The Menopause Sleep Syndrome: Why You’re Up at 3 a.m.—and What Helps with Andrea Matsumura, MD, MS, FACP, FAASM (Episode 262)

Hit Play Not Pause

Fitness, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.9 • 769 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Up in the middle of the night at 2:37 a.m. like clockwork? Toss and turn, desperately trying to slip into slumber? Eyes pop open at 4 a.m. though you’d really love to sleep in till at least 6? Are you just tired all the time? Welcome to the sleep syndrome of menopause–a common cluster of midlife sleep problems this week’s guest Dr. Andrea Matsumura treats every day. We break down what’s behind women’s sleep woes, including sleep apnea, lifestyle factors, and of course menopause. She also shares her DREAM Method as a practical framework for getting a solid night’s rest.

Dr. Andrea Matsumura, MD, MS, FACP, FAASM is a board-certified sleep medicine physician, menopause expert, speaker, and founder of the D.R.E.A.M. Sleep Method™. Known as Sleep Goddess MD, she specializes in helping women optimize sleep, circadian rhythm, and health during midlife. She is board-certified in Internal and Sleep Medicine, trained at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Oregon Health & Science University, and previously built a women-focused sleep consult service at The Oregon Clinic. Dr. Matsumura currently serves as Medical Director at Cascadia Health, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, co-founder of the M/Power Menopause Collective, and a leader in the Sleep Is Good Medicine™ campaign. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, SHAPE, SELF, and CNN Underscored. You can learn more about her and her work at andreamatsumuramd.com

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You Deserve to Get Good Sleep with Andrea Matsumura, MD (Episode 91)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:12.2	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help you feel and perform your best no matter what
0:21.7	your hormones are doing. This show is a production of feisty media. Hello, strong feisty women.
0:29.6	I hope you all are well. So one of the first signs that I was in the menopause transition,
0:36.2	though I didn't know it at the time, was my sleep went
0:39.4	sideways. Night after night for what seemed like forever, I would wake up with a racing heart
0:45.4	and sometimes pouring sweat at 2.30 in the morning and often struggle for an hour or more
0:52.0	to drift back to sleep. Sometimes I struggled to fall asleep to begin
0:56.4	with, no matter how tired I felt. And often I would be wide awake at 4 a.m., though I really wanted
1:02.6	to sleep until like 6. It was kind of a nightmare, but not the fast asleep REM kind, just a
1:10.2	walking nightmare.
1:11.7	And I found my way through, and with a blend of CBD and melatonin and aschwaganda and a whole lot of mindfulness and breathwork, things got better.
1:21.1	But I wish I had known at the time that it was all connected and that it was all hormonally driven, which is where this week's
1:28.7	guest, Dr. Andrea Matsumara, comes in. She is also known as the sleep goddess.
1:35.4	Andrea is a board certified sleep medicine physician and menopause expert who specializes
1:41.6	in women's sleep issues.
1:49.8	Andrea was on the show about three years ago, and we had a great talk about sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome and other common but undiagnosed or I should say underdiagnosed
1:55.4	and very often undertreated issues that wreck women's sleep.
2:00.5	And I'll put a link to that one in the show
2:01.9	notes so you can check it out because that was a really eye-opening conversation for me.
2:06.2	And this week, I wanted to have her back to talk about what she has been explaining as the
2:11.0	sleep syndrome of menopause, which is a common cluster of sleep issues that are driven by hormonal
	...

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