If you’ve been scrolling through social media lately, it won’t come as a surprise to you that many people are having trouble sleeping.
For many people, the lack of sleep may be due to the increased worry and anxiety caused by the current coronavirus situation. This global pandemic has caused stress for many of us and it’s difficult to see the path through.
It’s important to remind ourselves that we will get through this but try telling your brain this when you’re lying awake at night tossing and turning.
For women over 40, there may be another cause for the lack of sleep that no one tells us about. It’s called perimenopause and insomnia is a common symptom. If you’d like to know more about the signs and symptoms of perimenopause, listen to Perimenopause Signs and Symptoms: What No One Tells Us!
In this week’s episode, we’re talking about:
- Why we need sleep
- Perimenopausal insomnia
- How anxiety affects sleep
- Sleep hygiene and routines
- Our personal relationship with sleep
- and so much more!
Check here for a full list of past episodes of The Taming Crazy Podcast: Views From Midlife!
In the meantime, stay home. Stay safe. Stay sane. And until next time, bye for now!
Real women. Real conversations. Served with a big dose of laughter!
Transcript
Alicya: I want you to know my dog is down here with me, so if you hear any heavy breathing, it’s not me. Welcome to The Taming Crazy Podcast, I’m Alicya, and I’m joined by my Fitbit buddies Deb and Sue. Hello ladies
Sue: Hello
Deb: Hi
Alicya: So how has the week been for you guys anything interesting?
Deb: Nothing interesting it’s been going good.
Alicya: Sue, how about you?
Sue: I’ve just been trying to move. Like not house obviously just my body.
Alicya: Yes, you’ve been trying to get your steps in.
Sue: Yes
Deb: Not just going to the kettle?
Sue: No. I’ve had to move further than that. I’ve been doing laps before bed so that I can kind of, you know, not leave any steps hanging.
Deb: That’s awesome.
Alicya: That’s the thing right, it’s like you’ve got to get those steps in… and you’ve got to hit certain targets in your mind.
Sue: Yeah
Alicya: Yeah, it’s quite motivating, fair play.
Sue: Well, everyone’s like what are you doing, and I’m like I just got to get a few more steps in I’ve got 97 to reach my target for the hour.
Alicya: Yes before the little feed me comes up I love that
Sue: Yes because when it gets to 10 minutes, I’m like oh God
Alicya: Yes
Sue: I haven’t got time
Alicya: You’ve been sitting all this time get up and move. Yeah, I love it. So I have been gardening all week, and my knees are freaking killing me, oh my goodness, but my radishes are sprouting. to be honest, I absolutely hate radishes, but I did hear that they are the easiest thing to grow so I’m growing them and they’re sprouting, and I’m pretty excited
Sue: You know what I hate radishes, but this is my top tip, do you have an air fryer?
Alicya: Yes
Sue: They make pretty good chips.
Alicya: Oh, I’ll have a bash at that because I really don’t like them. My husband likes them, but I don’t like them at all.
Sue: Same here
Alicya: Oh I’m going to try that
Sue: They’re a waste of a vegetable but yeah they make pretty good chips
Alicya: Oh, I’m going to try that. Nice. Good tip, Sue. I have something else sprouting too, but I don’t know what it is because I forgot to label it, so that will be a surprise vegetable.
Sue: Awww I’m a bit jealous because like I’m taking tomorrow off I wasn’t going to, but I decided to take tomorrow off just so I can start sticking some more things in the ground, but I did notice the arugula is peeking up now
Alicya: It’s a good feeling. I haven’t gardened for like 15 years, I think, it’s like starting all over again. I’m pretty excited.
Sue: Hmmm
Alicya: Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been noticing lately more, and more people are having trouble sleeping, and I’m wondering how you’re sleeping right now. Has it changed at all in the last little while since we’ve been under this quarantine thing, or has it been the same?
