Major Sleep Problems Women Face After 40 with Morgan Adams

• The real reason you keep waking up at 3 AM
• A counterintuitive approach to managing your bedroom lighting
• The truth about popular sleep supplements
• Simple changes that can dramatically improve your sleep quality

What Creates These Sleep Problems in Midlife? 

First, our hormones are really changing in midlife: our estrogen and our progesterone are both declining. With these on the decline, we definitely see issues in our sleep quality. In midlife we are also more prone to anxiety and depression which leads to insomnia. And third, as midlife women, we have A LOT going on (from maybe having teenage children to navigating aging parents to the regular day to day and navigating the top of our career game). 

A healthy individual would be getting about 20% of their sleep cycle as “deep” sleep. However, for those in midlife, by design we ARE more likely to naturally get less deep sleep (that part is normal). But if you are getting under one hour of deep, restorative sleep per night, that is a problem you should consider investigating and solving. 

Why Do I Have Trouble Falling Asleep? 

One of the main reasons for this is that people are not prioritizing a wind-down routine. You’re super successful so you are working really late, but then you close your computer at 10:30pm and hop straight into bed. It’s super critical that we get at least a 30 minute wind-down session before bed without blue light. There are also things we are ingesting that affect us. 

Are you having alcohol or caffeine too late in the day? Ideally we should be cutting caffeine off around noon every day to have maximum beneficial impact on not only your sleep ability but your sleep quality. Alcohol is a common clutch for people to help wind down from a stressful day. In the initial stages, it can “help” us because it’s sedating and relaxing us. But actually when we consume alcohol we pay on the back end with hindered REM sleep, waking up hot or needing to use the restroom, and also impacts our circadian rhythm. Just one glass can impact our sleep by 24% (not in a good way!) 

Why Do I Wake Up in the Middle of the Night? 

Waking up in the middle of the night during midlife is a common experience that can be attributed to several factors related to aging and lifestyle changes. The 3am wakeup is one of the biggest complaints from women in midlife. There are a few key reasons why this might be happening:

1. Blood sugar issues from eating dinner too early OR eating too many carbs late at night 
2. Being too hot while sleeping (often related to our hormones) 
3. Breathing issues in midlife – in midlife sleep apnea issues can cause sudden wakeups and 90% of women with sleep apnea go undiagnosed (this comes with critical consequences) 
4. Natural phase advance – starting around age 60-65, your circadian rhythm shifts earlier, causing you to feel sleepy earlier in the evening and wake up earlier in the morning
5. Changes in the timing of hormone release, such as melatonin and cortisol 

What Sleep Supplements Actually Help With Sleep? 

CBD can be a good option for help with sleep. You want to make sure you have an organic, high quality brand, and be conscious of the dose. THC is a little bit different in that it can impact sleep cycles over time and we can develop a dependence over a period of time. Melatonin is a bit of a divided topic. However, for midlife, it could be beneficial to supplement with a SMALL dose of high quality pharmaceutical grade melatonin (not the big bottles of quality melatonin from Costco for example). 

The Daylight, Blue Light, and Cortisol Sleep Connection 

In a healthy body, our cortisol should naturally spike in the morning and taper off throughout the day. Then come night, we should start producing natural melatonin. When you’re in nature, this is how your bodies work. But with modern day homes and lifestyles, this isn’t happening. When we avoid the heavy exposure to blue light in the evening, and increase our exposure to bright morning light, that natural function should begin to restore. 

One of the most important things we can do is help increase our natural melatonin production. One of the things that helps us do this is by having daylight exposure to UVA light. Getting outside for an hour per day is a great goal to reach for. At night, we want to be mindful a couple hours before bed, by looking at our environment and avoiding exposure to LED bright/cool lights. Another great option is to add in blue light blocking glasses for a few hours before bed. It was also found that blue light blocking glasses can also help with your blood sugar management according to some studies! 

Be careful that when you are searching for blue light “blocking” glasses you get a brand that is legit. (My personal favorites and what I use daily are VivaRays. Instead of blocking lights, VivaRays are all about balancing the light spectrum for optimal results. Learn more about VivaRays and find a discount code HERE)

A Few Things You Can Do To Start Helping Correct Your Circadian Rhythm:

1. Get outside for 15 minutes first thing upon waking to get natural sunlight without sunglasses (even if sun beams are not directly hitting you, your body will recognize the residual rays)
2. After sunrise there is a 2 hour period of light called UVA rise. If you can’t get outside at sunrise, make sure to get outside during this timeblock for 15 minutes. During the two-hour UVA rise period after sunrise, exposure to sunlight stimulates serotonin production, a neurotransmitter crucial for mood regulation and a precursor to melatonin. Tyrosine, an amino acid involved in dopamine synthesis, is also activated during this time, supporting cognitive function and emotional well-being throughout the day.
3. As the day comes to an end, serotonin undergoes enzymatic conversion into melatonin within the pineal gland. This means that those happy hormones you created in the morning will begin to convert into sleepy hormones to get you ready for bedtime and sleep. Melatonin release signals the body to prepare for rest by lowering core body temperature and reducing alertness.  

👉 Get Morgan’s Free Guide all about 3 AM Wakeups HERE 

👉  You can get the My Circadian App Morgan mentions HERE and you can get your first month free with the code MORGAN.