Wide Awake at 3am? A Simple Dietary Shift Can Help You Sleep

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I’ve been learning a lot about perimenopause lately, both for my patients and personally. And while I have generally been blessed with good sleep, I have had a few of those 3m wakeups lately. If you’re having those wide-awake no-chance-of-sleep wake up calls (regardless of your perimenopause status or lack of status), you might be experiencing a cortisol spike. 

Cortisol naturally starts to build up between 2am and 4am, and that’s a good thing! Cortisol helps our body slowly ramp up to prepare to awaken. But when cortisol spikes suddenly, it can jerk you awake with such force that sleep seems completely out of the question.

If you’re in perimenopause like me, your estrogen levels and progesterone levels are becoming wavy. Progesterone has a gentle sedative effect and having enough estrogen will dampen your body’s stress response so you don’t get that cortisol spike. During perimenopause, these hormones go a bit whackadoo as you head towards that final burst of fertility. 

One thing that has helped me ride the wave is to continue tracking symptoms of a period even on months where I skip a cycle. It helps me honor my body’s rhythms and recognize cycles, even when those rhythms aren’t entirely predictable.  

Hormone Replacement Therapy, which you need to start well before menopause ideally in order for this option to be safe, is totally an option to support you in this transition, but if you prefer a simpler intervention, or if you’re a person without a period who is experiencing that 3am wake-up-call, I’ve got you covered.

While I tell all my patients to stop eating well before bedtime (3 hours generally, unless you have a specific health concern like diabetes), I’ve started leaning in to having a cup of bone broth or a handful of walnuts within about 90-120 minutes before I go to sleep. I don’t do this every single night, but if I have a night of bad sleep or if I feel one coming, I might lean into this practice for a couple of nights or a week. 

Both walnuts and bone broth these foods have helpful amino acids and proteins that keep you full and stabilize your blood sugar while you sleep. Walnuts actually have both melatonin and tryptophan (the amino acid best known for being found in Turkey). Tryptophan is a precursor to melatonin and serotonin. 

Bone broth contains the helpful amino acid glycine which helps to calm the brain and also lowers your core body temperature a bit, which can help you sleep. Bone broth is my preferred choice as it’s light and easily digestible and also is great for supporting the gi tract lining and, in Chinese Medicine terms, it nourishes the blood (perfect for those of us who tend towards anemia, dizziness, or fatigue).  

If you are not vegan/vegetarian but are scared of making bone broth, don’t be! I tackled that fear recently myself when my acupuncturist suggested it as a blood tonic. While I am never technically anemic, I trend towards that diagnosis in Chinese Medicine terms, and so nourishing the blood is one of my top-of-mind nutritional needs.

Making bone broth is EASY. I promise. Either buy chicken or meat with bones in and save the bones up in the fridge and freezer till you have a bunch.

Or, as I now do, go to a local butcher (Reading Terminal has a bunch) or to Prime Halal Meat Market (my favorite) and buy a bag of “chicken bones.” Stick them in a crock pot and cover with water. If you want to be fancy add any wilted vegetables or fresh herbs. If you’re ambitious you can save up vegetable peelings and toss them in. 

Cook on high in a crockpot or simmer on the stove for 8-12 hours until it seems cooked down. Check it periodically to make sure it’s not starting to boil dry. 

Add salt to taste when you’re eating it (not while cooking). You can drink it straight from a bowl (my favorite) or  use it as a base to cook grains or use it to saute vegetables or make soup. That’s it. You can totally do it! 

I read endlessly online about adding apple cider vinegar, roasting the bones etc. I took all that anxiety back to my acupuncturist who repeated: just cover some bones with water and simmer them. :) 

(And if you ever want to uplevel, add chicken feet for extra collagen. I haven’t done that yet because A-my current meat market does not carry chicken feet and B–my acupuncturist told me I needed to trim the chicken’s toenails first, like give this poor chicken a pedicure, which gave me a moment of pause.) 

You can totally use beef marrow bones but they take much longer. The great thing about chicken bones is that they are light and porous. The marrow is easily extracted when you cook the bones. In Chinese Medicine terms chicken is “neutral” in terms of temperature; it won’t heat you up or cool you down. Beef is warming, which is great, but which can also be a bit much if you’re experiencing temperature shifts.

Will you email me your triumphs and your greatest lessons from making bone broth? I would love to learn with you! If you have tips or recipes, please let me know!Last thing I will say is that you can buy bone broth at the store but I honestly wouldn’t bother (unless you’re buying from an actual human rather than a corporation). Store-bought broth is insanely expensive but more importantly it often is filtered so it doesn’t have the gelatin that will form as a thicker layer in the fridge. You want that part! Especially if you’re hypermobile or have connective tissue stuff happening in your body. 

If you’re looking for other sleep supports, I have several new dates available for my at-home restorative yoga workshop! Join me TWICE in September to down-regulate your nervous system, soothe anxiety, and release stored stress. The next date is Thursday September 10th at 7pm-8:15pm EST, a perfect before-bed routine. And join me again on Sunday September 20th at 10am-11:15am EST for an enlivening but restful start to your Sunday. The September 20th workshop will help us welcome the Autumn Equinox. 

Register here for these pay-what-you-want offerings.

Sweet Dreams and Steady Sleep,

Monica