These include norepinephrine, histamine, and serotonin. Neurotransmitters act on parts of the brain to keep it alert and working well while you are awake. Other nerve cells stop the messages that tell you to stay awake. This causes you to feel sleepy.
While some hormones such as progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone can contribute to insomnia— especially in premenstrual women, pregnant women, and women in menopause— those problems are temporary and resolve once hormone levels return to normal.
Hormonal changes can wreak havoc on sleep. In turn, sleep deprivation can affect hormone levels in a sleepless vicious cycle. So when hormone levels spike or drop -- such as during the menstrual cycle, during and after pregnancy, and especially around menopause -- women may be more vulnerable to sleep problems.
Melatonin levels stay elevated for most of the night while you're in the dark. Then, they drop in the early morning as the sun rises, causing you to wake up.
Have you ever noticed that it can be more difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep around the same time of your monthly cycle? Estrogen and progesterone are the major female hormones, and their rise and fall throughout a woman's menstrual cycle can contribute to challenges with sleep.
Immediately before bleeding begins, a woman's progesterone levels dip dramatically, which is why some women can find it really difficult to get quality sleep in those “PMS” days. After menses, progesterone levels will slowly rise again, allowing sweet dreams to come more easily.
Common causes of chronic insomnia include: Stress. Concerns about work, school, health, finances or family can keep your mind active at night, making it difficult to sleep. Stressful life events or trauma — such as the death or illness of a loved one, divorce, or a job loss — also may lead to insomnia.
The menopausal decline of estrogen contributes to disrupted sleep by causing menopausal symptoms from hot flushes and sweats (vasomotor symptoms) to anxiety and depressed mood; anxiety leading to difficulty getting to sleep, and depression leading to non-restorative sleep and early morning wakening.
Sleep Issues
Estrogen has been shown to stimulate the nervous system. Therefore, when there is too much estrogen in the body, you can experience insomnia. Estrogen can also interfere with the body's ability to produce melatonin.
Progesterone is also directly linked to oestrogen in a way that it drops down when the levels of oestrogen goes up. Hence during menopause or menstruation, the progesterone levels fall down and cause irregular periods, hot flushes, mood swings,muscle pain and joint pain, which can disrupt your sleep pattern.
Cortisol and melatonin are the two main hormones that regulate your sleep pattern.
Remember magnesium will help lower cortisol, if you do not have adequate levels of magnesium your body cannot relax and remove excess cortisol. Start by taking some at diner and before bed.
Estrogen also helps keep our body temperature low at night, and therefore more conducive to restful sleep. Estrogen also has an antidepressant effect. With less estrogen, women may experience higher body temperatures, lower quality sleep, and poorer mood.
Progesterone is considered our 'calming, soothing' hormone. It helps us to sleep because it makes a metabolite (or by-product) called allopregnanolone which interacts with GABA a receptor in the brain. GABA is a calming neurotransmitter.
In particular, vitamins B6, B12, C, D, and E can improve or lower your sleep quality and duration. Vitamin C deficiency and both lack and an excess of vitamin B6 in the body might affect your sleep or cause insomnia.
Insomnia, the inability to get to sleep or sleep well at night, can be caused by stress, jet lag, a health condition, the medications you take, or even the amount of coffee you drink. Insomnia can also be caused by other sleep disorders or mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
If you're tired but can't sleep, it may be a sign that your circadian rhythm is off. However, being tired all day and awake at night can also be caused by poor napping habits, anxiety, depression, caffeine consumption, blue light from devices, sleep disorders, and even diet.
High cortisol levels later in the day and near your bedtime trigger insomnia and other sleep problems. That's because cortisol is an alertness-boosting hormone.