Making Sense Of Women's Health

Restoring Sleep: A Holistic Approach to Better Rest and Health

Roberta Bass Season 1 Episode 8

In this episode of Making Sense of Women's Health, Roberta dives into the crucial topic of sleep. Learn why sleep is more than just rest—it’s the time when your body repairs itself, balances hormones, and boosts your immune system. Discover how chronic stress, hormone fluctuations, and environmental factors can disrupt sleep and leave you feeling exhausted. Roberta explores the connections between sleep and long-term health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive decline, while also providing practical strategies to improve your sleep quality. If you’ve been struggling to fall asleep, stay asleep, or wake up refreshed, this episode is packed with actionable tips to help you reclaim your rest.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • The essential role sleep plays in muscle repair, brain function, and immune health.
  • How chronic stress, hormone imbalances (especially during perimenopause), and physical pain affect your ability to sleep.
  • How to identify environmental sleep disruptors, such as room temperature, noise, and partner snoring.
  • Practical steps to manage stress, improve sleep hygiene, and reduce technology use before bed.
  • The benefits of regular exercise, good nutrition, and consistent bedtime routines for better sleep.
  • How subconscious fears or patterns may be contributing to insomnia and how to address them.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with friends or loved ones who might benefit from better sleep. Don’t forget to subscribe to Making Sense of Women's Health so you never miss an episode.

For those interested in addressing subconscious barriers to sleep, you can learn more about the Control Method and how Roberta works with clients to improve sleep through remedial hypnosis. Click the link https://thriveandshinewomenswellness.co.uk/control

www.thriveandshinewomenswellness.co.uk

Supporting Women's Health Transitions with Education, Physiotherapy, Mentoring, Pilates, and Hypnosis.

Hello and welcome to Making Sense of Women's Health. Today we are diving into a crucial topic, sleep. Sleep isn't just about resting, it is the time when your body does a lot of its repair and recovery work. This includes muscle repair, tissue growth and even brain processing. So while you're asleep, your brain stores memories, it clears out toxins and processes the events of the day.

 

Sleep also helps your immune system function at its best, allowing your body to fight off illness. But when we don't get enough sleep, things start to go wrong. You may experience weight gain, mood swings, difficulty concentrating, muscle pain and even a weakened immune system. So long term sleep deprivation can lead to serious health conditions, things like diabetes, heart disease and cognitive decline. Sleep is especially important for hormone regulation. 

 

While we sleep, our body produces key hormones that control everything from metabolism to hunger. So if your sleep is off, it's likely that your hormones are too. This is why poor sleep is often linked to weight gain, increased cravings and worsened menopause symptoms. Addressing sleep problems can improve not only your daily energy but your long -term health as well. Now there are many reasons why we don't sleep well and it's not down just to one factor so let's explore some of those most common issues that might be keeping you awake or prevent us from getting that restful sleep that we need.

 

Number one, potentially the major contributor is chronic stress and anxiety. And this is a big sleep disruptor for many people. When you're under stress, your body releases cortisol, a hormone that helps you stay alert and manage stress.

 

In small doses, cortisol is actually really helpful and it keeps us safe and not doing silly things. But when your cortisol levels remain elevated for a long time, due to chronic stress, your body then struggles to relax and prepare for sleep. Chronic stress over time can lead to what some people refer to as adrenal fatigue. So while adrenal fatigue may not be recognised by all medical professionals, it is a term used to describe a set of symptoms that people experience when their body is struggling to cope with this prolonged stress. The idea is that your adrenal glands, which produce the cortisol, become overworked and can no longer keep up with that body's demand. This can result in feeling like that extreme tiredness, difficulty sleeping, and one of the classic symptoms is waking up early in the morning around 2 or 3am. 

 

So if you're getting that symptom, so if you find that you are waking around that time, it may well be that your adrenals are struggling and therefore addressing the root causes of stress and finding ways to manage it can help restore balance and improve sleep, energy levels and your overall wellbeing. Hormone fluctuations are also a significant contributor to sleep disruption, particularly during perimenopause our oestrogen and progesterone levels are fluctuating. 

