When you begin going through menopause, you lose the production of certain hormones that help keep your moods level. These hormones – estrogen, progesterone and testosterone – are helpful for mood stabilization.
Without them, you begin to experience a host of other symptoms – such as hot flashes, night sweats, headaches, and more. But a big issue that happens during menopause is a lack of sleep.
When the lack of sleep is combined with the lower hormone levels, it adds an even greater impact on the way that your moods are stabilized. The reason that your sleep can be affected during menopause is because the hormones that your body would normally produce are the same ones that cause you to be able to fall sleep.
The lack of these hormones can also cause your stress level to rise. Combined with the lack of sleep, it can become a cycle that can lead to chronic insomnia if it’s not dealt with.
Because you can have hot flashes, this can contribute to you losing sleep as well. Hot flashes can wake you up from a sound sleep. The reason that it can do this is because your body lowers your temperature to help you sleep.
The hot flash triggers your body’s temperature to rise, jolting you out of the sleep-inducing temperature range. A lack of sleep during menopause can sway your moods.
It can make you feel irritable with situations and with people. This happens because the lack of sleep combined with the lack of hormone production causes a rise in your negative emotions.
When you lose sleep during menopause, it causes a bigger swing in your anger levels. Some women report feeling such anger that it bordered on rage. Interacting with others during menopause when you’ve experienced sleep loss can lead to trouble communicating, impatience and even hostility.
This is because the lack of sleep changes how you interact with other people during menopause due to the hormones that regulate the positive moods being either low in level or depleted.
Having a lack of sleep during menopause can make you feel as if you’ve undergone a personality transplant. You might not feel as social, as talkative or as kind to other people.
You won’t feel as happy and you won’t be as able to feel sympathy for other people. Instead of being able to commiserate with them, you might find yourself wishing they’d just go away.
This lack of sleep can make you feel anxious. It can also make you feel sad and even depressed. If you’re losing sleep, you need to take whatever steps necessary to fix the problem. Deal with the stress if that’s the root cause.