Sue: Well I have to say up until this week it has been exactly the same like absolutely no problems at all and then this week I’ve had really really really bad night sleep every night.
Alicya: That’s not good.
Sue: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not down to COVID-19. I think it’s just probably other things.
Alicya: Yes. I think a lot of people are suffering with sleep problems right now just because some people are dealing with a lot of anxiety, worry and everything else. Deb, how about you right now, is it the same?
Deb: I’m actually doing really well for my sleep right now nothing for me changed you know for me and the COVID-19 sleep pattern, but I was going through that up and down cycle with that midlife hormonal thing. You know I had three or four nights in a row where I wasn’t sleeping, and then I went on this HRT well… I’m doing amazing with the sleep.
Alicya: Oh, so you really finding a difference?
Deb: I’m finding a big difference. The only thing right now is that I’m awake that much earlier because of the daylight, so that’s my next… my weekend is going to be spent getting some blackout curtains, I think.
Alicya: Yeah, that’s true because it’s so light so early. I guess it depends where you live in the world, but here in Pacific time, it’s like really early, and we know that has a big effect on sleeping patterns, right? The daylight kind of wakes you up. We know that sleep is vital in the protection of mental and physical health and your quality of life, and it supports your brain function and adults require 7 to 8 hours a night in general. So are you getting back kind of sleep like 7 to 8 of restful sleep?
Deb: I would say probably 6 to 7.
Alicya: So, not too bad.
Deb: No, not too bad. Like I have no problems, you know going to bed even at 10 and falling asleep in a deep sleep by 10:30 But then right now it’s that 5 am thing that I’m ready to get up so…
Alicya: Well, at least you’re getting that sleep though, right?
Deb: Definitely.
Alicya: If you were asleep at that time, you’re getting enough hours. How about you, Sue?
Sue: I usually get 7 to 8 hours, and if I don’t get that, I get a little bit like a toddler.
Alicya: Yes.
Sue: I just like sleeping.
Alicya: It’s lovely, isn’t it?
Sue: Yeah, I really like you know being all comfortable in my bed, and I have to say for me it’s a bigger struggle getting to sleep, but once I’m asleep, I’m usually good.
Alicya: We spend an awful lot of time sleeping, and everybody has a sleep story, so I’ll share a little bit about mine and see if you guys can relate to it. So as a child, I used to suffer with night terrors; I used to sleepwalk and not remember anything about it. And I also suffered from a lot of nightmares and a few of them I can still really recall vividly still to this day and also those dreams where you’re falling. I think a lot of the nightmares that I used to have had a lot to do with the intrusive thoughts that I have, which is part of the OCD that I have to deal with. I’m not sure, so sometimes I’m not sure whether I was actually having a nightmare all the intrusive thoughts you know sometimes they kind of mingle in with each other. But I think I slept fairly well other than of course when you have kids I mean who sleeps when you have kids, but when I hit my, I think it was late thirties maybe early forties I started dealing with insomnia really really bad it seemed like probably a year or more where the insomnia was so bad I was almost like in a zombie state in the daytime like I could barely function in my job. Looking back, I’m almost positive it had to do with my hormones because once I had a hysterectomy sleep started to get a lot better. After that, it seems like I slept really really well, but I used to have about three or four nights every 4 weeks where I would wake up at like 3 or 4 in the morning, but I could get back to sleep. So I’m really convinced that it’s hormonal. But generally, I sleep really well. So do you have a sleep story, or has it been the same throughout your life, Deb?
Deb: You know I don’t remember having the nightmares you know I might have had the odd common childhood nightmare, but I had the same pattern hormonally as you. You know you’re good for 3 weeks or so, and then there’s a week there when you’re up and down all the time, and that’s how it’s been for years and years and years for myself until like I said when I went on this HRT so definitely I guess hormonal, but I also have not had an alcoholic beverage. You’re probably sitting there with your G & T and Sue with her wine right now but…
Alicya: Okay… I am not drinking.