Your progesterone just descends gradually, but your oestrogen levels are up and down. So if you've not listened to the podcast I did about menopause, go back and listen to it. It was played a little bit more detail. But many women experience hot flushes and night sweats due to this fluctuation. And this sudden temperature change can disrupt sleep multiple times during the night leaving you feeling really exhausted the next day. Your progesterone is also a calming hormone and helps to induce sleep. So if we don't have as much of that progesterone then it does make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. As a result many women in perimenopause do struggle with their sleep quality due to this physical symptoms and the hormone imbalance.

 

By the time we get to postmenopause, oestrogen levels, although are very low, do stabilise and a lot of those what we call vasomotor symptoms, like your hot flashes and your night sweats, tend to lessen. However, we do get other symptoms caused by this oestrogen decline, such as wakefulness, anxiety, joint pain, other things that then can affect your sleep quality.

 

Speaking of joint pain, pain, chronic pain, joint pain, acute pain is another major factor that prevents many people from sleeping well. You might have a condition such as arthritis, fibromyalgia or back pain and they can all make it difficult to get comfortable at night time. That can cause just restlessness or it could be that you're waking up regularly throughout the night.

 

Joint pain in the hips, particularly if you're a side sleeper, you might be getting pain on the outside of the hips or the knees. Again, it's difficult to get your knees in a nice comfy position or your shoulders as well. If you're sleeping on your side, they may all kind of cause you pain at night time and then make it difficult to settle and get to sleep. 

 

Also, people with conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue often experience what we call non restorative sleep. So they might have enough hours of rest, but they wake up feeling unrefreshed. And these conditions can also cause frequent wakening in the night. So I have chronic fatigue, I would do a whole episode on chronic fatigue, but I have it myself. And one of the things I do wake up many, many, many times at night time, and this obviously causes disruption to my sleep which causes many of the other symptoms that we have discussed and affects your overall wellbeing. 

 

Thinking of outside the body, as it were, your environment plays a huge role in how well you sleep. If your bedroom is too hot or too cold or too noisy, you'll sleep or likely suffer. For example, some people are particularly sensitive to light, I know I am, I often have my eye mask on or sound or even small little disturbances like the sound of a partner snoring next to you or other external noises can cause sleep disruptions. 

 

So particularly if you do have a snoring partner, this can really affect your sleep and I actually asked in my menopause support group ‘What would be your tips to help sleep at night time?’ 

And one woman did mention suffocating her husband would be a good solution. Although of course I don't recommend that. But there are other ways that you can help snoring, whether it's yourself or your partner. But if it's partner, then having earplugs or white noise. I have to have rain sounds in the background so I can't hear my husband snoring or even breathing because that really annoys me. But it might be encouraging them to use like nasal strips for the snoring or seeing a healthcare provider if the snoring is ongoing. But the goal is to find probably slightly better ways to manage the noise that don't involve smothering your partner because looking after them and your health is very important.

 

Other things that might cause poor sleep, if you've got an uncomfortable mattress. I spent weeks trying to find a mattress that is half decent to suit me, so I have back pain and things, but it is difficult but really important. And if you do get back pain, don't necessarily go for a hard mattress. I know people often think having a harder mattress will give you more support. You really need to go around and try them.

 

If it doesn't support the body properly it's going to cause you pain and the same with your pillows if you haven't got decent pillows that support your neck then you may find yourself waking up with a sore neck and that again is going to make it difficult to get a good night's sleep.

 

Now the next one many of us are guilty of and that is using technology late into the evening.

 

It might be watching telly or scrolling through social media or answering emails. The trouble is with that comes blue light. So on the screens kind of blaring into your face is going to affect our circadian rhythms. This is our body's internal body clock that regulates our sleep -wake cycle. This blue light mimics daylight and this tricks the brain into thinking it's still daytime and delaying the production of our sleep hormone which is called melatonin. Now this hormone is the signal to say to wind down and it's time for bed. If this is disrupted it can throw off your circadian rhythm making it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. 

