Menopausal Mother

One of the things I disliked most about menopause was the lack of energy I experienced. I was constantly tired and falling asleep in the middle of the day. It took a while, but I finally figured out how to get myself back on track. If you feel sleep-deprived, check out this great advice from the good folks at Bossa Bars Menopause Energy Bars! 

Will Menopause Fatigue Last Forever?

by Dr. LaReesa Ferdinand, MD OBGYN & Advisor,

Bossa Bars Menopause Energy Bars

“There will be plenty of time to sleep when you are dead.”  — Benjamin Franklin

Yikes! I’m sorry Benjamin Franklin, you may have been one of the greatest inventors and writers of American history, but obviously, you weren't speaking to menopausal women!

Sleep is literally the superfood that has the most impact.  The true nectar of life. The super fuel you need. Frankly, this is where the magic happens.

With the decline of vital hormones during menopause, sleep disturbances are very common. With the vicious cycle of sleep deprivation and the load of stress, it can take much of the joy and ease out of transitioning into menopause.

Research has found that those with higher perceived stress experienced shorter sleep durations. In fact, moderate to severe sleep deprivation produces impairments similar to alcohol intoxication, or blood alcohol levels of 0.05%.

Did you know that about 61% of menopausal women struggle with sleep issues?  This means that out of every 10 women around the age of menopause, 6 will have sleeping difficulties.

And maybe you’re one of them. You head to bed, exhausted. Yet, you toss and turn all night. Or you find yourself getting up every night between the hours of 2 and 3 am, struggling to fall back asleep. You then go about your day in a fog. You just don’t have the energy to function at your peak capacity. Ugh!

Enough is enough! 

3 Power Tips to Ease into Restful Sleep

1. Prioritize sleep at the top of your day

If you are a night owl, lean into that. Vice versa if you are an early bird.

Simply explained, set yourself up for sleep success. Go to bed and wake up at the same time. Be mindful of meals and excess snacking throughout your day. Limit caffeine to only before noon. Ideally, consume the least heavy meal toward the end of the day so your body has less of a detox burden during sleep. This improves energy for memory storage and creativity that you need to power through the next day. This is directly impacted by what you do and what you put in your body.

Here’s a nifty tip we often forget: adjust your supplements or medications since some may make you more drowsy versus alert. This forces your body into its natural circadian rhythm.

2. Maximize your sleep environment

Sleep is maximized on a light spectrum. Quiet, cold, and dark areas are ideal. Use a sleep mask to optimize darkness. Red light or specialty sleep bulbs help reduce excess blue light exposure. Avoid sleeping with the TV on or using electronic devices at least 1-2 hours before lights out. This is vital during bedtime to help melatonin, our sleep-inducing hormone, work its menomagic. The goal? You want to get your body out of a stressed state and transition more into a relaxed and calm one.

3. Track your sleep

The science about sleep may be up to the physicians and researchers, but you can still arm yourself with your own personal KPI (key performance indicators). To better evaluate adjustments and modifications in your sleep, following trends is an added bonus of what technology can do. This goes a step further than just total time spent asleep; it recognizes and brings daily awareness to patterns that you may miss. It connects the missing links between sleep duration and your body’s response during sleep stages, reactions to stress, and efficiency. These key insights can help navigate making the necessary adjustments to improve productivity and memory consolidation that is a natural defense system for cognitive decline as we age.

Let’s think about what goes on during a typical day. Our brain processes millions of movements, thoughts, and patterns, most of them without our awareness. However, one of the greatest energy expenditures occurs during sleep. This is the time when our cellular mitochondria, the powerhouses in our DNA, go to work orchestrating the repair and recovery productions. These repair mechanisms are controlled by the communication of our brain and body with our natural clocks, rhythms, and hormones.

But generally, when you’re stressed, sleep and high levels of energy don’t come easy.

Stress is one factor that can impact your telomere length.  Thus, stress can actually cause you to age faster (probably no surprise there) but it can also decrease your longevity. Sleep Disruptions can lead to a propensity toward obesity and metabolic disorders, and affect the extent to which we are able to express energy and harness our power to push through the next day. 

The goal? You want to get your body out of this stressed state. To do so, you want to look at optimizing your biological and bedroom environment. The lack of sleep impacts your daily energy, recovery and repair mechanisms, weight loss goals, cognitive performance, and immune system. 