Sue: Me neither actually.
Deb: Well there you go
Sue: I did contemplate it, but I forgot.
Deb: I don’t think I’ve had an alcoholic beverage for months, and I found that really affected my sleep.
Alicya: Yeah.
Sue: Yeah, and alcohol is known for disturbing sleep— like quite badly.
Alicya: How about you, Sue? What’s your story?
Sue: Well, actually, I do remember having some quite bad nightmares and this one in particular but I remember that coincidentally started my snake phobia, which is nice when you can combine these things.
Alicya: Absolutely!
Sue: Yeah, there was another one which was kind of almost like a Hansel and Gretel nightmare as well, but I still had that up until my teen years really, and that was kind of a recurring nightmare, and yeah, I suppose I slept… Well, because I was a nurse and I worked shifts I had very disturbed pattens because the way things were you would do so many weeks of days and you might be starting— an early you know like the shift started at 7 or you might be doing a late shift which ended at 9:30 I think so you’d have that kind of come home decompress and you’d be back on the ward by 7 the next day so I got used to functioning with probably not optimal sleep and then I had my kids in there as well so yeah messed up sleep for years and then it all kind of settled down quite a lot but I did get kind of hormonal as I would be fine for 3 weeks and then unfortunately because my periods were so irregular I would not really know why I was sleeping badly or anything because I would forget every month for some reason and then you know I’d be like, oh of course that’s why I haven’t slept because I would always have a night where I would sleep really badly and then I would sleep really really well and then my period would star. Which was odd or maybe it’s quite normal, I don’t know.
Alicya: Right!
Sue: And now —now I just love my sleep.
Alicya: Especially if it’s a restful sleep, and I think if you’ve ever dealt with anxiety, that has a huge effect on sleep too because it can be impossible to sleep well when you have an anxious brain.
Sue: Yes!
Alicya: You know, if you’re worrying or you’re overthinking, you know, I think we’ve all experienced that from time to time, but you really do have to have a calm mind to be able to sleep well. And when you have anxiety, a calm mind is something that never happens you know if something is really bothering me— I may fall asleep— but I’ll wake up around 2 or 3 a clock. I have a really hard time going back to sleep because I’m ruminating all the time. All of these thoughts ruminating through my brain over and over so when it gets really bad like that I actually have to get up and watch some telly or something because the only way I can snap out of it is by disrupting the thoughts. And part of that is OCD as well, and the thoughts can get very intense, and sometimes they can get very scary, so the only way I can do it completely is by turning on the television and watching something because I can’t think my way out of it because to sleep you need to not be thinking.
Sue: Hmmm
Alicya: It’s like a vicious cycle right so… but I have noticed that a lot of people have trouble sleeping when they’re dealing with anxiety. I think that is one of the biggest things.
Sue: When I had my regular anxiety and depression I… you know it would be a struggle to get to sleep because I’d be overthinking things and then I would get to sleep and what have you, but when I had my perimenopausal anxiety that’s when the insomnia really kicked in and fortunately not for very long. But like you say, I was like one of the Living Dead, you know. It would take me so long to go to sleep, and then I’d be worrying that I would be disturbing my husband so I would get up…. and this is ridiculous… the only thing that would help me get back to sleep would be to be reading the Daily Mail because I would be so bored by the complete s*** that was written there that I would read a few celebrity stories and go isn’t that s*** and go back to bed and sleep really well
Alicya: Yeah, and I think you do have to find what works for you. Speaking of perimenopause Sue, I think, as you know, I think that one of the first symptoms that women actually experience in perimenopause is sleeping problems, you know. For many women, they continue to have problems with sleep throughout their post-menopausal years as well, but a lot of times, we’re not aware of it, so when we’re dealing with these sleep issues, we never put it down to perimenopause.
