This book's pop-art cover suggests both women and society as a whole exaggerate problems experienced in the transition to menopause. But the book's contents offer a well-researched and respectful guide to life cycle changes that may start in the thirties and continue into the fifties: the period before periods stop.

Steven R. Goldstein, MD, is an obstetrician and gynecologist practicing in New York and a professor at New York University School of Medicine. Laurie Ashner is a writer and the author of three other books.

Insomnia, they note, generally rises as women approach the end of menstruation. Hot flashes that occur in sleep, sometimes called night sweats, may disrupt sleep for many years before menopause, which occurs in American women at age 51 on average. Hot flashes reflect fluctuations in production of the chief female hormone estrogen.

Sleep laboratory studies by Suzanne Woodward of Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, show hot flashes occur mainly in the lighter stages of non-dreaming sleep and prompt an arousal lasting 3 minutes once an hour, on average. The cooling that follows a hot flash as body temperature readjusts may involve sweating so profuse that it necessitates a change of nightclothes and sheets.

But factors beyond hot flashes may contribute to poor sleep in mid-life, Goldstein and Ashner remind readers. Many people find it hard to disengage from their busy days at bedtime. Stimulants, such as the hidden ones in cold medicines and fad diet pills, as well as caffeine in coffee, soft drinks and other beverages, disrupt sleep. Alcohol near bedtime may upset sleep after its effects wear off, in three hours or so, making sleep fragile for the rest of the night. Poor sleep habits, and a sedentary lifestyle, also undermine sleep. Insomnia alone, the authors stress, is not an indicator of perimenopause.

The tactics they advise represent good sleep hygiene at any time of life: Get up at the same time each day, avoid "weekend jet lag," by not staying up extremely late and sleeping in the next morning, and develop sleep rituals you can use every night to program mind and body for sleep. They also suggest keeping the bedroom cool, 60- to 65°F.

Other chapters in this conversationally-written book explore such topics as mid-life weight gain, migraines, mood disorders, osteoporosis, sex and sexuality, and treatment. The authors offer a thorough discussion of the pros and cons of hormone replacement therapy and alternative therapies. They also provide anecdotal reports to show how different women cope with common problems. The real message of the pop-art cover may be that a dollop of humor will help anyone cope better with this constellation of discomforting but nonetheless normal and predictable life events.

-Current Month-    -Archives-    -Author List-    -About Lynne Lamberg-

Copyright (c) 2000 Websciences
All Rights Reserved