Fatigue doesn't last forever if you are intentional about sleep. Start with these 3 steps as a foundation to sleep like a beauty, so you can go beast mode the next day. That’s menomagic

at work!

Check out the Bossa Bars Community here: https://bossabars.com/pages/community and use Code MENOBOSS10 for 10% off your first order!

Sources:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Association+between+Sleep+Duration+and+Perceived+Stress:+Salaried+Worker+in+Circumstances+of+High+Workload&hl=en

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5923838/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2749064/

https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1308-0#:~:text=Oxidative%20stress%20is%20associated%20with,and%20thus%20decrease%20telomere%20length

Codes of longevity. Be Ageless and Limitless. Dr. Melissa Grill Petersen. Contributing author Dr LaReesa Ferdinand, MD. December 2020.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997656/

https://www.webmd.com/menopause/guide/sleep-disorders-sleep-menopause#1

https://www.sleepadvisor.org/sleep-statistics/

Today on the blog I have author Jeremy McKeen and I'm pleased to promote his upcoming book, You Don't Have To Worry So Much. As the description goes, "It's a powerful, fun, and poignant collection of essays focusing on a range of real life issues and post-modern approaches to topics like sex, love, marriage, belief, parenthood, and mental illness. " Jeremy was kind enough to send me an advanced reader copy of the book, and I am totally enjoying it!

Below is one of my favorite chapters of You Don't Have To Worry So Much. It thoroughly describes my husband, and he agrees. And yes, he laughed while reading it because he knows IT'S TRUE.  Enjoy this sample chapter and click on the link below to pre-order your copy today!




               YOU MAY ALREADY BE AN OLD MAN

1. If you’re not excited about the hardware store, give it time. Soon you will hear the pulse of Ace or True Value, or even better—a real, hometown hardware store with store credit—calling your name. “Stop by, old man, and buy something,” it whispers. “Buy everything here, there’s room in the basement for it, and the wife will understand,” it says gently, while ushering you to buy more hammers or shovels or a new knife. “Start a new project, you can probably teach yourself from a book,” it corrals you.
2. Are you wearing khakis? You’re wearing khakis right now, aren’t you, old man? Yes, you are. You will always wear khakis when you’re old. Jeans have lost their youthful touch. Khakis—embrace them, with their crease and endless endurance against all seasons. Hike them up, and belt them secure enough for a day raking leaves or reading a book quietly. And like jeans, they go with everything, especially work boots—your old, dependable work boots. And a plaid shirt. And a Carhartt jacket. You’ll be wearing this uniform until you’re dead.
3. It’s 4:30 a.m. and you’re awake. You’re just awake. Why isn’t everyone else awake? No, no—you need some alone time—all old men do. And you don’t have to be at work for a few hours. Maybe the hardware store is open. Or the diner.
4. Smell that? That’s the aroma of a twenty-minute bowel movement, coffee, and a burnt match. You made that happen, old man.
5. What time does the diner open? Oh, it’s open 24 hours? Well, who goes to a diner at night? Ok, let’s go to the diner, it’s almost 6 a.m. Hey, let’s do this more often. There are even young waitresses there who put up with your jokes. You’re theirs for life now, old man.
6. If you haven’t gone deaf yet, you’re starting to, old man. Friends and family will understand. Just say you’re sorry, or ignore them. Your ears have had a good run.
7. Tightening toilet seats gives you a sense of accomplishment not met with in the first half of your life. But now—call the papers! You’ve saved the house from the wiggly wobble of someone’s ass slipping off the seat! You’ve done it, old man! No one else but you could have figured out how to righty-tighty the bolts while your hand was upside down and your forearm was on the part of the seat where everyone puts the most posterior flesh of their butt cheeks. But you did it.
8. Your haircut is either short or buzzed. That’s just the way haircuts should be. Long hair is for college students and single men in their 20s. Beards are also acceptable, but somehow you don’t mind shaving your face every day of your life, because every day is precious now that you’re old.
9. No matter how old you are, you are still and always horny as hell. This won’t change or let up until you’re dead, so there’s always that. Sorry, old man. Life is full of suffering.
10. The mention of Scotch or Whiskey—or Bourbon or even Gin—especially the expensive stuff—gets you a little excited. The more adjectives or descriptors of said liquor, the more excited you get. Rye whiskey, single-malt…mention of these things makes you glad you’re still alive at your old age. And watching Mad Men excites you to no end as well, just for the reason that they’re drinking the whole time. Men wearing suits drinking all the damn time means something to you for some reason.
11. No matter what the current hairstyle is, it looks stupid. It just looks stupid. The same goes for any new fashion that has arisen since you last bought fashionable clothes years ago, or whenever clothes just started showing up in your closet (it’s because your relatives just started buying you what your old man uniform dictates, and you didn’t know it, but you started going along with it because you’re old now).
12. No bands or movies or books are as good as the ones from twenty years ago, or whenever it was you grew up, old man. You’re hearing your favorite band on the classic station, and you’re kind of deaf to—well, downright pridefully ignorant—new hits. And your favorite artists have become old, too, only they’re somehow thinner and better looking than you.
13. You feel a kinship with anyone your age unlike any other time in your life. Life has taught you many a great thing, old man, and you’re ready for someone to listen to your advice. You’ve lived, damn it, and you’re ready to give someone a piece of your mind, as soon as you read up on how to install your own ceiling or build a set of stairs.
14. We know you really want to talk about your new Chevy or Buick or sensible automobile purchase, so go ahead, old man. You only live to old age once. Oh, it was a hybrid truck? Good job, grandpa. We know you got a deal, and we’re proud of you. Nobody gets good deals like you.
15. For your birthday we always know what to get you. It’s whiskey and plaid shirts, right? And a gift card to Home Depot? Or a new pocket knife?
16. You’re a bit of a hoarder, but it’s all in good taste and measure…because you only keep what you need, or that which has value somewhat. You never know when you’ll need three mismatched sets of wrenches or old boots or bungee cords or gloves. Or old khakis. Or shovels. You can never have enough shovels. The hardware store probably has shovels. You’re on your way to buy a new shovel now, aren’t you old man? We thought so.

