💤 The Sleep-Hormone Connection: Why You’re Waking Up at 3 AM & How to Fix It

Ever feel like no matter how much sleep you get, you’re still exhausted? Or maybe you’re waking up at 3 AM, unable to fall back asleep? 🤯

In this episode of Sweet Insights with Amy & Ali, we’re diving into the sleep-hormone connection—because if your hormones are out of whack, your sleep probably is too.

We’ll explore: 🌙 How cortisol, melatonin, and estrogen impact your sleep cycles 🥱 Why sleep deprivation increases stress, cravings, and mood swings 💡 Simple, effective strategies to restore your sleep rhythm

Plus, Amy and Ali share their own sleep struggles and the strategies that actually helped.

🎧 Tune in now and take back your nights! 👉 https://www.sweetinsights.ca/

#SleepHealth #HormonalBalance #SweetInsightsPodcast

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi everybody, and welcome to Sweet Insights with Amy and Ali. Hi Amy. So I've already failed. I'm new in the last three years to wearing glasses, and I'm adamant on our Zoom recording, where we post on my YouTube channel, that I'm going to not have the glare in my glasses. And I have already moved and failed that. So there's that happening today. I watched a lady, you know, these like professional people that tell you how you should do things. She told me that she because she always wears glasses. She does all her videos and she pops out the lenses. And I'm like, well good for her, because I still wouldn't be able to see. No. That's funny. I feel extreme. Yeah. So if I want to reference our notes and make sure we cover all the things that we talked about covering, I wouldn't be able to see those notes, we would just be free Ali talking which nobody wants that. Well, not if we're keeping it within a certain timeframe. If I take off my glasses, and you can all admire my eye makeup that I made an effort to do today, even though my hair looks like poo. Tell me Amy because I can no longer see my paper. What are we talking about today? So today, something that actually has affected me this weekend. We're going to talk about well, we're going to recap episode four a little bit. And just last week we talked about how nutrition impacts your hormones. So one of the things is sleep. And so if you're struggling with sleep, your hormones could be the reason if you haven't already got the gist of that from other episodes. We're going to dive into that a little bit more today. And again, a reminder, and I'm flinging a pen today. Sorry. I know. We're not doctors. I mean, I am certainly not you go to yourself, but I am not a doctor, and we're just sharing personal experiences, things we've researched client stories or friend stories to help people make informed choices. Awesome. So because we talked about, I think we talked about cortisol in every episode, let's face it. Do you notice stressing me out, Amy? What? My black and white dog, Cody, for all of those who follow and know about my dogs, her obsession with snow eating. Problematic, like 500 gazillion times per day, she wants to go outside and it's solely to eat snow. And this is a dog that can't handle being wet. Like if she gets a little bit wet, like if they're wrestling and she gets wet, she's going to like dry it off on every surface ever, but snow. And if there is fresh snow, like she is like her rating in it, like it's the most glorious thing in the world and like loving to eat snow 24 seven. So this entire episode, she's going to scratch at the door, not because she needs to go to the bathroom, but because snow is glorious in her life and agitating as heck in mine. Well, good for you. We won't hear it. So we'll just see you slightly look over every time. And if I'm fully disclosing, we went to a cheer competition last weekend and I changed my estrogen patch on Fridays and we left Friday morning and I did not think of said patch whatsoever. And so I think it was earlier this week when my dog wanted to go in the snow and go in the snow and go in the snow that I raged on her to the point that I got face to face with her on the couch and growled at her because I was like, I am done with this. Like no one else in the house has to deal with this. And then I thought about it and I was like, shit balls. I never put a patch on. And I'm like, is this why I'm raging? And it's funny because as I reflect about like how much her scratching the door stresses me out, it is nothing like that day. That day, I literally growled at her and she's afraid. She was like, whoa, why is my mom growling at me? And I was like, ah, estrogen patch. I need to bring that back into my life. Amazing. If I growl at my dogs, they just growl back and jump on me like they think I'm going to play. So it doesn't quite work with my big old horses. Maybe you don't have the right growl. Maybe, maybe I need to work on my dog growl. I think it was like, look, I've never actually growled like that before. And I was like, I just growled at you and you look afraid of me. It was like a hormonal growl. Yeah, it was like a mom growl. You know, like how our kids know that we have like the mom voice. I think I like full fledged embrace my dog relationship and I dog growled at her. That's amazing. I took domination to a whole new level. Yeah. Now this is what happens. I took my glasses off and we're way off topic. So I will behave myself and put them back on. I mean, I think everybody probably enjoyed the story though. And now we all know you growl like a dog or at your dog like a dog. Thank you for that like new version of what I said. Yeah, you're welcome. I'm always here to help. So back to what we should talk about. Why does sleep matter for hormones? And I think that you have a few things to go over and I'm pretty sure cortisol is on there. 