Rock-A-Bye Baby

I was always a great sleeper. An image of a pillow would make my upper eyelid tremble. No sun in the morning would wake me, if I needed my sleep. I may have managed to sleep through an occasional mid-night sex. I have my priorities! Sleep was important to me. I needed it to function properly during my waking hours. Some people need 6-7 hours, some need 8-9. I need 9-12.

It all started when I was 6 months pregnant - I could no longer sleep through the night without waking up several times. There was a short break during my child's 4th and 5th years, but I never fully recovered the hours lost. I thought: the night would come when I'd sleep uninterrupted and not wake up in the morning at an ungodly hour to feed or wash or whatever other reasons there are that I didn't used to have when I was unappreciatively young. As such a possibility became almost visible - boom! I've entered my Peri-menopause. Here is how your hormones screw you out of your well-deserved sleep:
No One Knows!!!

There are plenty of theories about how your hormones affect your brain, trick it into sleeping and then an abrupt waking, changing your body temperature, changing levels of cortisol, melatonin and GH (growth hormone). After reviewing several scientific articles and a multitude of useless web pages, I have found only one thing that most scientists agree upon - the ever changing balance between estrogen, progesterone and testosterone is largely to blame for the changing sleep pattern.

So now that my ovaries are on a permanent strike as of January 2009, I am out of balance! Guess what it did to my sleep pattern. I practically never reach that Slow Brain Wave stage. I dearly miss it...

A study at the University of Chicago in 1999 describes 11 young (!!!) adults who went through 3 days of an 8-hour sleep, 6 days of a 4-hour sleep and 7 days of a 12-hour sleep. During the sleep deprivation period the subjects' glucose tolerance decreased by 30%, consistent with a stage-2 diabetes. They also observed increased levels of cortisol in the evening hours, which are typical of much older people and are thought to be related to age-related health problems such as insulin resistance and memory impairment.

My memory has left the building during my pregnancy without the forwarding address. I waited for it at the door for many years... I am sincerely glad I can recognize my child when I meet her after school.

Rock-a-bye my brain, in the tree top
When the hormones blow, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come my brain, cradle and all...