Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown, MD, FAASM, a triple board-certified sleep physician and founder of The Restful Sleep Place, is addressing one of the most common — and most overlooked — health concerns among women in their 40s and 50s: the sudden, persistent inability to sleep. Dr. Afolabi-Brown is offering a free Perimenopause Sleep Guide at TheRestfulSleepPlace.com.
An estimated 61% of perimenopausal and menopausal women report significant sleep disturbance, making it one of the most prevalent concerns in midlife women’s health — yet it remains underrepresented in sleep research and undertreated in everyday clinical practice.
As Dr. Afolabi-Brown explains, sleep and hormones are not separate systems. During perimenopause, estrogen and progesterone don’t simply decline; they fluctuate erratically, and that hormonal turbulence has direct, measurable effects on sleep. Shifting estrogen destabilizes the body’s temperature regulation, which can trigger the classic 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. wake-up, while falling progesterone removes a natural calming effect and can contribute to lighter, more fragmented sleep. Over time, a hormonal problem can become a behavioral one, as the brain learns to associate the bed with wakefulness rather than rest.
“Women are told for years that their sleep problems are stress, anxiety, or just a normal part of getting older,” said Dr. Afolabi-Brown. “But this sleep disruption is real, it is physiological, and there are evidence-informed reasons it is happening. My goal with this guide is to help women understand what is actually going on in their bodies — and to know that effective, evidence-based help exists.”
The Perimenopause Sleep Guide is organized into five sections. It explains the hormone–sleep connection, why standard sleep advice so often falls short for women in midlife, and what the evidence actually supports — including cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), addressing hot flashes and night sweats directly, ruling out sleep-disordered breathing, and aligning sleep timing with a woman’s individual circadian rhythm. It also outlines the signals that indicate it may be time to see a sleep specialist and includes a printable seven-day sleep tracker that patients can bring to an appointment.
