why don't I sleep all night?

I don't know why but I have not had a full night's sleep for months.

I am menopausal and occasionally I have a bad few hours of flushes and overheating but that is not every night thank goodness.
Most other nights I go to bed, sleep and at 3.30 am or so I wake and don't get back until after 5, sometimes much later. I used to find it very scary as my mind would go into overdrive and I would start worrying about everything, but now I have started different ways of staying relaxed during this waking period.

I think it would be such a treat to get a full night's sleep and wake in the morning feeling refreshed. I wonder is it related to hormone imbalance. I am obviously anxious about my upcoming surgery but not in the way I had been, At this stage I am looking forward to the other side and recovery so I don't think it is that either.

I have done all the usual things, reducing tea before bedtime, nothing too stimulating before bed, gentle reading, soft music. I have made myself extra tired, I have got up early, gone to bed late and alternately early to see if anything would work but it seems to be the same regardless of what I do.
Has this happened to anyone else and will it get better after surgery? ZZzzz...

Isn't that a mess to deal with?

I had the same sort of issues. I really think we have a lot of stress we don't really deal with. I found out my problems were serious way back in July and didn't have the visit to the castle until November so my sleep issues were a pain.

But now that I am past all of it I have to tell you that I go to bed, fall asleep pretty quickly and sleep all night unless some outside thing wakes me...so give it a bit of time...

The only thing I can suggest is if you feel like having a nap, do it, get your sleep where you can... and if you do wake in the night, don't worry about it, just figure you are laying in bed in a comfortable spot and you are at least resting.

Sorry you are dealing with this, but I bet when all this is done you will be back to sleeping like before all the worry started.

I'm dealing with this same thing. I am 8 weeks postop. I'm forty and the last couple of years I have had this issue. I hate it! My doctor reccomended that I take melatonin. I took it last night and still woke up at 3 but was very tired but it still took an hour and a half to go back to sleep. I've read that as we age we don't produce as much melatonin. My b12 is a little low and I'm on supplements. Supposedly a vitamin b deficiency also decreases melatonin production. It seems to be very common. I was whining on facebook the other day and many of my friends are going through the same thing.

I had the same issue after being rudely dumped into surgical menopause after my TAH BSO. Since I was so MISERABLE with all of my other menopause symptoms, my GP put me on HRT. That really helped me quite a bit.