Menopause, Sleep and Country Livin'

When I started trudging into that murky minefield known as peri-menopause, I was just planning on never sleeping well again. The onset of menopause was simply the current issue at the top of a very long list of things that I thought had kept me sleeping badly for years. I had an Ambien prescription for use after I'd had a couple of bad nights' sleep and needed some guaranteed zzz's, and I'd developed a variety of coping mechanisms to deal with my time spent on the Night Watch, even when there was nothing that needed watching.

I had always given excuses to my insomnia, even before I had the very legitimate excuse of coming into menopause, where lack of hormones play havoc with women's sleep cycles. (Ever wondered why middle aged women can be so short-tempered and grumpy sometimes?  You can get that way after years of no sleep.) But my insomnia excuses had started much earlier.  First, it was because I was just a light sleeper.  Then, because I was a new mother.  Then came the aforementioned peri-menopause, followed by menopause itself.  

The first night we moved into this new house, I slept with the shutters and windows thrown wide open.  I don't think I slept much, but that wasn't the point. (And I was used to that by this time anyway.) From the vantage point of my bed, I could see the Milky Way galaxy stretched in a line before me, rotating slowly as the night progressed.  I could see Antares, Scorpius and Sagittarius hanging low in the window.  If I looked towards the hills there were mighty oak trees, standing silent and silhouetted against the dry brush.

And so began my love affair for sleeping with the bedroom window open.  And after I became somewhat used to the idea that I could see a billion or so stars out of my window, I slept.  Well.  Extremely well, in fact.

This was a banner occasion for a long-time insomniac.  

It wasn't the peace and quiet, because as anyone who lives in the country can tell you, it's really not all that quiet out here -- day or night.  At night there are screech owls, coyotes, neighbor's dogs, the occasional car, and the dawn chorus beginning at around 4:30 a.m.  Nights are anything but silent.  

No, the sleep issue resolved itself once I finally started sleeping with the windows open and my room got cool -- downright cold, in fact.  I had no idea, but lowering the room temperature is the biggest thing most people can do to improve their sleep.  Studies indicate that a temperature range between 55 and 65 degrees is best for sleeping humans.  Yet how many of us who live in urban areas and cannot open our windows at night, or live in hot areas where it doesn't cool off to those temperatures at all in summer?  I know when I lived in the San Joaquin Valley, it was not uncommon on summer nights to find the temperatures hovering around 90 degrees at midnight, after a triple-digit day.  But that was only in the cities, where the concrete from the streets and sidewalks created a "heat island" effect from all those man-made structures still radiating the day's heat, long after sundown. 

Creating heat islands is just one more way we've over-civilized ourselves into a situation that's detrimental to our health and that of the environment.  After all, if you live in a heat island, you will probably do whatever it takes to cool off, like running your air conditioner all night long. Who could blame you? But that's not wise for either your electric bill or the health of the planet.

But since sleeping in the cool night air is something our bodies are biologically programmed to do, there's no getting around it.

We need sleep, and we need to sleep someplace cool.  Both things are just part of the basic operating instructions for owning a human body.

Here's a good NY Times article about this very subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/04real.html?_r=0

Early Night

Seed catalogs, the new issue of Hobby Farm, the old issue of Mother Earth News, and the novel, "Cloud Atlas" are all calling me to an early bedtime tonight.  I'm so exhausted I'm not sure how much time I will spend with any of these things before sliding into unconsciousness, but my rest will be well-earned and much appreciated tonight, I'm telling you.

Perhaps post-menopausal sleep troubles are only a product of our modern society.  If my middle-aged female peers and I worked as hard as I did today, every day, I'm pretty sure solid sleep would be a guaranteed thing.  Sometimes your body is just so tired you don't have a choice.  And so it is tonight.  I am immune to hormones and age, and a warm bed in a cool room are calling me.  Until tomorrow dawns bright and sunny, goodnight, friends.

Time of Life

I'm sitting at the computer, digesting a lovely dinner, when I get a blinding, intense burst of heat all over my body.  I strip off my sweatshirt, down to my t-shirt and yoga pants.  Not good enough.  I step outside into the darkness of the back porch in my short sleeves and stand there, waving my arms.  It's about 45 degrees and feels great.  I sit down in a lounge chair, still fending off the heat, totally comfortable in my insufficient clothes despite the cold.  I'm surprised steam, or those heat-mirage waves are not emanating from my body.  


I sit in the darkness for about 2 minutes.  Suddenly I realize it's cold.  I ask myself what in the hell I'm doing in the backyard when it's 45 degrees, wearing only a t-shirt and some pants.  


And I go back inside until then next time it happens.

The Crone in White

Not the exact quilt, but you get the idea.

It's soft, the color of snow, and incredibly cozy to snuggle into.  That's a candid review of my new shabby-chic quilt, purchased at Tar-jay last week.  I lucked out.  At Christmas I couldn't think of a dang thing I wanted, and so I waited and told everyone when the right thing came along, I'd grab it myself and call it a belated gift from the family.  And when I saw this amazing, soft and comfortable quilt in the bedding section, I bought it and two matching pillow shams before you could turn around twice. 

But this is not going to be a post about quilting, or even shopping for quilts.  No, this post is about the topic of menopause. Because unless I was officially in it, I never would have bought snow-white bedding, for reasons obvious to any woman under 50....it's just too risky, especially when you're in the time of peri-menopause, when your monthly cycle is anything but regular, and often checks in more than once a month (with absolutely no notice -- how rude).


Too much information?  Sorry.  Anyway, it turns out the only real cure for the issues of menopause is the oldest home remedy in history:  Time.  And now I'm happy to say I'm on the far side of all the female inconveniences I've had to deal with most of my life, and can own a white quilt if I so wish.  It feels good, friends.  No one will ever ask me again if I'm crying, irritable, or snappy because of a "female problem."  Now they know the truth.  If I'm snappy or irritable, my problem is probably with THEM, not my hormones.


But I digress.  It was this lovely, indulgent purchase which made me realize that, despite its bad rap, menopause gives back double for anything it takes away.  True, we lose the ability to grow a baby inside us, and we may sometimes feel like Mount Vesuvius is erupting in our solar plexus and spreading up to our faces and extremities several times a day.  But we can buy white comforters and wear white pants whenever we choose.  And if we lived in a small village somewhere more primitive and less youth-fixated than our present day society, we'd be considered a crone, a.k.a a WISE WOMAN.  Younger women would come to our huts and ask our advice about their colicky babies, their grumpy husband, or their inability to get their stews to thicken properly. I would love that. My advice would not be based on being immune to any of those things, but the fact that I've learned how to live with them, and have gotten beyond all the drama most of life is made up of. And because I'm past all that, I would finally be considered an "elder" of the tribe, who is steady and trusted and a source of good advice and sound ideas. 


And I could wear white.  I would sleep in it, decorate every surface of my hut in it every day of the year, just because I could.  Hooray for white.  Hooray for being a post-menopausal wise-woman.  Hooray for the crone in white.

A cold night unless you're menopausal

Menopause sure is energy-saving in winter.  I absolutely love sleeping in a 55 degree room.  I have a hot water bottle for my feet (which, despite the hot flashes, still remain popsicle cold) but the rest of me is completely comfortable.  I sleep better and longer, and awake more refreshed.


If only I was this comfortable in summer, when the energy needed to create a 55 degree room would bankrupt us.  Perhaps there's a place atop a glacier in Alaska I could spend my summers on...