The Link Between Your Hormones and Sleep

Your hormones are powerful chemicals that regulate many of your body’s functions. Even a small dip in your hormone levels can lead to issues that affect your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Low hormone levels can also disrupt your ability to get a good night’s sleep for weeks or months at a time.

At Stat Care Pulmonary and Sleep, we specialize in services that support quality sleep. Ashok Tyagi, DO, CPE, and Himanshu Chandarana, MD, have extensive experience diagnosing issues like hormone imbalances that interfere with quality sleep and lead to ongoing insomnia.

We provide custom treatment plans to address underlying conditions that contribute to insomnia and other sleep-related disorders. 

Hormones and your circadian rhythm

Hormones are chemical messengers your endocrine glands produce to regulate many functions of your body, including your:

• Appetite
• Metabolism
• Heart rate
• Blood pressure
• Body temperature
• Sexual and reproductive function

Hormones also play an essential role in your circadian rhythm, your body’s internal clock that operates on 24-hour cycles to control sleep-wake functions. Many of your body’s systems sync to the circadian rhythm, which is influenced by changes in light and other environmental cues.

When in alignment, your circadian rhythm helps you feel awake during the day and sleepy at night to ensure consistent, restorative sleep. Disruptions to your natural circadian rhythm may cause difficulties falling asleep or staying asleep throughout the night.

Impact of a hormone imbalance on your sleep

Melatonin is a hormone linked to sleep. The pineal gland in the brain produces melatonin to regulate your sleep-wake cycles.

The pineal gland is triggered by blue light from the sun to increase melatonin production later in the day as bedtime nears. Melatonin levels drop each morning when you wake up, so you feel alert during daytime hours. 

Your melatonin levels and natural circadian rhythm can be disrupted by artificial light from electronics.

You might also experience an imbalance in your hormone levels due to:

• Aging
• Stress
• Diabetes
• Pregnancy
• Menopause
• Thyroid disorder
• Poor nutrition
• Certain medications

When your body doesn’t produce sufficient melatonin or other hormones, it may fail to maintain healthy sleep-wake cycles.

Unfortunately, ongoing sleep difficulties can worsen an existing hormone imbalance. Chronic sleep deprivation can also increase your risk of acute and chronic diseases, weight challenges, high blood pressure (hypertension), and heart disease.

Conversely, too much sleep can increase your risk of daytime sleepiness, reduced metabolism, and continued sleep cycle disruptions.

Options for rebalancing your hormone levels

Ideally, you should go to bed and wake up at the same time each day and aim to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. To naturally restore your sleep quality, consider these changes to your sleep routine:

• Limit caffeine and sugar
• Turn off lights and electronics at least one hour before bedtime
• Keep your bedroom dark and cool
• Upgrade your mattress and pillows

If you still struggle with insomnia, schedule a sleep study with our team. At-home and in-lab sleep studies are available to identify underlying issues that prevent you from sleeping well. We can also use blood tests to identify unbalanced hormones contributing to your insomnia.

Our sleep specialists design a treatment plan using medications, relaxation techniques, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and other strategies to enhance the quality and quantity of your sleep.

Call Stat Care Pulmonary and Sleep in St. Petersburg, Florida, today to schedule a sleep study for insomnia or other sleep disorders.