How To Sleep Better In Midlife And Beyond (And Through Menopause)

By Rachel Lankester, founder of Magnificent Midlife

It can be really hard getting a good night’s sleep in midlife! There are so many things to potentially keep us awake aren’t there! Not to mention the merry dance our hormones can take us on in the perimenopausal years. How to sleep better at this time of life?

Summer time seems to be particularly tricky, when the heat kicks in to add to our already overly hot body temperature! Open windows anyone? Getting sweaty takes on a whole other meaning, huh!

I’m lucky to never have had really bad hot flashes or night sweats. That all changes if I’ve had an alcoholic beverage or two though. I can often wake up and feel that overwhelming heat rising from my chest and enveloping my head. Then I can get quickly hot and sticky!

And I’ve talked to many women who really suffer with night sweats and sleepless nights. And especially when it’s hot in general.

Getting the right bedding is really important as is ventilation. It may be that you need to sleep alone for a while if that is an option and your disturbed sleep is disturbing our sleep partner too.

Apart from getting the bedding right, what else can we do to help ourselves get a good night’s sleep? I recently did a whole workshop on sleep for the Magnificent Midlife Membership Program and I learnt a lot!

Here are some more tips to help you get more good quality shuteye:

1.Prioritize it

Work out how much you need and make it a priority. If you need to get up at 7 and you want 8 hours, you need to go to sleep by 11 at the latest and probably earlier to allow yourself drift off time. You’ll need to factor in an hour for wind-down time too. Think about the bedtime routine we use with babies to get to sleep. We need that too! So cut back on screen time and electronic lights in the bedroom before bed. Turn down the lights. Watch a bit less TV late at night.

2.Cut back on the things that keep you awake

Cut back on caffeine, sugar and alcohol as these are known to keep us awake. You may think that glass of wine helps you to wind down, but when the sugar kicks in later on, you may wake up and struggle to get back to sleep again. Similarly don’t eat late. Keep the bedroom dark and quiet. Use earplugs and an eye mask if this helps you get to and stay asleep. Some people believe electronics can interfere with sleep so try keeping those out of the bedroom.

3.Create strong boundaries around sleep

Carve out the time you need for sleep. If you can’t sleep next to a snoring partner and have an alternative place, use it. Your quality and quantity of sleep are of paramount importance. It is seriously bad for your health to not get enough rest. You can tell your partner I said so! Also when it’s sleep time, focus on sleep. Even if you’re lying awake, try to stay in bed resting. Don’t get up and do other stuff. Set boundaries for what you allow yourself to think about too. If you’re ruminating on stuff, tell yourself not to. Say to yourself, “this is not the time to be thinking about that” and try to think about sleep. This is the basics of trying to be more mindful about sleep time.

4.Try a little meditation

If you’re really stuck, try listening to a meditation on a free app like Insight Timer, but don’t get sucked into checking your phone while you’re doing that! If you’re lying awake, use the time to meditate in bed and you’ll hopefully drift off as you clear your mind – that’s a top tip from Arianna Huffington.

Another thing to try is tapping. This is a new one for me but a woman who’d been through a surgical menopause with no HRT absolutely swears by the sleep tapping meditations on The Tapping Solution app. She doesn’t care if it’s just a placebo effect. It works and that’s all that matters! I’ve been trying it too recently in an effort to deepen my sleep and I’m finding it very helpful.

Difficulty sleeping is very common in the perimenopause/menopause years. You can read more about getting your hormones naturally in balance to support good sleep here. If insomnia becomes a big issue though, and you are post-menopause, don’t assume this is normal and how life is going to be. It’s not. Get help from an insomnia specialist to deal with it as there may well be deeper issues impacting your sleep. Don’t suffer when it can be fixed with help.

I hope you get the rest you need, while the heat is on and when it’s cool!

You may also like: Fighting Insomnia – How To Sleep Well

Rachel Lankester is the founder of Magnificent Midlife, author, host of the Magnificent Midlife Podcast, a midlife mentor and editor of the Mutton Club online magazine. After an initially devastating early menopause at 41, she dedicated herself to helping women vibrantly transition through the sometimes messy middle of life, helping them cope better with menopause and ageing in general, and create magnificent next chapters. She’s been featured in/on BBC Woman’s Hour, The Huffington Post, The Sunday Times, Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, The Age Buster, Woman’s Weekly, Prima Magazine, eShe, Tatler HK and Woman’s Own amongst others. She believes we just get better with age. Get her book Magnificent Midlife: Transform Your Middle Years, Menopause and Beyond.