Menopausal Insomnia is Very Common. This Very Common Vitamin Can Help.

Insomnia is a very common complication of menopause that is little discussed. But insomnia affects your health and your quality of life. So safe, inexpensive, natural help would be nice.

Insomnia is an ignored problem that comes with menopause, but it affects twice as many menopausal women as women who have not yet entered menopause. Hot flashes, night sweats and the need to get up in the night to urinate are among the reasons for the increased disturbance of sleep.

Vitamin E helps hot flashes, but it is never thought of as a sleep aid. No study has ever looked at vitamin E for the chronic insomnia of menopause. Until now.

This double-blind study gave 160 postmenopausal women with chronic insomnia disorder either a placebo or 400IU vitamin E in the form of mixed tocopherols. The mixed tocopherols contained 20% delta-tocopherol, 1% beta-tocopherol, 62% gamma-tocopherol, and 10% alpha-tocopherol. The study lasted one month.

The women who took vitamin E had significantly better sleep quality than the women who took the placebo. Scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index improved from 13 to 6 in the vitamin E group versus 11 to 9 in the placebo group. Improvement in sleep quality was significantly greater in the vitamin E group.

When the women took vitamin E, they were able to reduce their use of sedative drugs. Before the study, 30% of them needed the drugs; after taking vitamin E, only 15% needed to. There was no significant reduction in the placebo group.

This study shows for the first time that vitamin E, in the form of mixed tocopherols, provides valuable help to postmenopausal women struggling with chronic insomnia.

 Nutrients. 2023 Mar;15(5):1187

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For much more on natural help for menopause and insomnia, see our book The Family Naturopathic Encyclopedia.

For comprehensive natural help with insomnia and menopause, make an appointment to see Linda Woolven now. Linda’s clinic is now open for virtual appointments.

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