You have heard the advice. Same bedtime, phone away, dark room, no coffee after lunch, perhaps a warm bath. Most of it assumes your problem started with bad habits.

It did not. You fall asleep quickly, because you are tired enough to. Then hours later you wake with damp hair, a pounding heart and total alertness. Something interrupted your sleep, and only then do the calculations start. What time it is, how many hours are left, what tomorrow requires of you.

A problem that begins in the middle of the night needs a different starting point than one that begins at bedtime.

This book looks at what may be waking you, what keeps you awake once you are, and why the transition can drive both. It is equally clear about when a hormonal explanation is being asked to cover something else, including sleep apnoea, thyroid problems and depression, all of which get missed in women this age.

Menopause and Sleep is Book Six in The Menopause Clarity Series.