The Long Exhale

This series currently focuses on sleep, mood, and the perimenopausal transition itself — the disrupted nights, the mood shifts that arrive without warning, and making sense of a transition that isn't always well explained by the people meant to explain it.

For sleep, the clearest finding is physiological rather than self-reported: participants given a hypnotic suggestion to “sleep deeper” before a nap spent significantly more time in slow-wave sleep — the deep, restorative stage — measured by EEG (Cordi, Schlarb & Rasch, 2014). A wider review of 24 studies found a majority reported benefit, though it also noted that better-designed trials are still needed (Chamine, Atchley & Oken, 2018).

For mood, a meta-analysis of controlled trials found the average person treated with hypnosis was less anxious afterwards than the large majority of untreated people — a comparative finding, not a percentage reduction (Valentine et al., 2019). Perimenopause brings a genuine, hormonally-driven rise in anxiety and low mood for many women, and this is the same underlying mechanism this series draws on.

This is adjunctive support, not a replacement for your GP or a menopause specialist — especially where mood changes are severe, persistent, or affecting your ability to function.