Sue: Well, that’s it. We’ve talked about it many times before it was… well, I’m not sleeping because I’m worrying about this, I’m thinking about that. There was always a rationale about why I wasn’t sleeping.
Alicya: Yes
Sue: Yeah, when you start putting two and two together, it’s like wow this is kind of weird because, like you said it is such a common symptom and so many women like suffer from it, but we don’t know that’s a symptom.
Alicya: Not at all. I blamed my husband. I thought it was him, and I actually kicked him into the guest room for probably a few months because I thought he was the one keeping me awake. The poor guy. But that’s what I thought— something was waking me up all the time. I could hear him breathing, so that must be what it is… he was breathing.
Sue: How dare he!
Alicya: He was breathing, so I actually said okay, you’ve got to go sleep in the other room, and he did that for months until I actually realized it wasn’t anything to do with him at al. But I don’t think I ever admitted that to him, I can’t remember but anyway I think a lot of women tot find there may be a lot of times that has to do with when you’re sleeping with someone that maybe snores.
Deb: Yeah.
Alicya: If you’re not deep sleeping or having a really restful sleep, it’s really easy to be woken up by all kinds of noises.
Sue: Well, I used to try to go to bed very early so I would be asleep by the time he started to go to sleep, so I didn’t have to hear the snoring. Anyway, turns out that he has sleep apnea, and it wasn’t his fault so…
Alicya: Yes. Part of my work… I attended quite a few courses on sleep apnea and snoring, and you’d be surprised how many women experience it. Lots of women experience sleep apnea that I never realized before, you know. Sleep apnea occurs when the muscles in the back of the throat fail to keep the airway open, so your brain is constantly waking you up to breathe. So your sleep is very fragmented, so you never feel rested at all. You suffer than with low blood oxygen levels, and that can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease and memory problems. I think having sleep apnea or even snoring, it really needs to be checked out because it can lead to a lot of things. And you know, there’s a higher risk of developing sleep apnea if you’re over 40, if you’re overweight, if you smoke or the size of your neck. And in men, it’s over 17 inches and women over 16 inches. So that’s a really interesting thing to remember.
Sue: Apparently, I do snore. I’ve woken myself up snoring, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t, you know, I try really really hard not to ever go to sleep on public transit.
Alicya: You don’t want to scare people?
Sue: Unfortunately, I’m also that person who parks their bum on a seat on the plane and promptly falls asleep.
Deb: I’m jealous of you people.
Alicya: I can never do that either.
Sue: It only happens on planes. Like literally, I kind of buckle myself in and go to sleep, and clearly, I’m not in any way anxious about flying.
Alicya: I was reading something by Dr. Neil Stanley, and he’s a sleep specialist in Europe, and he talks about something he calls a sleep crutch. And it has to do about believing you can’t fall asleep without a certain pillow or a certain drink or a certain something, whatever it is, and the more you believe it to be true, the more real it becomes. And some people worry so much that you’re not going to sleep without that sleep crutch that you actually don’t. Another thing we do when we’ve had a few bad nights like waking up at 3 every morning for a few nights, is we start reinforcing the thought that we’re going to wake up at 3. And when we wake up, we check the clock every time. We expect to wake up at 3 and then when we think— which is the worst part of it— we start thinking. We can’t think and expect to sleep. So he suggests when you go to bed, putting the thought that you’re going to sleep through the night and if you do wake up, don’t look at the clock at all. Keep your eyes closed and try and fall back to sleep. And of course, it’s not as easy as it sounds, but what I do when it happens is that I do a breathing exercise if I need to. And it’s the same one I use to go to bed, and that’s clearing the mind as best I can by breathing in and out of my nose. I’m focusing on the sensation of that breath through the nose, and it usually works for me. He said a lot of people end up depending on the sleep crutch because they know they’re going to wake up, so they believe they’re going to wake up, and they do.
