---
title: 'Waking Up at 3AM? Your Hormones Are Trying to Tell You Something (5 Causes & Fixes)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3tHrNhfOh8'
video_id: 'k3tHrNhfOh8'
date: 2026-08-02
duration_sec: 1640
---

# Waking Up at 3AM? Your Hormones Are Trying to Tell You Something (5 Causes & Fixes)

> Source: [Waking Up at 3AM? Your Hormones Are Trying to Tell You Something (5 Causes & Fixes)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3tHrNhfOh8)

## Summary

This video explains why many women wake up at 3 AM during perimenopause and menopause, attributing it to five specific hormonal and chemical changes rather than stress or life circumstances. The speaker, Dr. Mindy Pelz, provides actionable lifestyle fixes for each cause, emphasizing that sleep issues are a chemistry problem that can be addressed through diet, temperature, and light management.

### Key Points

- **Prevalence of Sleep Issues** [00:33] — 47% of perimenopausal women and 60% of menopausal women report disrupted sleep, making it the number one complaint.
- **Cause 1: Blood Sugar Crash** [01:30] — A drop in blood sugar in the middle of the night signals a crisis to the brain, triggering adrenaline and waking you up. This is often mistaken for anxiety.
- **Cause 2: Loss of Progesterone** [03:20] — Progesterone, which declines from mid-30s, acts as a natural sedative by converting to allopregnanolone and stimulating GABA receptors, similar to medications like Ambien.
- **Cause 3: Temperature Dysregulation** [06:14] — A drop in core temperature signals sleep. In menopause, the comfort range narrows, so small increases in temperature can cause waking and adrenaline surges.
- **Cause 4: Shifted Circadian Rhythm** [10:30] — As you age, the master clock shifts earlier, causing cortisol to fire too early (e.g., at 3-4 AM), pulling you out of sleep.
- **Cause 5: Airway Collapse** [13:01] — Progesterone keeps upper airway muscles toned. As it declines, the airway becomes collapsible, causing mild oxygen dips and adrenaline surges.
- **Fix 1: Protect Light Exposure** [15:53] — In the last two hours before bed, avoid bright and blue light. Use blue blockers, red light, or read a book to signal melatonin production.
- **Fix 2: Avoid Blood Sugar Crash** [18:59] — Eat earlier in the day and have a fat bomb (e.g., nut butter) or a teaspoon of honey before bed to stabilize blood sugar overnight.
- **Fix 3: Blood Sugar Stable Dinner** [21:35] — Dinner should include fat, fiber, and protein to stabilize blood sugar. Example: pasta with grass-fed beef, olive oil, and a side salad.
- **Fix 4: Support GABA with Magnesium** [23:13] — Magnesium initiates the same calming GABA pathway as progesterone. Take high-quality magnesium supplements or soak in an Epsom salt bath.
- **Fix 5: Cool the Room** [25:16] — Keep the bedroom in the mid-60s Fahrenheit. Take a warm bath or shower 60-90 minutes before bed to create a temperature drop.

### Conclusion

Waking up at 3 AM during menopause is not a personal failure but a result of hormonal chemistry changes. By addressing blood sugar, progesterone, temperature, circadian rhythm, and airway health through lifestyle adjustments, you can regain control over your sleep.