100%. The key hormones that affect your sleep is number one cortisol. So when we are stressed, that is going to affect our sleep, whether we have trouble going to sleep or we have trouble staying asleep. Sometimes some people are stressed. That's when they'll have that three a.m. wake up. So, you know, really working on managing your stress, stress management strategies, things like that are going to help our hormone melatonin. So melatonin is your body's natural sleep hormone. And so. Which can get thrown off when we're stressed. So, you know, and then also with things like, you know, being on our phone too much blue light, you know, things like that will throw off your serotonin levels. If you're working somewhere dark with you're not like getting daylight. All of those things impact when our melatonin increases and decreases, which can affect our sleep in return. And our leptin and our ghrelin hormones, those hormones that regulate our hunger and our cravings. Poor sleep can lead to an increase in those which causes more cravings, more snacking. And especially for those carbs and sugars that we talked about last week. And so we know that the more of those we're eating, the more we're throwing our systems out of whack. So what we're really seeing here is that all of these things are interconnected. And I think that's the important messaging here is that. And I think we talked about it on episode one is that, you know, doing one thing like hormone replacement therapy isn't the secret sauce answer because it's all of these things. So if you're only doing one of the things, you know, you're only going to see a minimal effect or a result. Whereas if you're doing all of the things, you know, your, your hormone replacement, if you choose to do that, your, your food, your stress, your, your, I don't know if I said food and then your sleep. Right. So all of them and they're all going to play off of each other. And I want to make sure I just want to clarify, you said ghrelin, not growling, right? Yes, I did not say growling. Okay, just making sure that wasn't part of it. Like if that was causing issues in your sleep, you should probably stop growling. So, in perimenopause I should just not growl at people and all will be better in the world. I think so. So calm and sleep disruptor. So again, we like, I think we're going to say this, if we counted how many times we say the word cortisol on all of our episodes so far, like, I would love like to just guess how many times, right? It's a fun game, like by the end of the season, how many times will we say it? So high cortisol levels from stress is a sleep disruptor. You just said it. So your cortisol is supposed to drop at night. Again, like you said, it wakes you up at 3am. Like I know for me personally, when my cortisol was really high, sometimes I would get really anxious feeling so I would feel it at night. And then I'd wake up super early in the morning because my cortisol was so high and I would then just start stressing out and my anxiety would be through the roof. So I'd be like thinking about my day and all the things I had to do. And I apologize, I think I have a lash on my eye. So if you're watching me, I am so sorry. So waking up at 3am with racing thoughts, like exactly what I just said, like that was happening to me. It wasn't always at 3am. No, for me, I could wake up at 5am and then I couldn't get back to sleep. So my sleep was disrupted and done and I was exhausted as the day went on. Hormonal shifts during perimenopause and menopause. So your estrogen and progesterone playing a key role in your sleep regulation. Progesterone has a calming effect, so it declines anxiety and sleep disruptions can increase as it declines your sleep disruption. Oh my goodness, disruption. Here we go. Increase. Wow, that was a lot. This is going to be a good blooper reel. Right. I think it's important that we go back to and so like some people think that sleep isn't important. And I think that we need to almost cycle back and remind people that like a lack of sleep affects all things. Right. It's going to affect our moods. It's going to affect our mood swings. And so even in perimenopause, we want to blame our mood swings on perimenopause. Right. We need to go back and be like, is some of that related to sleep? We know that in toddlers. Toddlers are cranky or like my 11 year old daughter. Right. She goes to a sleepover and doesn't have good sleep. You know, she's we call her Kenzie Bears because she's a bear. Right. Like, you know, those those are natural things that we know in life. But sometimes in the realm of ourselves, it's like those things don't apply to us. Right. Like we when we're hungry, you know, when we were having hangover spells. Right. We're not like, oh, it's the time. It's time to feed them. Well, we are like that. Oh, yeah. For long enough. You know, I'm going to be cranky. Right. So same thing. You're going to have the low energy that comes with lack of sleep. You're going to have difficulty concentrating. Right. There's a reason why, you know, on certain medications, people tell people not to drive or operate heavy equipment. The same should apply to sleep. If you haven't had a good sleep, you shouldn't be doing those things because your reaction time has changed. Yeah. So those are things cravings. Like one of the big things that I tell my weight loss