Sue: Well, I’ve seen it. I used to have… obviously, when I worked as a nurse, we would have patients who would be on a tiny, tiny, tiny dose of something to help them sleep, and they would tell you that they would not sleep if they didn’t have this tablet. It was the same every night. You would go through it, and you know sort of it was something that wasn’t prescribed. You know it’s like oh for God’s sake!
Alicya: Yes
Sue: You know so many stories about things, but they would be absolutely adamant that they wouldn’t sleep unless they took such and such a thing, and it might be one paracetamol (acetaminophen) you know it could be something like that. Which in itself is not a good thing to be taking, but it is a type of crutch. Kind of fits like part of that routine of them going to sleep or not.
Alicya: It’s kind of like… it just brought a memory of my oldest son when he was a little, little one. He would not go to sleep without a certain blanket.
Sue: I still have one of those now!
Alicya: Yes, it is funny. People have a certain pillow or they say I can’t sleep without bamboo pyjamas or whatever they are… and that’s what they believe. It’s really interesting.
Sue: It is. It’s fascinating. I mean, and when you think about it, from the minute a baby is born, we are almost obsessed with getting them to sleep. and how long are they sleepin.g
Alicya: Yes.
Sue: And how well are they sleeping? Are they waking up in the night, and how quickly did your child start sleeping through the night? And you know the problem is, is that none of us actually sleep through the night without waking up, you know even if it’s just like a micro wake up. And you don’t recognize it that you’ve done it, but we all wake up in the night. Nobody sleeps solidly through, and yet we put that expectation on a tiny baby to be sleeping through the night for 8 hours within like 5 weeks of birth.
Alicya: Well I mean that’s the first question we usually ask, are they sleeping through the night yet?
Sue: Yeah, and when you think about it, it’s all like when your baby is very small, and you know it’s absolutely the right thing to do but having that bedtime routine. You know you start slowing things down, you might have a little bath put your warm fluffy pyjamas on, and you know it’s having that routine, and I think as you get older as an adult, you don’t have that routine anymore. Well like it will not surprise you to learn that I do not have a bedtime routine
Deb: I was going to say I have a routine, and I’m probably the only one.
Alicya: Probably. Well, they do say things have changed a lot because of all of these devices that we have. Especially with kids, you know it used to be where you’d have to be in bed by 9 because that’s when all the adult shows came on the television. So you have to go to bed and all you had there was a book. You know you could read for a while. I remember reading, putting the blanket over my head with a torch, or what do you call a torch? A flashlight
Sue: Yes, and getting caught doing it.
Alicya: Yes, but now we send kids to bed. They are going to bed later, and quite often, they’re looking at devices.
Sue: Yeah, and you know sort of the whole thing about the light from the screens and everything which disrupts melatonin and what have you, which all makes it difficult to sleep then. And I know one of the things that I quite often do… like we got rid of the TV in the bedroom years ago, and you know now the screens have kind of snuck in into the bedroom. But I have a Kindle, so I don’t use it an awful lot because I like to have a proper book particularly if I’m reading in bed, but even the screen on that is very disruptive because I was like well I don’t use the screen for watching TV but apparently just by having it you know having that light exposure for just reading is not good either.
Alicya: Yeah. Sometimes on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, you’ll see people, and they’ll be like, it’s 3, and I can’t sleep, and I’m like why are you on your devices? Like, what are you doing?
Sue: That might be me on Twitter.
Alicya: Your brain has woken up then because you’re typing and you’re doing all this, and actually, you’re making it worse.
Deb: I tried to talk to Alicya the other day in the morning, and she’s like ‘no can’t do it right now’ she says ‘I barely have one eye open’ and to me, it was like noon, and I’m like… okay.
Sue: Haha. I’ll come back later.
Alicya: Okay, it was not noon.
Deb: It felt like noon. It was so funny.
Alicya: She forgets we’re on a different time zone.