## Transcript

pounding, brain running in circles, here's what I [music] have to tell you. It's not because you're anxious. It's not because your life is falling apart. [music] Your brain and body are actually running
a rescue [music] mission. And we know that when women specifically move into their [music] menopausal years, there is a major chemical experiment that [music] is changing inside of us. Right now, 47%
of perry menopausal [music] women and 60% of menopausal women report disrupted sleep. It is the number one [music] complaint. And one of the things
that so many women say is that they wake up and they can't go back to sleep. [music] Let me know if that's you. And everyone blames stress and everyone blames [music] cortisol. And you start thinking it's something to do with your
life. [music] But on this video, I'm going to show you that they're actually five real [music] reasons that you can put into action today that will make sleeping so [music] much easier. And these are not the ones that you've been
told. And there are five simple steps to [music] fix it. So, ready? Roll up your sleeves. This is a sleep video like no other. other. Reason number one that you cannot fall
Reason number one that you cannot fall asleep is because of your blood sugar. Now, I want you to think about this. your blood sugar somewhere in the middle your blood sugar somewhere in the middle of the night starts to crash.
When your blood sugar crashes, maybe because you ate four or five hours because you ate four or five hours earlier, what that does is it sends a signal to the brain that you are in a crisis and your brain and body will
crisis and your brain and body will respond by making adrenaline. So I I know I've been in this position before. I know many of you have been in this position before where all of a sudden it's like 3:00 a.m. You're like, it's
like all of a sudden you feel like your body has identified that there's something traumatic going on in the room, but really all your body has room, but really all your body has identified is that your blood sugar has
made a significant drop. That's an easy change. We can change blood sugar. I'm going to show you many ways. As we get to the end of this video, I'll show you these five action steps on how you can eat dinner, how you can eat lunch so
that you don't have that adrenaline reaction to a dip in your glucose reaction to a dip in your glucose numbers. And it's the crash, by the way, that's the problem. Again, it's not your life. And I think this is such an
important one. And it's not because you didn't get the right HRT patch. So, if didn't get the right HRT patch. So, if the 3 a.m. jolt feels like anxiety, I want you to start retraining your brain and say, "It's not anxiety, it's
chemistry." And your body is firing the alarm bells like a fire alarm that went off. And that surge is what is waking you up. And you can change that. Reason
number two is that you've lost the greatest built-in seditive your body has ever made. and that is progesterone. So progesterone starts to decline
somewhere in our mid30s. And progesterone stimulated a whole cascade progesterone stimulated a whole cascade of neurochemicals that calmed you. Some of those neurochemicals we actually now take supplements for like GABA,
GABA supplements to try to get our body to relax. But there again is a lifestyle solution. But what I want you to understand is this challenge not
sleeping at 3 in the morning is not your fault. It is because the chemistry fault. It is because the chemistry whether you are 70 or you are 40 the chemistry changed. And without progesterone you can't calm yourself
anymore. And it's not just during the day. This is really impacting you at night. So here's how progesterone calms you. So progesterone is converted into a
you. So progesterone is converted into a compound called alo pregnanolone and it starts to stimulate your GABA receptors in your brain. Now what's receptors in your brain. Now what's interesting is this alopanolone
is also the way it stimulates these GABA receptors is the same way that certain receptors is the same way that certain medications like ambient or benzo dazipene would do. it goes into the same receptor and you were just naturally
receptor and you were just naturally making it and it was built in. And so making it and it was built in. And so you had an ambient type of chemical reaction in your body at 35 that's not there at 75.
But remember all the things I've taught you all here and the things I've written about especially in age like a girl girl. I did a whole chapter on sleep. you have a lifestyle tool and we're going to dive into that because when you
go to grab this lifestyle tool, you'll start to see you don't need an ambient. You don't need a benzoazipene. You just need to know how to court progesterone for your age appropriate progesterone levels so that you can get
this GABA these GABA receptors activated. So, think about this so far. Some of you are like, "Whoa, I can see where my blood sugar could be raising cortisol." Others of you are like, "Whoa, I'm not
even taking progesterone as hormone replacement. I must be getting a double dose, and this may be why I'm not sleeping." Here's the third reason, and this is one that I really think is probably one of the most important
probably one of the most important pieces of sleeping for women who as we move into those menopausal years, and it's temperature. And it's funny because we already know, like, we know that we need the room colder. But what's
interesting, and I did a I did a ton of research on this when I wrote Age Like a Girl. It just fascinated me that there is a delta between the temperature you were before you went to bed and the temperature you
are when you get into bed. And when you go into bed, you want that temperature, that specifically your core temperature to go down because that signals it's