clients is that we want to look at what is bringing on the cravings. Like, how do you know it's time to go get a chocolate bar? How do you know it's time? And so for me, I started to notice the triggers. And for me, one of the triggers for me was a rainy day when it's a rainy day. Give me the carbs. Give me all that warm, yummy pasta because I'm craving comfort. Right. And so the same thing when we're craving sleep, we want to pretend that it's not sleep that we want. And we're like, oh, I need an energy boost. I need sugar. I need this. And because that's going to give us a quick energy boost. But why do we need that energy boost is the bigger question. Right. And I mean, yeah, there's so many triggers, like one, like if I'm sitting on the couch, I feel like I need to snack. But the other thing is, I also feel like I need to go to sleep. Do I go to bed and get a proper sleep? No, I sit on the couch and I fall asleep and then I have disrupted sleep of my own doing, which doesn't set me up for a good night of rest anyway, the rest of the night. Another thing that happens and doesn't just happen during the night, but hot flashes, which also in turn cause our night sweats. And when you have that is almost impossible to fall asleep. Like I bet every woman or maybe every man, whoever's listening has heard of women who want to sleep in an icebox and they want to have it nice and cold in their room. And I would way prefer to sleep with air conditioning or a fan on and then cozy up in my blanket. Some people just don't want the blankets on, but I want to have all of the coldness in my room. And then every single blanket, like wrapped up around and like snuggled around my head. When I feel like I want to get into a warm bed, I want to get into like, and so like for a while we had one of those blankets that was like a, like it would heat up. Like it was an under pad in our bed that would heat up and I would get in and have a warm bed, but it was too much because an hour later I'm having a hot flash. But like, I want to get into a warm bed and then secretly in the middle of the night, I want it to turn into an icebox. Right. Yep. And I agree. So, and that's why I personally, I would just, I'd have the cold air going and I'd have extra blankets on. And actually right now I have two comforters on the bed. So if it's not cold enough in the room, I start feeling like I'm having night sweats, which I'm not. It's, it's just, but I'm giving myself the reaction because I'm like, I just want to be cozy and be cold. But anyway, I digress. So other factors that sabotage your sleep. So you talked about a blue light exposure, obviously, but everyone falls, like goes to bed and watches their phone. And if you're like me, my phone falls on my face and then I'm like, oh, I probably should put my phone away. I know. Things we tell our kids not to do, but then we go ahead and do them ourselves. I was watching a thing the other day and they were talking about how, you know, ultimately our kids just watch us and do what we do. And so all the things that we, you know, are angry at our kids for, we should really pause and look and see how often we do those things. And so what I found interesting the other day is we use this air fryer. My kids use it like a million times per day. And Kenzie actually went and took a mini pizza out of it and used instead of using like a spatula, like I would use. And I taught Austin to use, she slid a cutting board and somehow MacGyver the cutting board and the pizza out all at once. And I was like, wow, how did you do that? She's like, I watched daddy. And it wasn't the daddy taught her. It's just that she watched him do it. And then she replicated that. So, so many of these things, like, you know, we're playing games on our phone while we're watching TV, we're over multitasking, we're doing all these things. You know, we really need to look and say, you know, what are we modeling for our children? Oh, agreed. And so another thing, and this can cause problems too, is caffeine or alcohol. So not so much caffeine for our kids, I would hope at least. No, no judgment, but just saying. Caffeine though, so if they're drinking sodas late at night. Yeah. A lot of kids eat ice caps, which is coffee. Yeah. And then there's energy drinks, like all of these things. And they have so much caffeine in them. And so if the kids, like, I know specifically my daughter had tried an energy drink because she was really tired from work and one of the girls had one. And so she had a little bit of that. And then both of the girls realized that they can't have them because they can't get to sleep when they get home. And energy drinks are not good for adolescents anyway, but regardless, they're not good for adults. And so depending on when people are drinking them, like if I go to the cheer gym and I bring a coffee because everybody's drinking coffee at that time of night, why am I bringing coffee or why am I bringing an energy drink when I'm really going to go home and go to bed, hopefully? But it's just because that's what everyone is doing. So we tend to trend and do what everyone else is doing. And then it obviously ruins our sleep cycles. And irregular schedules lasting, like for me specifically, having a schedule with cheer, as you know, is not as easy as it sounds. It's not consistently one time or another. So maybe you're having supper at five o'clock one night, the next day you're having it at seven, maybe one night you're having it at nine o'clock, just depending on how you plan. So we have to try and plan some