatonin is elevated, cortisol should naturally be lowered because cortisol is what wakes us up in the morning. It's our stress hormone. It's a good hormone to have, but oftentimes many of us are in this high cortisol state constantly that we're not getting to that relaxed state to where melatonin is elevated. so cortisol is high. and melatonin shuts off, which makes it very difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep and get that deep restorative sleep. We also get those blood sugar dips overnight and that often has to do with what we're eating. And if we're eating too close to bedtime, then that could certainly cause those blood sugar dips to happen overnight. So we want to make sure that we are eating the balance plate method, which is what I have shared with you. in the previous episode, episode 11, talk about how to eat to support our body, to balance our hormones so that we are not having those blood sugar dips and crashes and spikes because that really just messes up our hormones and that impacts our sleep. So your body is trying to keep you safe and if cortisol is elevated, it's going to keep you awake. So if you're not getting that deep restorative sleep, it's no wonder you're dealing with fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, irritability, depression, having that tired but wired feeling. You're like so exhausted, but you can't fall asleep. Probably because cortisol is off, melatonin is low. And when you're not sleeping, your nervous system, which is AKA your body's alarm system, it's on edge. And things just are a little bit more sensitive. You're just feeling a little bit more agitated, irritable, and it makes it really difficult to kind of function and get through the day. You know, we're told to eat more protein, exercise, do all these things, but you don't have the energy for that. You're exhausted. You're so tired. It's just, you're doing all you can just to get through the day because you're just not sleeping well. And you know, going back to my story earlier, I was going through such a tragic loss. There are things in our lives that will justify why it's difficult to fall asleep, why it's difficult to get good sleep. And we all have things going on in our lives and we do the best that we can. We, we lean on others for support to take care of us. And I remember, you know, my counselor telling me you have children to care for. They need you. And here I was grieving the loss of my father. I needed him and he was gone. It is what got me through. It is what got me through that terrible time was take care of myself because I have kids who are depending on me to care for them. And so many people are depending on you to care for them. However, you are going to be no good to anybody if you are not taking care of yourself. Whatever you have to do to get good sleep, do it. I missed my son's football game last night because it was at nine o'clock at night. Why? For the love of God, does the league set a football time for nine o'clock at night? He's an eighth grader. I know that they can hang, but know, parents are not wanting to stay up till 10 o'clock watching football. And, you know, I'm recovering from this illness and I told my husband, I just need to go to bed early. need to go to bed at a decent time, get good sleep. have lots of things to do, a lot on my plate. And sometimes you just have to say no to things and not feel guilty about it. I kept apologizing to my son, like, I'm sorry to miss us. He goes, mom, it's just a wreck league. It's not a big deal. He's so sweet. I don't like to miss his things, but that's an example of what can you say no to, to take care of yourself. What can you say no to to make sure you're getting enough sleep? And if there's anything that you're like, if you're trying to do all the things, you're trying to eat well, you're trying to move your body, you're trying to lift weights, you're doing all the things, but you don't have the energy, start with sleep, focus on getting sleep and then go from there. Cause once you're well rested, that's where the energy comes. That's when you're in a good mood and you feel a little bit more motivated to do things because you've gotten good restorative sleep. So let's talk about some of the things that we can do to get good sleep. There's lots of things that you can do, but I'm only going to give you a couple because I don't want to overwhelm you. This is something that we do talk about in the hormone reset project. have a checklist of things to work on to develop better sleep habits so that you are getting good, deep restorative sleep. You are getting that REM sleep. Let's talk about setting our circadian rhythm. This seems like a little like really, is that going to make such a big difference? And let me tell you, yes, it makes a huge difference. Set your circadian rhythm. What does that mean? Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day and night. So let's just say you go to bed at nine and you wake up at five, go to bed at 10 and you wake up at six, whatever it is for you. Go to bed at the same time. and wake up at the same time every day to set your circadian rhythm. It's important. And if you are trying to get that deep restorative sleep and you get up early, make sure you're going to bed about 10 or before, especially if you get up early, because you want to make sure you're getting that deep REM sleep. If you wear wearables like I do, like I have the aura ring, it shows me my sleep patterns. And sure enough, I don't get my REM sleep until the tail end of my sleep night. So it's usually around two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock. So I get the REM sleep towards the end. If I'm going to bed late, I'm skipping that and I'm not getting it. I'm waking up before I get that REM sleep and there goes your brain. There goes the