time to go to sleep. Think about this for a moment. It's very primal. This is why I love fasting because we can look back at fasting and we can go, "Wow, yeah, we have two metabolisms because our primal ancestors had to rely on
these two metabolisms." Well, your our primal ancestors had to rely on a drop in temperature to allow them to go to sleep. How many of us have been had a
our house or we've been somewhere it's been really warm and we cannot go to sleep. The reason you cannot go to sleep is because you need a drop in temperature in order to signal to the body, hey, it's time to sleep. How many
of us have had a glass of wine where we're like, okay, I'm just going to have a sudden in the middle of the night, especially at 3:00 in the morning, we wake up and a large reason we wake up is
because that core temperature rises with alcohol. So of all these I'm telling you, I feel number three is the one that is the most overlooked. It is a and it's
a small temperature change. It's not a big change. So, some of the recommendations that people make, and I love this, and again, it's going to be in these five action steps at the end, is take a hot shower before you go to
is take a hot shower before you go to bed. Make your room cold. I open up my window or maybe you turn on the air con or maybe you have a chilling mattress. But you need that delta from a warm shower to a cold room and then into a
bed that is a little has a a a little bit of a temperature drop. We are not bit of a temperature drop. We are not talking about a big temperature drop. It's a small enough temperature drop to help you go to sleep just like it is a
small enough temperature drop to or temperature raise to wake you up. So temperature raise to wake you up. So remember, you have an inner thermostat and you have a comfortable range and if that range gets too high, you're going
to wake up and if it goes low, you're going to fall asleep. So there was some research on this that I want to bring forward. And what's interesting is that there's some research showing of this comfort range of temperature. When we
were younger and we had our full hormonal lab going on, we our comfort temperature zone was much wider. We had a w more more more uh room for air,
let's say. We could take temperature swings. We could drink a glass of wine swings. We could drink a glass of wine and have our core temperature go up. But as we go through menopause, what the research is showing, especially in women
with hot flashes, is this comfort temperature range gets tighter. What this means is that it's just a small increase in core temperature. And now,
increase in core temperature. And now, not only are you are you swimming in in not only are you are you swimming in in sweat, but you're actually creating more epinephrine and adrenaline just like the blood sugar. So, think about that for a
moment. Your blood sugar gets off, your temperature gets off, you don't have the breaks that you used to have because progesterone is lower than it's ever been. Now, you have three major things that are stacking up.
Okay? Number four, and this one it I had to go back and research this multiple times because I think it's really fascinating. When you get up in the morning and you see the light, what that tells your body
to do is to shut off melatonin and start to make cortisol. But the reason number to make cortisol. But the reason number four that you are waking up is because as you start to go into menopause or if you are in menopause, your clock shifts
you are in menopause, your clock shifts and your cortisol fires too early. So some of us maybe we don't wake up at 3, maybe we'll wake up at 4 because your body thinks that it's time for cortisol to come in. This is because your master
to come in. This is because your master clock shifts to an earlier phase and clock shifts to an earlier phase and melatonin starts to change at and and starts to go down sooner than when you are in your 20s and 30s. So, it's a
different version of cortisol like we saw with with the with food. This is as you're aging, cortisol is showing up earlier in the day and it may be showing
earlier in the day and it may be showing up as early as 3 in the morning and it's enough to pull you out of a light sleep. So, you have this builtin sunrise alarm So, you have this builtin sunrise alarm and cortisol is starting to rise as
early as dawn or maybe even before the sun comes out. So, think of cortisol as like an alarm system. I don't know about you, but I'm 56 years old and I've you, but I'm 56 years old and I've noticed that over the time that I don't
have to set an alarm. I wake up at the same time every day. And that time is getting earlier and earlier and earlier. That's because melatonin is dipping out earlier, causing cortisol to come in earlier, giving us this alarm bell and
earlier, giving us this alarm bell and waking us up. So, the crash sets off the alarm. The blood sugar crash sets off the alarm. The progesterone means you don't have breaks to to calm yourself. The thermostat in your body is all off.
And now your own internal melatonin cortisol alarm is ringing its bell much cortisol alarm is ringing its bell much earlier. Okay, number five. This one is earlier. Okay, number five. This one is also crazy cool. It's that progesterone
was keeping your airways open. Think about that for a moment. How many of us start to feel like we wake up and we're just like almost gasping for air? Or
some of us have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a real thing. And sleep apneoa is connected to progesterone. So progesterone is a respiratory stimulant
and it kept those upper airway muscles toned so that it would stay open as you were going as you were sleeping throughout your day as well but as you were sleeping. So, as progesterone declines, which progesterone is supposed
to decline as you get older, even if you're on HRT, the muscles in your airway start to go slack. And that airway becomes more collapsible. And