     I've been in a menopausal state of mind for eight years now, and my brain could really use a break. The endless mind chatter keeps me awake most nights and disrupts my thoughts like an attention-seeking toddler when I'm trying to get things accomplished during the day.

     In a menopausal way of thinking, the little things become the big things, and not in a good way. My husband and kids think I've lost my mind because of the ridiculous arguments we've gotten into. I have always had an A-type personality, but these Jekyll and Hyde mood swings need to stop for the sake of my own (and my family's) sanity. Thankfully, I have a husband and some pretty awesome kids who totally get it, so they give me a wide berth when they see the steam coming out of my ears

.

     If you were to crawl inside my head on any given day, these are the things my menopausal brain would say to you:

"I'm going to be really good today on my diet. I'll eat an egg white omelet, a small salad for lunch, then salmon for.....OH LOOK! A DONUT!"

"Geez, it's so effing hot in this house. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TURN DOWN THE THERMOSTAT??"

"Oh man, my bed looks so comfy....and I'm so tired. What would it hurt to take a little nap?"
**Wakes three hours later wondering what century she is in**

"I love you, but if you leave another strand of your used floss on the bookshelf, I swear I will strangle you with it in your sleep."

"It's 4:00a.m. Why am I still awake, wondering how people potty train rabbits?"

"Today was awful. I hate everyone and everything. Wait, you have chocolate? OMG I'm so happy! What a great day!"

"Where did I leave my damn car keys? Oh, here they are.....okay, which one of you numbskulls put my keys in the shower?  Huh? It was me? No way, I didn't do that. I couldn't have.....could I?"

"Sweetheart, you're my little shnookums and I love you so much....wait. Stop! ARE YOU KIDDING? DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT TO HAVE SEX RIGHT NOW?"

"A BOGO sale on fiber pills? Hell yeah, I'm gonna stock up. One can never own too many fiber pills."

" I didn't forget to pick up the dog food. It's your fault because you forgot to remind me."

"It's raining and now our plans are ruined and my life sucks so I'm going back to bed and don't even think about talking to me right now."

"Let's order pizza tonight. No, wait---I think I want Chinese food instead....but tacos also sound really good. Actually, I could go for a juicy steak. Or maybe a burger. Or chicken wings---yes, that's what I want! Can I get a slice of pizza on the side with that?"

"Just pour the wine and don't ask any questions."

