If you’re tossing and turning at night or lying awake watching time tick by, your hormones might be to blame. Changing hormone levels, especially during perimenopause and menopause, can disrupt your sleep-wake cycle.
Don’t let hormonal imbalances ruin your sleep. Chetanna Okasi, MD., and our Women’s Wellness MD team in Columbia and Greenbelt, Maryland, have helped many women restore balance, improve their quality of sleep, and regain their vitality.
To fall asleep and sleep through the night, you need optimal levels of the hormones that regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
These hormones are the primary players:
Melatonin is the key hormone in the sleep-wake cycle. Your melatonin levels rise when night falls and it gets dark.
This melatonin boost makes you feel tired and causes body changes that support sleep. When the sun rises, melatonin levels fall, restoring alertness and helping you to wake up.
Insomnia often occurs when melatonin levels fluctuate, disrupting the natural daily cycle. This problem commonly occurs when you keep lights on at night or use electronic devices before going to bed. The blue light from electronics suppresses melatonin release.
Age is also a factor, as melatonin levels start to drop around the age of 40 and slowly decline for the rest of your life. Melatonin imbalances may also be due to stress, jet lag, and certain medications.
Cortisol surges through your body when you’re stressed, anxious, worried, or frightened. Its primary role is to put you on alert and energize your body.
However, cortisol is also involved in the sleep-wake cycle, where it has the opposite effect of melatonin. Cortisol levels naturally decrease at night and then rise in the morning, promoting alertness and wakefulness.
High and low cortisol levels can cause insomnia, depending on whether the imbalance occurs in the morning or evening. For example, high cortisol at night can suppress melatonin.
Many women develop insomnia when estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate during perimenopause and drop at menopause. Hot flashes are one reason women can’t sleep through the night. However, both hormones regulate the sleep-wake cycle.
Progesterone has a calming, sleep-promoting effect. It also has a role in activating a stage of sleep called non-rapid eye movement (NREM), a phase that’s vital for tissue repair, bone building, and strengthening the immune system.
Estrogen regulates body temperature, which is crucial for getting a good night’s sleep. Your body cools down before you fall asleep, and its temperature stays low throughout the night. Estrogen assures you remain cool, which initiates and prolongs sleep.
Estrogen also stimulates serotonin production. Serotonin directly influences the sleep-wake cycle and is crucial for the production of melatonin.
We frequently help women struggling with insomnia, and the first step toward restoring a good night’s sleep is determining the root cause. Then, we develop a care plan tailored to your needs.
Insomnia has numerous possible causes, and often, more than one contributes to the problem. In addition to hormone imbalances, insomnia may develop due to:
Our caring team helps treat several sleep-related issues. For example, we can recommend stress management techniques and modifications to your bedtime routine to improve your sleep. We’re also specialists in treating the hormone imbalances that interfere with sleep.
After running blood tests to determine your hormone levels, we may prescribe bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Bioidentical hormones are made from plants and have the same molecular structure as your body’s natural hormones. Your HRT is customized to restore healthy hormone levels.
As you regain hormonal balance, your sleep-wake cycle improves, hot flashes stop, and you can sleep again.
Adults need a minimum of seven hours of sleep every night. However, sleeping through the night without waking is just as vital.
Waking disrupts your sleep cycles. You need to sleep through all the cycles for your brain and body to perform maintenance that supports your health. For example, disrupted sleep can lead to high blood pressure, memory loss, and weight gain.
Don’t wait to get help for insomnia. Call Women’s Wellness MD today or book online to overcome insomnia.
