Concerning The Topic Of Sleeping Pills

Have you been given sleeping pills to help with your sleep, pills that leave you spaced out, like you are moving in slow motion and not fully rested? Being unable to sleep is critical, resulting in loss of memory, ineffective work habits, and increasing irritability. Starting within their early 40's, women will be in commonly plagued with sleeping problems. The answer is really quite simple. About ten years before menopause, ladies progesterone levels begin to plummet. This sets them up for sleepless nights. Progesterone, natural progesterone that is soy-based, not the peanut oil pharmaceutical progesterone Prometrium, provides improvement in sleep, dramatic reduction in irritability (who wouldn't be irritable if you can't sleep and remain exhausted), reduction in headaches and the reduction in the signs of estrogen dominance. Besides natural progesterone, NOT synthetic progestins like Prempro or Provera, has now been shown to reduce breast and uterine cancer, reduce cholesterol and reduce heart problems. And it also makes you feel better!

Sleep medicines don't deal with the real underlying causes of why women are having trouble sleeping since they get older. The key reason is really because progesterone levels are so low. Progesterone is like nature's Valium, it is the Feng-Shui of hormones providing calmness and relaxation, factors critical in falling asleep.

With women who are either perimenopausal (which may be up to ten years before menopause), menopausal, or experiencing surgically induced menopause (hysterectomy), the progesterone levels can drop to such low, immeasurable level that ladies simply can not sleep. It often takes women per hour or even more to get to sleep drugstore or they find themselves waking up through the night.

So how does bio-identical hormone replacement therapy help?

When natural progesterone is taken as a pill, versus in the cream, it travels to the brain and interacts with the GABA receptors. These receptors when activated naturally promote sleep and help patients reach the restorative sleep (REM sleep) more quickly.

How does hormone replacement with progesterone differ from taking sleeping pills in regards to the quality of sleep a woman might expect?

Sleeping pills are synthetic, not natural. There's nothing natural about them, and because of that the natural restorative REM sleep is never achieved. Oh yes, sleeping pills will help you're able to sleep, but they don't get the quality of sleep achieved naturally. When I treat women struggling with sleep issues in their 40's and 50's, sleep undoubtedly impacted by progesterone levels, one of the most typical response I hear after starting progesterone is 'This is the greatest sleep I've ever had'.

I have seen patients experience results very quickly. Sometimes in the first a couple of doses. They frequently cannot believe how rested they may be once they wake up and would like to get rid of their sleeping pills as quickly as possible.