consistency and it is almost impossible with having children in sports. So we get that. But it definitely does make a difference with the program that I'm working on right now. For me, I'm doing everything before eight o'clock. So if I don't have supper before I go to cheer, then I'm not getting supper. I mean, that sounds really harsh, but like for me, I'm like making sure I get it ahead of time so I'm not ruining my schedule. If I can hop in there is one of the things that I've started to do. And, you know, it's a kind of a trend that some other moms said, and I was like, why am I not joining in on that trend? Is I've been taking dinner with me and there is a microwave at our gym. And I've been microwaving, you know, some leftovers, making a lunchie, as we call them. And then I'm actually eating at the gym so that I'm keeping my my mealtime consistent. Because, you know, when we look at tips for better sleep, you know, that's the number one thing is having that consistency. Right. And so having a consistent mealtime, having a consistent bedtime, having a consistent bedtime routine. You know, we almost want to go back and look at like, what did we do with our toddler when they were toddlers? Because we really wanted to teach proper sleep. And if you have a toddler and you didn't teach them, let me know if you're having sleep troubles, because I do have a business associate who actually teaches sleep patterns to people. So, you know, we can always connect you. But, you know, those kind of things we need to reimplement. Right. You know, what are some others that you can you can think of that are important to help with your sleep? You talked about blue light already, you know, avoiding things. What else do you have? Well, I know one of the things you mentioned in a previous episode for people who didn't hear like doing patterns, like having like a scent. So if there's a scent that you put in your bedroom that helps calm you down and helps you sleep. For me, I like to get a hot bath. So that helps me with my routine and my sleep patterns. I like to get a warm bath, especially depending on what I've eaten for the day. So if I have a lower calorie day, sometimes I'm really cold and if I'm cold, I can't go to sleep. Which we just talked about, although I like to be cold. I like blankets. If my body is overall chilled, I can't go to sleep. So I like to warm up. Some people sometimes even do a hot tub. Like if we've gone to hockey and we're super cold from the arena, we'll have a hot tub before bed. Dark curtains like blackout blinds are a really, really good idea, too. And I have one of those alarm clocks that, I don't know what you call them, but it's like a sunshine alarm clock. So it lights up to wake you up as opposed to the meh, meh, meh. So keeping the room super, super dark, but then having that like natural rise in sunlight to wake you, I find also impacts and helps you not feel drained in the morning. And lastly, I'll throw in brown noise. So a lot of people like to have white noise or brown noise going to help them sleep and to help them have a consistent noise while they sleep. So that is also something. I've never heard it referred to as brown noise. So what's the difference between white noise and brown noise? So I can't give you the official answer because I don't actually know. But I know that there are different noises and I don't know if a brown noise is a deeper noise. And again, I have people in my house that could probably come out here and tell you exactly what it is. But more or less, my daughter has switched from white noise to brown noise. So white noise would be like a fan and things like that. But I think it is a deeper noise, if I'm not mistaken. And people can correct me. But that's something that you can look into and get on Alexa or Apple. Nice. And then, you know, definitely some other things for sleep would be natural sleep aids. I mean, obviously, if it's super severe, you might look into medication with your family physician. There are a lot of supplements out there that are going to help you with sleep. So magnesium, a magnesium bisglycinate. There are seven different types of magnesium. They're not all treated the same. Some are going to help you have bowel movements. Some are going to help you relax. So a magnesium bisglycinate is the type that will help you relax. It helps relax your muscles and usually will improve sleep quality. Adaptogens like ashwagandha can support cortisol regulation. There are a lot of supplements out there. I know the one naturopath I work for, she has a cortisol reducer that she promotes that you can take twice a day to help bring down your cortisol levels. And then obviously herbal teas, right? Lots of people will incorporate herbal teas, chamomile teas, bedtime teas. There's so many different varieties now that you can look into that can help with your sleep that way as well. And something I like is I have a different brand of like sleep cortisol reducing gummies that I like that are called sleep from Ollie. Or not sleep, sorry, from Ollie, but I think they're called stress from Ollie. I really do like those as well. Is that like a CBD? No, no, no, I don't. I don't take any CBD, but it's just it's L-theanine in it. So I do like that. And I know that you also have a couple other products that I have used that I absolutely love. But there are a couple other things that I do use because I've tried all those different cortisol reducers. And I wouldn't say they all work equally, but they all work. And it just depends if you find the right product