brain. There's your brain fog. There goes the, those forgetfulness where you're getting scared because you have dementia like symptoms. Focus on getting that REM sleep. Super important. So with setting our circadian rhythm, going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time, ideally. Sometimes that's not possible, weekends, we tend to stay up a little bit later, so we wanna sleep in, that's fine. But for the majority of the week, you wanna go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time. And as soon as you wake up, within 20 minutes of waking, you wanna go outside and look at the light. Allow that light to go into your eyeballs. You don't have to look directly into the sun. It's not going to be bright anyway. It's not going to hurt you that early in the morning. You want to get some light into your eyes because that tells your brain, okay, it's daytime. Let's start producing our daytime awake hormones. And then it knows it starts the cycle so that towards the end of the night, your body starts to naturally produce melatonin. It sounds a little woo woo, but it works. And I have a client who did this and she was actually mad about it because She said, I'm trying to sleep in and I can't anymore because I've set my circadian rhythm. And I get a lot of questions like, do I have to go outside? It's snowing out or it's so hot or I can't go outside first thing. Open up your windows, open up the shades like the blinds, let that light get in. And it starts to tell your brain it's daytime, we're waking up. All right, let's get ready for the day. And then the opposite is at night, When the sun goes down is when you stop the light exposure into your eyes. You want to reduce the lights, you want to dim them in your house. You want to avoid watching screens, looking at your phones, watching TV. I know it's easier said than done, but it makes a huge difference in getting those chemicals going for your sleep, for melatonin to produce. If you constantly have lights from the screens, from the TVs, the blue lights, it tells your brain it's not bedtime. So then you're, you know, you're watching TV in bed, you got those, the blue lights in your eyeballs and melatonin is like shut off. You're not getting that melatonin and it makes a huge difference. One of the things that I do is I have a blue light blocking glasses that I wear and I will put that on if I'm going to watch TV before bed. I tend to read during the week and then I watch TV on the weekends as kind of like a treat. But I put my blue light blocking glasses on to block the blue light from the screens and it's not stopping the production of melatonin. It works ladies. Trust me. Circadian rhythm, getting up same time, going to bed at the same time. Morning sunlight, stop the blue lights after sunset a couple hours before bed. Cause you want your body to produce the natural melatonin. So those are two things that you can try. Getting up at the same time, going to bed at the same time, and morning light and avoiding lights before bed. You also want to avoid long naps during the day. I know, I know, many of us don't even have an option for naps. I get it, I don't either. However, if you are super tired, you don't wanna take a long nap, it's gonna totally throw your circadian rhythm off. So setting your circadian rhythm and reducing blue lights before bed, those are your two things to try this week. Let me know how it goes. The tools that help me are blue light blocking glasses. You can use eye mask if you have like any kind of light in your room. You could do blackout curtains. You wanna make sure your room is cooler too. That really helps with sleeping, especially as we start to get hot and heat up with. The menopause hot flashes, just making sure that your room is really cool will be super helpful in getting you to get that, that deep restorative sleep. If you just try one thing, just try going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time. And when you're ready, go ahead and add the morning light and reducing the stimulation before bed. You don't need to do this perfect. You can just do one to two nights a week and see how that goes and go from there. That's how habits are built. We start small. We don't do it all at once. We don't go gung ho and do it seven days a week and then get disappointed in ourselves when we don't stick with it. We have to start small if we want to build momentum and ladies, your body needs this rest. Your body needs this deep restorative sleep for your hormones, your mental health, your brain health, for you, for you to be able to show up in the way that you want to show up every day. with the energy you need to get through your day. That is all today for sleep. have so much more I could talk about on that, but I wanted to most importantly, just share with you the sleep cycles, what happens when we sleep, why it's important and how, you know, sleep is a little bit different in perimenopause and give you a couple of strategies moving forward. If you try those strategies and they work, please let me know. I love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram at Jenny AZ underscore simple. or you can email me at health at jensmith.coach. Those links will be in the show notes. If this episode resonated with you and you found it helpful, I would love if you shared it with a friend. And next week we are going to be talking about intermittent fasting, all about intermittent fasting. I know it's a complicated topic, lots of questions around that area. So I hope to give you some clarity on fasting, whether or not it would be a right approach for you. and share a little bit more about my journey with intermittent fasting and how fasting can be different for us as we enter perimenopause. All right, that's it for today. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next week.