"Who used the last roll of toilet paper without replacing it? I will hunt you down and kill you."

"It's freezing cold in this restaurant. Honey, can I borrow your jacket?"
<<five minutes later>> "Waiter, can you please turn up the fans? It's ridiculously hot in here."

"Why am I always so bloated? My belly is huge! I look like I'm pregnant.....with a baby elephant."

"Yes, I know I've put on some weight recently. No, it has nothing to do with my eating habits. It's not my dumpling cravings either, I swear. It's just menopause."

    ISN'T IT ALWAYS JUST THE MENOPAUSE????

     As bad as I feel for women experiencing the symptoms of menopause, my heart goes out even more to the men who have to live with them while they endure "the change of life." When my husband and I exchanged wedding vows 33 years ago, neither one of us had any idea that I would one day morph into the Tasmanian devil at the onset of menopause. Most of the time, I don't even recognize myself. I have to give the guy credit for sticking by my side as long as he has. I'm not sure what's in it for him, other than the occasional back rub and someone to stop him from heading out to the pet store in his torn cargo shorts and t-shirt that reads, "Cat: The Other White Meat."

     Although menopause has changed me, my husband has learned to go with my emotional flow that's as unpredictable as a summer hurricane. All that matters is that we're still holding hands during the stormiest of times.

     Recently, I pressed him for details about the changes he has witnessed in me over the last few years, and he was a little TOO quick to fill in the blanks......

       
1. My wife once had the energy of a toddler after too many cups of Kool-Aid. But these days, sleep is her priority...even over sex and chocolate. She'd stay under the covers all week if I let her. But someone has to cook a meal every now and then.....unless the family doesn't mind the gastrointestinal apocalypse that would occur if I did the cooking.

2. When she's not in bear hibernation mode, my wife is a creature of the night. Insomnia often robs her of a decent night's rest, but rather than squeeze in some valuable writing time, she prefers to stalk Pinterest recipes or shop on Amazon for decorative pillows. How many pillows does one person need? The good news is that I no longer need an alarm system for the house. While I'm snoring in the bedroom, my better half is wide awake and will release a blood curdling war cry if an intruder tries to break in....or if a cockroach skitters across her path.

3. There isn't a husband on the planet who doesn't live in fear of the dreaded question, "Do these pants make me look fat?" The first year my wife started menopause, we went though four different scales because she was convinced they were all inaccurate. Her pension for chocolate and pizza had nothing to do with her weight gain. At least she can blame menopause for her extra pounds. The only excuse I have is beer.

4. We always "spooned" when we went to bed together. It was comforting to feel her body pressed against mine each night before falling asleep. Now that she has night sweats, if I try to cuddle up to her, I'll likely lose a limb.

5. Dear God, the pendulum mood swings. If I survive these, I can survive anything. Forget Jekyll and Hyde. I'm living with Donna Reed and Attila the Hun. To say that my wife is "a little on edge" is an understatement. If I leave so much as a dirty coffee cup on the counter, her patience level will snap in a nanosecond and I'll find myself fighting for space on the dog's bed each night.

 6. Ever since the hot flashes started, my wife has become a thermostat nazi. When I come home from work, I feel as if I've been magically transported to Alaska. It wouldn't surprise me if I came home one day to find icicles hanging from the ceiling.

7. My wife and I have always been a passionate couple, but after menopause struck, her sex drive plummeted. I'm not the virile youngster I once was, either, but nowadays in order to get things heated in the bedroom, I need a gallon of wine for my wife and the Jaws of Life for easy access.

 8. Forgetfulness comes with age, but menopause can make a woman senile. My wife was one of the most organized people I knew, to the point of being OCD about the house and our family routine. We depended on her to keep us scheduled and sane. If it was up to me, the kids would have gone to school late in their bedroom slippers and have nothing but corn chips in their lunch boxes. But along came menopause, sucking every organizational cell out of my wife's body and leaving me with a pod person who's suffering from constant brain fog. Car keys in the fridge. Water bubbling over on the stove. Dog poop on the carpet because SOMEONE forgot to take the fur balls for a walk after lunch.

     I think it's time to book a room for my wife at the Forget-Me-Not Manor for Senile Seniors. Better yet, I'll take the room for myself, because no one will yell at me for leaving a dirty coffee cup on the counter. And hopefully I'll get to keep all of my limbs.

