For many women changes in their sleep patterns can be one of the first signs of the menopause.
This is because the hormonal fluctuations put the body into chemical & physiological stress. But our minds cannot differentiate between real & imagined stress the response is the same: activation of the fight or flight response.
This response has evolved over millennia to keep us safe from predators. One of the worst things you can do when there is a predator around is go to sleep. So it’s no surprise you can find yourself staring at the ceiling at silly-o’clock unable to sleep.
This is why practicing things like meditation & yoga which activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest & digest response is so important to helping to calm the nervous system, calm the mind & invite in a better night’s sleep.
In the Summer of 2020 we had just exited a toxic situation, my meno symptoms were in danger of spiralling out of control & of course I wasn’t sleeping. I already had a daily yoga & meditation practice but I started a meditation practice at bedtime as well as my usual morning practice. It really helped me to get to sleep.
If I woke up & couldn’t get back to sleep I would connect to my breath, consciously slowing it down, calming my mind & meditate. Sometimes I went back to sleep. Others times I cultivated a deep sense of peace & relaxation & since I know conscious relaxation is as good for us as sleep, I was able to surrender to the sleeplessness knowing I had another way to rest & restore my body, mind & soul.
It changed my relationship to the seemingly endless sleepless nights, relieving me of the frustration, the fear & dread that another sleepless night was going to make the next day, which was going to be challenging enough even more so.
Instead of fighting it I began to accept the disturbed sleep, welcoming an opportunity to meditate. I started to embrace this time instead of resenting it.
We all have heard that avoiding screens before bed helps our sleep the blue light isn’t good for our brain. It mimics daylight affecting our production of melatonin which is the hormone that is produced as the light fades to ease us to sleep. And it disrupts our circadian rhythm – the natural rhythm which is in tunes with daylight & night time.
But it’s not just the impact of the blue light that can affect our sleep, the content, what we actually doing on the phone has an impact too.
Accordingly, to Dr Drerup, psychologist & director of behavioral sleep medicine in Cleveland Clinic studies suggest that passive use like listening to a meditation, music & listening to a non-distressing audio book have less impact than more active use: texting, scrolling through social media, answering work emails, watching the news because of course this is revving the brain up & activates the stress response. We want to be slowing the brain down before bed, activating the rest & restore response.
Which is why breath work can be so powerful. Slowing the breath down helps to slow the brain down. Practicing a technique like pyramid breathing slows the brain & gives you just enough to engage with to distract you from whatever it was that was keeping you awake but not enough to keep you awake. If you’d like to find out more check out my FB live this week to discover more about this technique.
Of course if part of your bedtime routine is to check your day ahead to mentally prepare for it & then take some time to relax & have a break from the screen before preparing for bed this is less likely to impact you than if you scroll news or social media just before you settle down to sleep.
Becoming mindfully aware of your habits & what may aggravate sleepless nights can be extremely helpful. I switched from Netflix-ing to listening to audio books. It eased the frustration because I felt I wasn’t ‘wasting’ the time lying awake for hours at night. Instead I rest in savasana, deeply relaxed listening to a book I would love to read. If I loved listening to it, I’d then invest the time revisiting & reading it. It really helped me to surrender to the sleepless nights.
Over time my sleep has improved significantly but every now & again that changes. This is usually an indication that my hormones are changing again & I become more mindfully aware to watch out for tell-tale signs before they have a chance to floor me.
Recently I discovered that we in a higher state of consciousness in the early hours. Some believe that whilst we sleep our soul awakens, that sleep is the gateway to awakening. This is believed so because when we go to sleep our brain waves slow from beta to alpha brain waves (the meditative state), possibly to theta & into the deepest delta waves. This allows energy to drop from our head into our heart. And the heart is said to be the gateway to our soul.
So if you tend to wake up regularly between 3-4am, it may be worth considering what you may be invited to consider what your soul is calling to you. Perhaps you can rest your hands on your heart & ask your soul to speak to you. And see what comes up. Don’t worry if nothing does, just asking the question is enough.
Shifting the narrative surrounding a lack of sleep can be enormously empowering, changing the relationship & the energy behind it. Cultivating a sense of acceptance, welcoming & embracing & surrendering instead of fighting it & supporting yourself with self-care practices that bring your mind, body & soul into balance & alignment it is where your power lies.