 

So if you find yourself lying in bed scrolling on your phone or watching tv you might struggle to switch off and get to sleep, even if you are physically tired. So to help your body maintain a healthy sleep cycle, it is a good idea to reduce your screen time in the hour or two before bedtime. Instead, try reading or listening to calming music or practicing a wind down routine. We will talk a bit more about how to improve your sleep, but that's a couple of things that you could try. 

 

So let's move on to those practical ways now. We've already mentioned a couple, but I'll go into a bit more depth. So whether you are struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep, or you just wake up feeling tired, there are some steps that you can take that will support that rest. First one I've mentioned probably in most of the podcasts is exercise.

 

Again, another benefit of exercise, but incorporating regular physical activity into your routine is one of the best things that you can do for your sleep. Exercise helps to reduce your stress, it tires out the body, and it promotes the release of endorphins, your natural kind of feel good hormones, and also helps to regulate your circadian rhythm. Just make sure to avoid kind of intense workouts close to bedtime.

 

You need to be doing something calming like yoga, not some really high level HIIT workouts, as this can keep you wired kind of late into the night time. 

 

Stress management. Managing stress throughout the day can significantly impact your sleep. Try things like deep breathing, meditation, yoga. They are all great for reducing your cortisol levels and preparing your body for rest.

 

Doing something like a gratitude journal before bedtime and taking kind of short breaks to decompress throughout the day is really great way to lower your stress levels. 

 

Next thing to think about is your nutrition. What you eat does have an effect on how you sleep. It's making sure that you have foods within your diet that contain magnesium, calcium and vitamin D as these all support relaxation and sleep. Things like leafy greens, nuts, dairy, plant -based alternatives are all great sources. If you are struggling with your sleep, then you can take supplements, obviously under medical advice, things like melatonin, valerian root, magnesium, mean, Epsom salt bath, they can all help. But obviously, make sure that you check that you're able to take those things from your GP or healthcare provider before you do so. 

 

Other thing, having a consistent sleep routine. Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day helps to regulate your body's internal clock. Establishing that bedtime routine, whether it's reading, meditating, stretching, it all helps to signal to your body, now is the time to wind down and get ready for sleep.

 

We've already mentioned earlier about the blue light exposure and this is really key, particularly nowadays, because it does disrupt our melatonin. So we need to switch off those devices at least an hour or two before bedtime and go through our routine, our wind down routine and have our relaxing activities instead of using our phone or watching telly.

 

Calming your subconscious. In some cases, it's not just external stress that's keeping us awake or physical things. It can be your subconscious mind. If your mind races at night time, if childhood fears resurface as sleep approaches, reprogramming your subconscious may be the key.

 

I'll talk about this more in further episodes because I will introduce you to tools like the control method, which is a type of remedial hypnosis. And this helps to remove any subconscious barriers to sleep, allowing your mind to rest more easily. And certainly I've seen a few clients that have had problems with sleep, talking about childhood issues coming up. 

One in particular their subconscious mind was causing them to stay awake because they used to struggle with nightmares. And the subconscious is thinking it's easier and safer to keep them awake than deal with the nightmares. And we had to go and remove those subconscious barriers, retrain the subconscious in order to allow that person to sleep. So more about that in future episodes. 

 

So to wrap up now, improving your sleep is not just one thing that you need to do. It is a holistic process that requires addressing not only the physical things, but also the mental barriers. And it is all about understanding the reasons behind your poor sleep, so managing stress and creating a sleep friendly environment. And remember, sleep affects your overall health from your hormone balance to your immune system.

 

And in future episodes, we will dive deeper into the subconscious patterns because this may well be preventing you from getting the good night's sleep. If you want more help on your journey, I do work with people online using the control method to address these subconscious barriers. Or I do run workshops online or in person. So if you are struggling with sleep and you've tried all of these things, it may well be that there's a subconscious element that needs addressing before the sleep is going to improve. So thank you so much for listening and don't forget to share this episode with anybody who might benefit from better sleep, which possibly is most people. 

 

So until next time, take care and get that sleep that you deserve.