8 'Sneaky' Sleepless Symptoms for women

Yes I am talking about Sleep again! And yes I am biased towards women because we just deserve so much more sleep! And it is because Sleep as we all know is a super critical function of the body.

Before going into how not having enough sleep can cause these sneaky symptoms, I want to explain why deep sleep is so important.

However, if you know all about NREM then you can go straight to the sneaky sleepless symptoms.

The human body physically resets bodily functions when deep cycles of sleep are achieved. The brain detoxifies and the body regenerates cells. This is why it is so important to sleep. But did you know that this does not happen until we move into the deepest level of your sleep cycle.

I have always been intrigued by what happens to us when we sleep. What happens to our awareness or our consciousness while we are sleeping?

When we sleep our brain moves into 2 phases of sleep.

The first phase is NON-REM and this has 3 stages.

The first stage is when we are slowly drifting into sleep, between wakefulness and sleep.

The second stage is when we fall asleep the breathing starts to slow down, along with eye movements, body temperature drops.

The third when we are in deep sleep (imagine the old desktops whirring down to off mode?). Experts believe it to be the most critical stage for regenerating your body and brain.

The body releases hormones to manage growth and regeneration of tissues and bones, metabolism and immunity improves. This is the crucial time the body starts to heal and recouperate. It is also when magic starts to happen in the brain. New neuronal pathways are formed. Any new learning done gets solidified into the brain. Deep sleep also impacts memory in both our ability to recall things from the past and learn new things and remember them.

Most people spend more time in Non-REM sleep in the first half of their night. You know sometimes how you wake up groggy when you have been interrupted by something (your kid/alarm clock), that is your NREM being broken.

Children spend more time in NREM which allows them to learn and absorb new things as well as grow and remember. Older adults tend not to spend more time in NREM due to broken sleep.

The second phase is REM sleep which is Rapid Eye Movement. This is when eyes might twitch and the body can also move involuntarily. In the REM phase we can dream and our mind is actually awake. The body muscles start to become limp so that we do not start acting out our dreams (isn't the body miraculous)

Each sleep cycle is made up of 3 NREM and 1 REM and in an ideal scenario humans will go through at least 4-6 sleep cycles per night.

As a Midlife woman, do you get at least 2 or more cycles of NREM? if you want your body and brain to function at its optimum level.

In REAL life however, your sleep gets disrupted due to:

• work related stress

• the onset of hormonal changes :night sweats, hot flashes, anxiety, incontinence

• environmental : children, older adults, pets, housework

• habitual factors : devices, diet, alcohol

• other factors

SNEAKY SYMPTOMS OF BEING SLEEPLESS

You know that the most obvious impact of a disrupted night is feeling exhausted and irritable. But here are some hidden or subtle impacts that bad sleep can have that might get you thinking.

1- Pelvic pain/prolapse/Incontinence (3 interrelated symptoms)

Sleep allows the body and particularly muscles to relax. When sleep is interrupted and the body does not get a chance to relax, you can experience higher levels of sensitivity around the pelvic area. Depending on your pelvic floor function and your degree of prolapse (if you have it) these can both feel tender and more obvious when you are tired and not as attentive and mindful.

2- Bloating

Sleep plays a big part in managing hormones in the body and this inturn increases stress and inflammation. The gut and digestive system gets impacted with intolerances to certain foods and changes to the gut microbiome

. Regular good quality sleep definitely has a significant impact on the digestive system.

3- Higher sensitivity to joint and body pain

Inflammation increases with interrupted sleep and the body becomes more sensitive to pain especially in joints and lower back.

4- Food cravings

Lack of sleep and tiredness means wanting a quick fix to feel energetic and awake. This means you experience increased thirst & hunger with food cravings particularly towards sugary foods and caffeine.

5- Paranoia (in some cases) or higher levels of anxiety

Poor sleep leads to the fine tuned hormonal balance disrupted and that can lead to higher levels of anxiety. If someone is predisposed to higher levels of anxiety then this can lead to increased paranoia.

6- Heart palpitations

The body regulates blood pressure in those NREM deep sleep cycles, when that does not happen, then you can experience blood circulation and pressure levels causing heart palpitations

7- Poor balance

Balance is challenged as we age with weakness in muscles and degeneration in joints. Sleep deprivation can add to this condition and with poor motor skills and coordination you might become more injury and accident prone.

8- Hypopnea

Hypopnea or shallow breathing can also happen and be a cause and a result of poor and disrupted sleep. When you wake up tired and feeling unrested sometimes, breathing deeply can become difficult. Then during the day when you get busy with life and work if you do not take time to be mindful about the way you breath, you breathe shallow involuantarily, adding to your tiredness.

Have you experienced any of these or any other symptoms on certain days especially when you have had a bad nights sleep?

A myth that you want to consider is 'the catching up on sleep' myth. If you have missed NREM sleep cycles in the night, sleeping for 20mins in the afternoon does not mean you will catch up on your body's restoring functions. This means you

So it becomes important to take great care and attention to give ourselves the best chance to fall asleep and stay asleep. Giving the body the best chance to get at least 2-3 DEEP NREM cycles if not more.

Here are some tips from my Welcome Sleep Naturally checklist which is a 20 point experience and evidence based sleep hygiene list that can help you fall asleep and stay asleep. I have chosen 5.

1. Eat a light dinner - You don't want your body spending all the energy digesting food that is too heavy to digest. Eating at least 2-3 hours before bed also helps.

2. Stop Alcohol at least till you have gone through to the other side of Post Menopause and even then reduce it to just one-two drinks a week.

3. Turn off blue light 2 hours before bed. This means mobile, tv, computers, desktops, ipads, tablets all off.

4. Practice foot massage - wash your feet in warm water and just before going to sleep use some lavender oil or plain coconut oil to massage the instep of your feet. You dont need too much so you stain your bedding, you can massage until the oil has been absorbed into the feet.

5. Practice Nadi Shodhana Pranayama - Alternate nostril breathing

You can download the 20 point sleep hygiene checklist that is evidence and experience based and wont break the bank to implement. It will come straight to your inbox and you also get two other free resources from my Deep Rest Toolkit with lifetime access and free future upgrades. Click the button below.