My own journey was very difficult when it came to sleep, I just seemed to stop sleeping. I got to the stage where I was sleeping 90 minutes a night for over 8 months, so I was never getting into the deep sleep phase of the sleep cycle. I tried chamomile tea but this made me wake up even more to go to the bathroom. I tried not eating after a certain time, I tried exercising, I tried herbal remedies and some worked some didn't. I used what I knew and that was relaxation and meditation, did that work yes for a while, things worked and then didn't. I had totally lost my sleep cycle. One of the things I tried that really helped was a type of meditation/body scan/visualisation. It was great to be able to use what I had learnt in relation to Reiki, Meditation and the way of life that I lead: taking each day as it comes, even if it was like ground hog day. I loved my mind and how it could remember everything.... not anymore.
When going through Perimenopause and into menopause sleep was the one that really effected my daily life. I went on HRT and my sleep was great on night 1, but that was it after that I was blessed if I got 90 minutes sleep. Things got worse, the brain fog was horrific, I was doing things and not remembering what I had done, I stopped working I just couldn't stay working. I became very confused and very unsure about what was happening, I remember thinking that this must be early onset of Alzheimer's but I couldn't tell anyone, I couldn't tell anyone how I couldn't remember how to do things. I had lists for everything, but then I had to remember I had a list so I started using my phone to record things that I needed to remember and I just checked my phone every day. I think my phone really did become my best friend and my memory for a while.
I had little hope that the day would come when I would actually sleep.
So, what happened well, lots happened, the night time relaxation really help and can help so many who haven’t become insomniac, but I had and sleep wasn’t going to come easy to me. I took a very low does and I mean a very low dose of Melatonin it was actually half of the lowest does and that was something I only took short term. It just corrects the sleep pattern; within 30 days I was sleeping my sleep went 360 I was now sleeping 6 to 9 hours. I changed how I use my HRT too because I use to wake up on fire at night, so for me estrogen at night stopped the waking with hot flushes or that on fire feeling as I call it, and I’m now a sleeper.
And if I can sleep (which is very rare) I use Relaxation techniques and these work a treat.