 
    For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to write. Most of what I published in the early days was poetry, but those poems didn't put food on the table. I had to set aside my writing aspirations and focus on making money instead. I've worked all sorts of odd jobs----telephone operator, dental assistant, house cleaner, baker, and a sales rep for Avon. Each job helped feed my family, but none of them fed my soul.

     In 2011, I started blogging part time as a hobby. It was cathartic to write about menopause and middle age angst, and after a few short months, I was hooked. The blog led to a book, which then led to additional writing opportunities with online sites. When people ask me what I do now for a living, it feels good to tell them I'm a writer. I never felt comfortable saying this before until I was able to supplement our family income by getting paid to do something I love.

     As with any career, writing has its ups and downs. In most cases, it's a slow start in the beginning (unless you're one of those rare entities who becomes a rockstar author overnight with your first book) before the publication acceptances roll in. A writer has to have the patience of Job in order to survive in the world of publishing.

     I've noticed many changes in my life since the day I wrote my very first blog post. Although there have been plenty of bumps along the way in my career, the gains far outweigh the losses:

INCOME:  When I worked a regular job, I had regular income that I could count on for my monthly expenses. My income from writing is sporadic at best----it's feast or famine. Some months the book royalties and article sales keep me afloat comfortably, while there are other times when I'm not sure I can afford the "good" dog food brand. Those are the beans and rice days, but I still prefer this lifestyle over scrubbing someone else's toilet. It's a wonder I don't have PTSD after working in some of the houses I cleaned.

SLEEP:  Like many writers, I have unusual sleeping hours. Insomnia perches on the side of my bed like a restless magpie chattering away ideas from my muse. These words become a fever in my head that I cannot ignore until the last sentence has been saved on my laptop. The end result is that I'm often tired and look disheveled, but naps are totally acceptable for writers. And lack of sleep also justifies the amount of money I spend on coffee.

EATING HABITS:  I loved cooking for my family when they were all here at the same time. Homemade stews and roasts; fresh vegetables, hearty casseroles and creamy pastas. We ate well. But the kids grew older, moved out, and our schedules changed. Writing takes priority now over the hours I once spent in the kitchen. The microwave has become my best friend, along with Chinese delivery. The good news is that I'm still getting my daily allotment of vegetables from pizza toppings, plus staying healthy one Gummy Bear Vitamin at a time.

JOB ENVIRONMENT: Writing is often a lonely career. It's just me and the blank computer screen.  I love being my own boss, but at times I miss the camaraderie of coworkers. Instead, I have a son who pokes his head into my office every fifteen minutes to remind me that there is nothing to eat in the refrigerator, and a husband who asks fifty questions when I hand him the electric bill.
Luckily, I've met dozens of writers online in various social media groups and have formed my own special tribe of friends. In many ways, we're like a close nit group of coworkers in side by side cubicles. We share the same boss----our muse----and have each other's back when writer's block rears its ugly head, threatening our job security. We also share virtual cups of coffee while we bitch about our kids and the amount of calories there are in a single glass of wine.

WEIGHT:  Sitting at my computer for 12 hours a day has taken a toll on my body. My butt has become the shape of the chair that I sit on, and my stomach is doing double duty as a kangaroo pouch. It's also a crumb catcher when I eat at my desk. I need one of those treadmills that holds a laptop so that I can run and work at the same time. Dangle a piece of bacon on a hook in front of me and I'll run even faster. I may never be thin again, but at least I'll be able to outrun most of the joggers in my neighborhood, especially if the scent of bacon is in the air.

TIME MANAGEMENT: I've become very selfish with my time since I started writing. In the past, whenever one of my kids needed assistance with homework or a ride to their after school activities, I dropped whatever I was doing to help them. Now that they're older, I'm able to step back and let them handle things on their own. If I'm in the middle of a writing project and someone asks me for a favor, I tell them they'll have to take a number and wait. I hate being interrupted when I'm trying to write, and am known to turn off my phone so that I can detach from the real world in order to concentrate on the new one I'm creating with words. Sometimes though, my need for "me-time" isn't just for writing. I'm a sucker for social media and am easily hypnotized by the siren song of Facebook. But hey, I can always tell people I'm studying behavioral psychology for an upcoming article, and social media is rife with unusual behavior. I can pretty much use my writing career as an excuse to get out of doing anything. "You're having a birthday party for your Shih Tzu on Saturday? I'm so sorry, but I have a writing deadline to meet this weekend."

