I'm A Hormone Expert & This Is The One Thing You Should Focus On In Your 50s

Your hormones shift throughout your lifetime, but three big milestones tend to dominate the conversation: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. Everyone's body is different, of course, but for many women, the latter happens sometime in the early 50s. (The international average age is 52 years old, in case you're curious.) 

"Some women just transition right into it," says midwife, hormone expert, and integrative medicine doctor Aviva Romm, M.D., on the mindbodygreen podcast. "But for a lot of women, big hormonal shifts happen—like earthquake-level hormonal changes—that can really alter how you feel in your body." 

However, prioritizing sleep is even more critical during menopause as difficulty sleeping is one of the most common menopausal health concerns1. According to Romm, "Better sleep [can] become challenging as estrogen and progesterone go down." Progesterone, it turns out, is significant for sleep: It helps calm the mind, and research has even found that menopausal women who took progesterone daily at bedtime had improved sleep quality2.

A drop in estrogen, on the other hand, can affect hot flashes and make you sweat while you sleep—a concept called night sweats that wakes many women up in the middle of the night. "Hot flashes keep you awake, but also know that when estrogen goes down, blood sugar can rise, leading to wakefulness in the night," naturopathic doctor Doni Wilson, N.D., once told mbg. 

The bottom line? It's incredibly common for menopausal women to have trouble falling and staying asleep, which is why Romm suggests doing what you can to optimize your sleep quality during this time. "[I recommend] supplements that can support sleep,"* she says. Here's a list of our favorites, if you're on the hunt for one.

You can also opt for mindbodygreen's sleep support+, which contains magnesium bisglycinate (a highly absorbable form of magnesium that promotes a steady state of relaxation), as well as calming nutrients like PharmaGABA® and jujube to enhance sleep quality and support a healthy circadian rhythm.*