Sue: Yes, it’s weird because you know if I was going into the office, it would be unusual for me to be in before 8. But quite often I pop on a bit early because you know we use Skype for business for work and my boss called me one day, and the phone starts ringing and then it ended so I called her back, and she was like ‘you weren’t supposed to call me back,’ and I was like yes but you called me, and she said ‘yes I wanted to send you a good morning message, but I called you by accident’ which is why we were having a 7:30 meeting.
Alicya: Yes, I have to have at least one coffee in me in the morning just to wake me up. I’m a pretty good sleeper.
Deb: Hmm
Alicya: I just heard my dog bark, I don’t know where he is. Oh Oh.
Alicya: I was looking at a few of the tips to help people sleep, but you know they’re all the ones we’ve heard so many times before. Anything you can do to quieten the mind. Eating late at night can make sleep difficult, I have an issue with that because I’m a little bit of a snacker. I like a little snack, and you know my dad always ate something before he went to bed. A warm relaxing bath before bed really helps. Naps can be beneficial, but you’ve got to be careful not to nap for too long.
Sue: Yes or too late in the day.
Alicya: Yes. When I was having bad insomnia, I would try and nap, but then you fall asleep for like an hour or so, and you would feel so bad when you woke up.
Deb: Yeah.
Alicya: Oh my gosh, I hated that, but now I can nap for like 10 or 20 minutes, and I’m fine because you know sometimes you’re sitting there, and you can’t even keep your eyes open.
Sue: Yeah, you’re not napping; you are just resting your eyes.
Alicya: Exactly and you know when your parents used to say that, and you’d be like ‘oh come on,’ and now I’m finding that I’m doing that too. I just got to close my eyes for a few minutes, and I do feel better after that.
Deb: Yeah.
Alicya: And the other thing is alcohol like you mentioned before, but they do say that one nightcap can really help, but if you drink more than one, you will wake up in the middle of the night. And then to take 30 to 45 minutes before bedtime to wind down. Like Debbie, rituals whatever that means to you.
Deb: Yeah.
Alicya: Some people read. Some people watch TV. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as it works for you. What is your ritual, Deb?
Deb: This is no surprise, I guess. I just do everything the same and so yeah even every night you know I wash my face the same time I do everything the same, and I can guarantee you when I decide to go to be, I plug my phone in, charge it up and I don’t go on it at all. And the reason I don’t is usually when I go to bed I’m so tired that my eyes can’t even look at anything you know a screen, a book. I’m usually that tired around 10 every night.
Alicya: I swear you’re part robot.
Deb: I think I might be, I might be. It’s quite possible.
Sue: I could really do with an off switch like that.
Deb: I’m in the same position exactly, and I’m asleep within minutes, and it’s just I don’t think I know anything different, you know.
Alicya: Yes. It’s like even the same on sleepovers you do that. I’m like you’re no fun at all.
Deb: I know.
Alicya: You know we’re all in the same room and with chatting in our pyjamas, and she’s asleep, and I’m like why is she here?
Deb: It’s like why do these girls have covers for their eyes and earplugs, and I don’t understand it. And sound machines.
Alicya: Yes, I do use a white noise machine I always have. I have a fan, and if I’m somewhere where I anticipate there’s a lot of noise, I will wear earplugs as well because noises wake me up.
Sue: Hang on. So you have white noise and earplugs?
Alicya: Yes.
Deb: She’s fully covered.
Sue: I’ve got a question. What’s the point of the white noise if you’ve got the earplugs?
Alicya: I know. I don’t know what it is and maybe it’s some kind of psychological thing that I have, but the white noise is right next to me to my bed, and it’s quite loud, and it can’t be you know it has to be a constant noise it can’t be like running water you know those up and down noises, and a fan and I think the earplugs are for noises that are outside of the white noise. I don’t know, it just makes sense to me when I’m in that situation I don’t know, but that is my ritual. How about you, Sue?