 CONFIDENCE: This has always been tricky for me, and was pretty much nonexistent before I became a writer. Years ago, I won several awards for my high sales volume with Avon, but honestly, it wasn't that much of a challenge to sell miracle creams and lipsticks. Women are always hungry for any product that will make them look younger and feel sexy. Writing is the hardest profession I've ever attempted, because I'm at the mercy of my muse, and my success is based on my readership. There are plenty of days when I don't feel like writing, but I push myself to do it. If I don't write, I feel hollow inside. My career is an emotional yo-yo---the days I'm able to sell my work to topnotch literary sites, I'm ready to bust out a bottle of champagne. But with success there are also failures, and I take every one of my rejections to heart. During those times, I want to hide in a blanket fort and eat an undisclosed amount of Hershey's Kisses to soothe my bruised ego.

     For the most part, the highs of my writing career outweigh the lows, and I'm happier than I've ever been before. Seeing an article that I've written go viral means far more to me than a first place trophy for sales in cosmetics. After all, face creams make us look great on the surface, but a good book touches us deep down in our souls.

     Choosing a career as a professional writer has been worth every penny.....kangaroo pouch and all.

     I love sleep, but it does not love me. I either sleep like the dead or I'm wide awake all night. There is no in-between for me. The nights I sleep deep, a tornado could lift my house from its foundation and drop it into a cornfield in Kansas and I STILL wouldn't wake up. For this reason, naps also make me nervous. I never know if I'll fall asleep for twenty minutes, two hours, or two years. Naps are risky at best, and my poor husband has no idea who he will be dealing with when he interrupts my sleep----the Kraken or a disoriented Rip Van Winkle.

     The nights insomnia shares the mattress with me are the worst. I don't count sheep to fall asleep. I count calories. And sadly, that's enough to keep me awake all night. My mind flips through a gazillion thoughts in record time, like cards being shuffled during a poker match. I can't shut my thoughts off, much less dim the commanding voice of insomnia that nags my subconscious.

     On a typical sleepless night, these are some of the strange thoughts that keep me tossing and turning while the bedside clock ticks away the minutes:



That recipe for chicken chow mein turned out really good tonight. I'm craving it again. Right now. I wonder how it will taste cold, straight out of the fridge....

So, if I add Hub's paycheck to the balance in the checkbook, then subtract what I owe on the mortgage this month, plus figure in the $200 I owe for the water bill and another $300 for the electric, that means......beans and rice. I eat bean and rice every day for a month.

My underwear is too tight. I need new underwear. This pair has holes. Geez, what if I got in an accident today and the EMTs saw them?

It's hot in here. The sheets are sticking to me. The thermostat must be set on a temperature compatible to Mercury.

How do penguins mate?

Wait----what are those suspicious noises coming from the garbage cans outside? Possum? Raccoon? Hungry neighbor?

Let's sing a song: "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down...." Karen Carpenter.....what year was that?

Did I turn off the oven?

Is that a lump under my armpit? It IS a lump. What if I have cancer? Aunt Sally had it, and look what happened to her! I have all the symptoms---I'm constantly tired and achy, and my weight has been fluctuating....OH MY GOD I'M GONNA DIE. Wait.....no....it's not a lump. It's a mosquito bite.

Why didn't the dog poop tonight? Maybe someone gave her too much cheese. I like cheese. I really like cheese on chicken parmesan. Maybe I can order some for lunch tomorrow. Maybe I can order some now.

Don't leave a leg sticking outside of the covers.....something or someone might grab it. Ghosts. Creepy clowns. Deranged serial killers. I need to stop watching American Horror Story.

Is that the toilet water running again? I need to get a plumber out here. Life would be so much easier if someone invented disposable, biodegradable toilet plungers.

Hubs needs to mow the grass tomorrow. I'll wake him and tell him. It's 2:00 a.m. but he won't mind.

If I could redesign this house, I would add an extra sink in the master bathroom, knock out the wall that divides the kitchen from the living room, add another bathroom to the east side of the house, because we can never have too many bathrooms.....wait, do I need to pee? Welcome to "Bladder Roulette." Spin the wheel and it lands on..... "You gotta pee. RIGHT NOW!"..... dammit.