once again, we have a change in the body. We have a dip in mild dip in oxygen, which causes adrenaline to start to surge. Think about the pattern I've created for you here. dip in in blood sugar, uh changes in temperature. We've
got changes in in progesterone. All of that is signaling giving signals to the body that tell it it's time to get up. This does has nothing to do with
your workload. It doesn't have anything to do with your children and the problems you're trying to fix for them. It has to do with chemistry. So, if you wake up at 3:00 a.m. and you are feeling panicky, I don't want you to attach it
to something in your life. I want you to realize that progesterone was opening up the airway. Progesterone was was calming you. And when you get a little dip in
oxygen, all of a sudden, your breathing changes and that causes alarm bells to So, if you're waking up gassing, gasping, if you have a dry mouth, if you
have a pounding heart, um, and your partners may be snoring, it's not even the snoring partners issue. It is the chemistry that has changed because you no longer have the same amounts of estrogen and progesterone. So sometimes
estrogen and progesterone. So sometimes a 3M waking up is a genuine acute stress that that does happen or it can be a medication side effect. And if it's relentless, you always want to go see your doctor. But for the sake of this
video, I want you to see once again that your body is a chemistry experiment and it your lifestyle can change that chemistry. So, here are the five things that I want you to consider doing. Okay,
the first one, and I love this one. I do this all the time, is I want you to this all the time, is I want you to protect the last two hours of light. So, if you're going to go to bed at 10:00, I want you to think from about 8 to 10,
what kind of light exposure are you getting? The reason that this is so important is because light is a signal for melatonin when you're going to for melatonin when you're going to sleep. If you're in a lot of LED light,
in a lot of bright light, I've even found we have a big screen TV in our living room and I've even found if that big screen TV is shining too much blue light at me, you are telling your body it's stay awake. It's not time to sleep.
it's stay awake. It's not time to sleep. So, when you start to move towards bed, if it's going to be 11:00, at 9:00, I want you to think about your light exposure because you're sending a chemical signal to your body. It's time
chemical signal to your body. It's time to prepare for sleep. The when we in our younger years, when we had a lot of estrogen, estrogen did that signaling for you. But as you get older, estrogen's not signaling to your
hypothalammus that it's time to go to sleep. So, you have to use other sleep. So, you have to use other signals. And if light is coming in, what's happening is that it's telling your body, stay awake. So, put some blue
blockers on. That's an incredible resource. Just put a pair of blue blockers on while you're watching your show. Or I can tell you what I do is I absolutely love having a red light room. I call it my zen and it has multiple red
lights. I will put in the notes my favorite red lights and if we have coupon codes we will give them to you so you can get discounts on them. But the you can get discounts on them. But the zenen I put on red light. I read a book
because reading a book has your eyes going right, left, right, left, right, left. and it creates that calming effect that you may not be getting with the lower progesterone levels. When we're on our phones doing that and we're
scrolling up and down, you're actually agitating your nervous system. So, keep in mind, you don't have m as much of that natural ambient in you called progesterone. So, you've got to look for ways to keep the system calm. So you go
into a red light room, you read a book. Another tool that I've done is I've put Another tool that I've done is I've put on chanting music because chanting and if you know the words, go ahead and chant it. You so you feel the vibration
in your body. But that repetition of a same phrase over and over and over again stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. And so that allows again another
tool that tells your body it's time to calm down because you don't have as much progesterone to do that. Action step number two is you don't want to go to
number two is you don't want to go to bed ready for a blood sugar crash. Okay, let's pull out a lot of tools for this one because we've talked about timing of food at nauseium here on my channel, especially in relation to fasting. We've
talked about timing of food in relationship to weight loss. Now, I want to talk about timing of food in relationship to sleep. So, I really
strongly believe that if you want to stay as healthy as possible, if you want to lose weight, you should always be eating in the light. This is very easy to do in the summertime because the days are longer, harder to do in the winter
time. But the reason that's important is because as we start to things start to go dark out in the out in the world, that signals to your body to make
melatonin. When you make melatonin, it puts your pancreas to sleep and so your pancreas starts to slow down and whatever food you're eating doesn't get a is simulated
into your body as well. So don't eat in the dark. I like you eating be like, you know, in the light, but it what if that means you have to eat at 5:00 and you are going to go to bed at 10:00? What do you do? So, I have a couple
hacks for that. Um, one, you could just do a fat bomb before you go to bed. Take a scoop of nut butter. I've even had some of my patients take a little bit of some of my patients take a little bit of honey so that you go to bed not with a
blood sugar doing this, but that you go to bed with a stable blood sugar. So, try and it's not I know a lot of you are going to ask me, well, doesn't it take me out of a fasted state? A teaspoon of honey is not going to take you out of