Sue: Well, I have a humidifier because I get so dry during the night like my sinuses get really inflamed and everything so in an attempt to kind of mitigate migraines I use a humidifier which does make a bit of noise. And every now and again, it makes a glugging noise which is really annoying and then sometimes I do have essential oils going as well as that, so that would be my white noise component. But it took me a really really long time to get used to that because I cannot tolerate having any noise, so even like my husband’s CPAP machine, sometimes that makes too much noise. Yeah, the room has to be black and even if… for some reason, in our bedroom, we got a window which has got like those glass brick things in it and it kind of overlooks the living room, but because of the way the glass bricks are, you can’t see through them. So we have a curtain there, but if somebody is going downstairs and they turn on the landing light, and that shines in through the light through the window. I’m really really sensitive to light at night time which makes me really really great in a hotel room because I have to make sure the curtains are really really tight. If the air conditioner is noisy, then that has to be turned off because I can’t tolerate that.
Alicya: See, so you have some noise issues as well.
Sue: Yes. Yeah, it has to be dead quiet.
Alicya: Or maybe those are all crutches?
Deb: Yeah
Sue: Yeah, maybe. I do like the sound of the frogs outside; that’s my favourite sound at night.
Alicya: I have actually started to not close any of the blinds because it’s out in the middle of the country. I go to bed, and I see the stars and then when I wake up the sun is awake, it kind of wakes me up a little bit, so I’m kind of enjoying that right now but normally like throughout winter and everything I have heavy blackout drapes.
Sue: Like this house is full of peculiarities. At the bottom of the stairs, we do have a light, and I swear to god they can probably see this light shining from flipping Mars. It’s just like seriously it must be the brightest bulbs ever, but unfortunately… obviously, they’re LED bulbs that are never going to run out, so nobody sees any need to change them apart from me, and I need somebody taller than me to do that.
Alicya: And you won’t even think about it until it goes on and then it’s like ‘oh I’ve got to change that bulb’ and then once it’s off you forget.
Sue: Yes, and then somebody turns it on again.
Alicya: My husband turns off every light in the house all the time.
Sue: Yes yes
Alicya: We can’t watch a movie if there’s lights on, so you have to turn every light off, so it’s like constant. And sometimes I have to pick up my phone to see where I’m going because I can’t put a light on. Yes, I guess we all have our peculiarities.
Deb: Yeah
Alicya: 3 little things that I learned, well not learnt, but I think are really interesting is the fact that being physically and mentally tired and exhausted doesn’t mean that you’re sleepy. So when you think about that, you know when you’re so exhausted, and you fall into bed, and you can’t sleep when you think you’re going to sleep. And I thought, ‘oh, that makes perfect sense.’ I thought that was really interesting.
Sue: Yeah, I think that’s been my problem the last 3 nights. As my mom would say, ‘I’m overtired.’
Alicya: Overtired. Yes, you’re so exhausted and fatigued that you think you going to sleep, but you don’t.
Sue: No.
Alicya: And that brings me to the other one, and that is… you can’t catch up on sleep. You know when you think o I’ll sleep on the weekend and I’ll catch up but you actually can’t you need sufficient sleep every single night.
Sue: And you can’t bank sleep either.
Alicya: You can’t bank sleep, no. And the other one is… if you sleep well, don’t change anything.
Deb: Yeah
Sue: There you go.
Alicya: There you go. Do you want to add anything on sleep? Any info, any tidbits, any words of wisdom?
Deb: I think, well for myself, like up until a few months ag,o I was waking up at night because I had those hot sweats.
Alicya: Yes
Deb: Every night, I was waking up with that, and I had a tough time going back to sleep because you know when you feel so warm, it’s just so hard to fall asleep. So I’m sure a lot of middle-aged women are probably suffering with that.
Alicya: For sure. Hot flashes and night sweats that wake you up, and then you’re cold, and then you’re hot and then you cold. That has a massive effect on your quality of sleep. But the HRT has made a difference for you then Deb?
