I had a fantastic instagram live with Dr Shelby Harris about sleep and menopause/perimenopause (a.k.a. the menopause transition), so wanted to share it here.
Dr. Harris is a wealth of information about sleep. She is a clinical psychologist and is board certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine (BSM) by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. She treats a wide variety of sleep disorders using evidence-based non-pharmacological treatments. She has also written the book The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia, which I highly recommend. If you are on social media, I highly recommend following her over on Instagram.
Fun fact, Dr. Harris is so good at behavioral modification that an Instagram post of hers got me back onto running in August and I haven’t looked back! It’s all about small achievable goals and consistency. We discuss that towards the end of the video.
We spoke a little about progesterone for sleep. This was discussed at the 2024 Menopause Society Meeting (you can read a brief review here). My take away from that session is the data may not be that great, but I think it’s time to do a deep dive so people can have more information to help guide their decision making. I hope to have that post up in a few days.
If you want more information on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), there is also some information in my podcast, Body Stuff, from a couple of years ago. Here is a link to the episode. I interviewed Dr. Colleen Carney, a noted sleep researcher and expert in the field and learned a lot! I also interviewed Dr. Ben Reiss, an English professor at Emory University and the author of Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World, and we has a fascinating discussion about some societal aspects of sleep. Apparently, the Puritans believed if a woman was getting out of bed at night she might be a witch! I’m guessing that ties into the idea of a witching hour.
Let me know if you have any questions about progesterone for sleep, so I can make sure I address it in my upcoming post!