for you, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And if you try one and it doesn't work, there's different ones, right? Like with melatonin, there's quick release melatonin that's going to help you go to sleep. And then there's a slow release melatonin that's going to help you stay asleep. So, you know, looking into the right product for you, getting some support from someone who knows what they're talking about. And then kind of as a final thought, you know, journaling or reading a book before bed can also be a great cooling down strategy, getting you off of technology, getting you off of the blue light, you know, as opposed to scrolling social media. Maybe you read for 15 minutes, 10 minutes before bed. It doesn't have to be an hour, right? And then that's, you know, like maybe it's, you know, a nice book that you've been thinking of reading. And maybe you just read for 15 minutes before bed. And that's just part of your routine, right? You know, changing things up, figure out what's working, what's not working. And chances are, if you're not sleeping good now, the routine you currently have in place is not working. And so being open to making small shifts can really equal big results. And would you also say, just to finish your thoughts, sorry, I had to kind of close out for that. Would you say anybody who's having extra energy and anxiety that may be doing a small walk or something, if they can, if they have a treadmill or something, like before bed? I know that we have lots of friends that have to do that when they have extra energy in their system. If they're not doing a sport that evening, we'll go for a little. Yeah, your sound just cut out for a minute there. But I know what you're saying. And definitely, I think it's really important that people realize that there isn't a one size fits all. Right. So some people are going to go for a walk on the treadmill before bed and that's going to energize them and they're not going to go to sleep. Right. And so sometimes it's also about, you know, how long before bedtime are you doing those things? Right. And so that might be part of the like, some people might have an hour long process, which might include some exercise, followed by a journal or reading or a bath. That's going to, you know, get them up and then get them down. You know, a stretching routine, some yoga, Pilates. Everyone's going to be different. And, you know, the, the saying, like, I worry sometimes that people are like, oh, this worked for so and so I'm going to try it. And then when it doesn't work, they get discouraged and they don't try anything else either. And so it's part of the journey. And it's part of realizing too, that as we're entering perimenopause, as we're in perimenopause transitioning into, which again can be a long time process. It's that we're changing during those phases. Right. If we look back to pregnancy, you know, sleep maybe was harder in pregnancy. Sleep's maybe harder in perimenopause. I've always been a good sleeper. I've always slept good. And now in perimenopause, my sleep is more disrupted. And, you know, that's part of, you know, my journey and it's part of me figuring it out. And so on those days when we do have a good sleep and we feel well rested, we want to look at what were those differences? You know, what was the difference between today and yesterday? What were those changes? And for me, for a while, I had one of those watches that calculated my sleep and told me when I was in deep sleep, all of those things. And that created anxiety for me, that I ended up being more tired because I knew I wasn't getting deep sleep. And so I was like, oh, no wonder I'm so tired. Like I wasn't getting the deep sleep. And then it became the story that I was telling myself. And then the story I'm telling myself becomes that truth. So for me, it was important to stop that watch wearing so that I could just wake up and feel how I felt. Oh, and we have a podcast visitor. My daughter just got home from school. Okay. And a friend, too. So it's definitely a sign that we should be closing up today's episode as we're watching the clock and people are coming home. You know, we've shared a lot about each of ourselves, as we always do. Amy, do you want to wrap us up with some sweet takeaways for today's episode? Absolutely. So, as we said, set a consistent bedtime and a wake-up time. Use one of those mornings, something like clocks or whatever you need to. Even on the weekends, try and stick to your schedule, even though it is hard. And we do like to get a little sleep in, especially if you're really tired, but do what you have to do. But overall, try the consistency. Reduce your screen time, which we all need to do in general, but at least an hour before bed. Swap out reading or journaling for scrolling. And create a calming sleep ritual, as simple as having a hot cup of chamomile tea or dimming the lights, lavender spray, whatever works for you. And a sleep-supporting supplement. So anything like the cortisol reducer or anything like that that you can get that will help. Magnesium, ashwagandha. And then listen to your body. Just pay attention. Do what you need to do to help lessen your stress. And eating the right foods, reducing screen time, and do a helpster sleep. Awesome. So, as always, Amy, it's always been so much fun. If any of you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend. Tag a friend below. Let them know that we're talking perimenopause and we're here to help each other as women. And join us next week for our next episode. Bye. Bye.