Was my closet door cracked open all this time?

Let's sing again: "Cats in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon..."

Stop. Practice fake sleep. Close your eyes, breathe deep. Relax. Just go to sleep....hey, what was that kid's name in Mrs. Johnson's third grade class who puked whole blueberries by the classroom door?

I wonder who the first person was to eat an artichoke?

I need to find out what that weird sound was coming from my car today. What if it was my transmission? What if it blows up tomorrow while I'm driving down the highway? I'd better wear new underwear just in case the EMTs show up.


   
     Hopefully tonight will be better. I really need to get more sleep. I'll get the toilet fixed and make sure the thermostat is set low enough for icicles to form on the ceiling. And it wouldn't hurt to order a plate of chicken parmesan for dinner while I'm at it.....

     Everyone experiences insomnia at one point or another, and I'm not talking about the I-shouldn't-have-had-that-double-espresso-shot-before-bed kind of sleeping problem. I'm talking about full-on insomnia that occurs night after night and leaves you looking like The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, when you skid sideways into menopause, it's not uncommon for insomnia to become the unwanted  BFF who short-circuits your dreams.

     Most menopausal women I know don't have a problem falling asleep; they have a problem staying asleep. For me, it's the demanding bladder, sporadic hot flashes, and the fact that my brain believes 3:00 a.m. is the ideal time to wake up my muse and share some brilliant ideas.

     There are different trains of thought on the amount of sleep required to stay healthy. Some people need a solid eight hours to function normally, while others perform best with only five. But one thing is for sure; when you aren't getting enough sleep, your body lets you know in a variety of ways, such as frequent yawning (which is really just a silent scream from your body to return to your bed). Here are 14 signs that you're not getting enough sleep:

1. You have the sales pitch from every late night infomercial committed to memory.....and you are now the proud owner of a corduroy cat condo (even though you don't own a cat).

2. Your feet have created crop circles in the carpet from numerous night time trips between your bed and the bathroom.

3. Every morning your eyes appear bloodshot and your coworkers suspect you've been staying up late to party with the spirit of Bob Marley.

4. You toss and turn so much during sleep that you've worn bald spots on either side of your head.

5. You're cheating on your spouse with your new, favorite sleep partner----Melatonin.

6. Yawning is a chronic problem at work. Each time you yawn, it creates a chain reaction around the office, which lasts two hours and goes several rounds before it stops. I'll bet you're yawning right now.

7. Your neck is often sore from craning your head sideways every five minutes to check the glowing numbers on your bedside clock.

8. Other than the Cleveland Clinic, you own the second largest collection of orthotic braces for aching knees, feet, and wrists in your desperate attempt to sleep pain-free at night.

9. You're always in a fog. You wake up one morning to find your pillow in the refrigerator and a frozen lamb chop in your bed. No amount of coffee is going to improve your brain fog. You will always do stupid shit and be forgetful until you get more sleep.

10. You engage in mental warfare with your brain nightly around 2:00 a.m. The brain doesn't want to sleep, but you do. You tell your brain to shut up, but it just keeps asking the same questions: "Did you lock the front door? Turn off the stove? Pay the mortgage on time? Did the dog poop when you walked him at 11:00?" No sleep for you until you get out of bed and check all the locks. Well played, brain.

11. Mr. Sandman ran out of sand before he made it to your  house, which explains why you have large, empty sand bags under your eyes every morning.

12. You've reached the end of your rope and have signed up for a sleep study despite the fact that you will get NO SLEEP at the clinic. How can you, when you'll be required to wear Medusa-like coils around your head and electrodes attached to your body? What little shut-eye you get will be plagued with seemingly acid-induced dreams that will make you feel like you're back at Woodstock in 1969.

13. You've counted so many sheep at bedtime that you now have a wool sweater with a matching set of mittens. Keep up with the sheep herding, and a free scarf comes next.

14.  Although you need 3.0 readers during the day, your night vision is 20/20 since you've inherited the sleep cycle of a nocturnal rodent.

     Still worried that you're not getting enough sleep? The good news is that Amazon has a BOGO sale on sheep. You can order as many as you want for counting.....which means you won't have a shortage of wool sweaters this winter. Sweet dreams!