enough to pull you out out of a fasted state. And nut butter is a fat bomb. So, it's just going to stabilize your blood sugar. So, eat earlier so you get that
full insulin sensitivity that you should get so you don't gain weight. You keep your body weight where you are you want it at. and then have a fat bomb or a teaspoon of honey before you go to bed so that you keep that blood sugar
so that you keep that blood sugar stable. Okay. Number three, the last meal of the day, you want it to build a blood sugar stable dinner. So, this blood sugar stable dinner. So, this means a blood sugar stable dinner has
means a blood sugar stable dinner has three components to it. It has fat because fat will stabilize your blood sugar. It has fiber because fiber slows down blood sugar so that you don't have as big of a spike and protein because
protein satiates you a little bit more than a carbohydrate and it will make sure that you're you're not eating over eating. So I like those three for every
eating. So I like those three for every single dinner. Now I also like carbs. I'm not saying don't eat carbs, but if you are going to have something like pasta, let's put it together in a meal. A blood sugar stable dinner, this is one
that we have often in my household, would be like a bowl of pasta. I do gluten-free. Um, and then you'll put some grass-fed beef on it if you're if you're a vegetarian. Maybe you'll put some beans in there. Um, and then you'll
drizzle it with olive oil. I'll put my favorite olive oil in the notes. the all the quality of olive oil matters and then you do a side salad. So now you've gotten it all that is a blood sugar stable meal and you've brought all the
stable meal and you've brought all the macro nutrients into it. I do like carbs at the end of the day because it does help with sleep and I do like protein a little bit earlier in the day because protein gives you amino acids that helps
to keep your energy high and your muscles working right. But what I want to make sure is it's the combination of that meal you put together that will help stabilize your blood sugar. Okay. Number four is that we want to support
the calming break that you lost because progesterone is not as prolific as she used to be in your younger years. And the one nutrient that will really help you is magnesium. And the quality of magnesium matters.
One of my favorite magnesiums is put out by a a company called Qualia. I'll put it in the comments or the notes so you can if you if that works for you and you want to use it, you can. But the important thing I want you to understand
important thing I want you to understand is that magnesium starts to initiate the same pathway, the same GABA pathway, that same calming pathway as progesterone did. So, high doses of magnesium. Now, outside of
supplementation, there are other ways you can get magnesium into your body. And this is a phenomenal thing you can do at night, which is an Epsom salt do at night, which is an Epsom salt bath. Get take get a big bag of Epsom
salt and pour the whole bag in your in into your bathtub and stay in there for about 20 minutes soaking, letting the magnesium get into your body through
your skin. Your skin is an exit point for toxins and it's an entry point for for toxins and it's an entry point for nutrients if you allow it. So some of you and then we can tie that with the with the temperature. Some of you
take I take three of the qualia magnesium before I go to bed. You might get into a magnesium warm bath for 20 minutes. Then
you know you can you can let a little bit of it sit on your skin as you sleep. You go into your bedroom that is cold and now you're getting that temperature drop. You combine that with a blood sugar stable dinner and can you see how
it's just a lifestyle habit you can put together and you didn't change anything in your life. You didn't change anything at all. Your stressors haven't gone away. You just changed your own chemistry. And the last one, number
five, is my favorite and it's cool your darn room down. open the windows, turn on the aircon, it you need that drop in temperature, and it's a it doesn't it's not a big drop. So, what the research is
saying is that the best temperature to sleep in, doesn't matter if you're a sleep in, doesn't matter if you're a post-menopausal woman or a 16-year-old teenage boy, it's to keep the temperature in the room in the mid60s.
This is Fahrenheit. And again, take a warm bath or shower 60 to 90 minutes before bed. This is what the research is showing. And then put
the if you do it in the Epsom salt bath and then get into bed with that temperature drop and you will start to see you will sleep through the night. I see you will sleep through the night. I am living proof that this stuff works.
Now, if you're res resonating with all of that, go ahead and click on this next video because I have a video that explains one teaspoon of drinking this
substance will lower cortisol and you can bring it into your nightly routine. So, head on over to that video, click on that video, combine it with what I gave you here, and then leave me comments. Tell me how it works for you. And those
to try this." this. You may have to go back and relist to this video and write it all down. There was a lot in here. But I want you to understand that if you can't sleep, it's not your problem. You are not broken. It may not even be your
stressful life's problem. The chemistry shifted and that shift is within your control. So, let me know if this was helpful. If you want more videos on sleep, but most importantly, don't give up on yourself. Don't start reaching for
the ambient. You have a lot more control than you've been taught. I hope that than you've been taught. I hope that helps. If you like this video, you're definitely going to want to check out the next