Midlife’s A Trip

The Midlife Insomniac

Posted on 02. Feb, 2009 by Karen in Health

One of the longstanding problems on my midlife trip has been how to get a good night’s sleep.  When I was a late 40-something moving from perimenopause into the big “M”, night sweats wrecked my sleep pattern.  I used to wake up as drenched as if I had just run a marathon.  By the time I finished drying off, changing clothes and linens it was almost time to get up for a new day.

Then as a young 50-something, menopause hit me with garden-variety insomnia.  Awake at 2am — I was the person you could call at that hour because I would be up night after night.  The worst part was the infomercials.  I’d turn on the television and get sucked in by some ridiculous commercial targeted at  insomniacs like me.  I’m embarrassed to tell you what I ordered during those early morning hours.  But my family still teases me about the electronic kitty litter that activated on its own even when the cat was nowhere in sight.

Now in my late 50-something years, there are two main things that impact my sleep patterns — acid reflux and my laptop.  Some days, I think turning off the laptop is a bigger issue.  So I’m still looking for ways to deal with insomnia.

In A Woman’s Guide to Sleep Disorders, Dr. Meir Kryger gives 13 tips for getting to sleep – try a couple for starters and see how they work:

1. Use your bedroom only for sleep and sex. Great advice!  The point here is no sitting in bed with your laptop thinking that somehow you’ll fall asleep while blogging or watching TV.  It hasn’t happened yet for me.
2. If you can’t go to sleep do something relaxing. This goes hand and hand with the next tip about calming your brain before sleep.  I wish there was a shut off switch but in lieu of that, I’ve gotten a couple of CDs over the years with relaxing, almost meditative music.  They help.
3. Calm your brain before bed – that means no blogging and no TV.  Hard for me because I like watching Frasier reruns which don’t even start until midnight.
4. Don’t eat heavy stuff before bedtime — for me late night snacking triggers acid reflux attacks.  Nighttime seems the worst for those.
5. Don’t watch the clock. I typically don’t do this but when it happens it’s always the night before a big day.  The worst thing is to look at the clock and see that only an hour has passed since you last looked.  I turn the clock so it faces the other direction.
6. Create a wind-down ritual. Warm bath, meditation, soft music — these all work for me.  Also listening to the purring of Coco Puff, kitty queen of the castle and my regular sleeping companion.
7. Reduce stress. I’m a long way from mastering this tip but sometimes deep breathing is my fallback strategy.
8. Don’t take long naps during the day. This isn’t a problem for me because I’ve never been a napper.  But taking short naps during the day of less than 1/2 hour is supposed to be OK.
9. Exercise often but not right before bed. Apparently sex is an exception to this rule.
10. Set a regular bedtime. This is one of the hardest things for me to do because if I’m on a roll, which usually means doing something online, it’s hard to shut my laptop down at 10:30p and hit the sack.  Anyone else have this problem?
11. Warm up with a hot drink or bath. Chris Canavan, entrepreneur and blogger over at the Better Than Chocolate Boutique suggests a nice warm but sexy pair of pajamas as an essential part of your get-to-sleep toolkit — even if you sleep alone.  OK, Chris I suppose it’s time to ditch my warm but worn and faded flannel PJs from Costco.
12. Eliminate caffeine, alcohol or cigarettes. I don’t do caffeine anymore–it aggravated my hot flashes and night sweats, which then kept me awake.  I never smoked but I do like a little glass of wine some evenings.  My recent bout with acid reflux has convinced me to limit alcohol consumption — especially close to bedtime.
13. Check in with your doctor if you’re taking sleep meds to make sure they’re not part of the problem.  I tried Ambien once.  Fact is I didn’t like it so I stopped taking it.  I like knowing that if I need to wake up, I can.  It’s a control freak thing.  So I’m more of a fan of natural remedies to sleep problems.  But if you’re taking sleep meds, let your doc know if they’re not working or if you’re having one or more of the many side effects.

When all else fails, just have a good laugh by stopping by the Accidental Blogger for a great graphic on how a woman’s mind works.  When you see this picture, you’ll have a sense of the real reason why we can’t sleep.

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Tags: can't sleep at night, insomnia in women, menopause, midlife insomina