Deb: It has yeah. There’s lots that I’ve benefited. I can tell I’ve benefited from a lot of it, and some I’m still not sure you know it’s too soon, but the sleep is going better.
Alicya: Yeah, but even if you sleep better, it makes a massive difference in everything.
Deb: It does, and I haven’t actually had a….. I haven’t woken up having a night sweat since I’ve been on it.
Sue: That’s good.
Deb: Yeah
Alicya: Yeah, that’s really good. So do you have anything else to add?
Sue: This could be an age-related thing as well. I never had night sweats, but now I like the bedroom to be really quite cool because I like that snuggly warm feeling. Okay, it only lasts for about 5 minutes before I throw everything off.
Alicya: Yes, yes.
Sue: But I do love that sense of having something heavy on me, and I always have done. You know, even if it’s just very lightweight, I like to have that weight on me. So that yeah it’s just a case of playing around with things and seeing what works
Alicya: Yeah, I think that’s true. It is something Sue, when you have dealt with anxiety, you do sleep better when you have something like a blanket or something over top of you. Like you know… my husband, he sleeps, and he doesn’t have a blanket or sheet or anything when he’s warm, but I have to even if I’m warm, I have to have a sheet or something on top.
Sue: Yes yeah, even that feeling of being covered.
Alicya: Yes, and it’s the thing where you know, you can’t kick your leg out and drape it over the edge of the bed because of monsters and things like that.
Sue: Yes the something can grab it.
Alicya: Which is why husbands should always be the closest to the door because If some murderer was going to come in, they would be the first to get hit. So there’s lots of rules.
Sue: Yeah, but if he comes in— I don’t know why I’m assuming it’ll be male, but you know predominantly they are— it’s me, they’re going to get me.
Alicya: Oh.
Sue: Because since we had the kids, I’ve always slept closest to the door so they can come straight to me. I regret that.
Alicya: See. You were not thinking ahead, Sue.
Sue: No. You see, I thought I was, but now he has his bed groove, and I have my bed groove, and we can’t swap.
Alicya: What do you think of these people that… I saw it on a show a while back. Where people didn’t have a side, they just went to sleep.
Sue: No
Alicya: I’m thinking, that’s just so odd.
Sue: What? So you just get into bed and lie anywhere?
Alicya: Yes
Sue: No no no no
Deb: I couldn’t do that.
Alicya: Well, Deb, you couldn’t.
Deb: No
Alicya: That would be variety. That’s not your thing.
Deb: No, not at all. Even when Jason’s on night shift, I’m still in my little part of the bed.
Alicya: Absolutely, yeah.
Sue: Yeah.
Alicya: Yeah, when Gerald is out of town, I still have my little section of the bed, which is actually right on the edge of the bed usually.
Sue: Yes, I do that as well.
Deb: Yeah
Sue: Right on the edge
Alicya: I know because you think ‘oh, I have the whole bed to myself’ and then you get in, and you’re stuck on that little end of the bed, and I think ‘what is this all about?’
Sue: Well, it’s quite funny when like Manny was here in Canada, and we were so back in the UK like he was here for nearly six months. In that 6 months, I did sneak towards the middle of the bed.
Alicya: Oh
Sue: And so when he came home, it was like ‘what are you doing, you’re in my space.’
Alicya: Oh so maybe gradually over time you kind of just morphed over or merged over to that side
Sue: Yeah, it was just a very gradual kind of sneaking, but by the time he arrived home, I was pretty much in the middle.
Alicya: Yeah, it’s weird, but I guess they’re just habits that kind of form over time. Do we have anything else to say about sleep?
Sue: Sleep when you can. Enjoy it. Sweet dreams.
Alicya: Yes, do whatever works for you. So sleep well. Stay safe. Stay sane. And until next time, bye for now.
Sue: Bye. Sleep well
Deb: Bye
