Why Take Progesterone at Night?

Understanding Progesterone and Its Role in the Body

Taking medication can be a weirdly complex topic. Shouldn’t we just take it and it works? If only. There are myriad factors to consider such as time of day, our lifestyle habits, and other medication interactions. This is true for progesterone. The benefits of progesterone can be affected by the side effects, other medications, lifestyle habits, and the time of day at which we take it. So why take progesterone at night, and what do progesterone supplements do?

What Is Progesterone?

Progesterone is a natural hormone most commonly produced during pregnancy and the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Progesterone is made in the ovaries, the adrenal gland, and also in the placenta when pregnancy occurs. 

Functions of Progesterone in Women’s Health

Progesterone helps prepare the body for pregnancy, supports pregnancy, regulates your monthly cycle, supports your lactation, and can be used to treat menopause symptoms. It can also have some surprising benefits like improving our mood, strengthening our pelvic muscles, preventing endometrial cancer, and aiding in our brain support!

Common Reasons for Progesterone Supplementation

You might be given progesterone to help with pregnancy support, menopausal hormone therapy, preventing pregnancies, regulating your menstrual cycle, preventing osteoporosis, and is a part of HRT.

How to Test Progesterone Levels

There is always the option to go to a health professional and have your levels tested via a blood test. However, that only gives you a single snapshot of your levels on that particular day. If you want to test your levels on a consistent basis from the comfort of your own home, then using a device like the Mira Hormone Monitor and the Mira Max Wands can give you that consistency. With snapshot tests, it’s not always clear what part of your lifestyle or hormonal adjustments are affecting you, but by monitoring your symptoms in the Mira App you can see the correlation between your progesterone levels and your symptoms. Now you can test for your actual levels and see the potential effectiveness with Mira’s easy-to-use, accurate, clinical-grade fluorescent technology that lets you see how progesterone and other reproductive hormones affect your life.

How Progesterone Affects Sleep

You might wonder why take progesterone at night? Progesterone, as it turns out, is a mild sedative and has been shown in one study to have relaxing qualities that are being explored in relation to sleep disorders. Why does progesterone help sleep, and does progesterone make you sleepy? It does this by increasing the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) production in your brain. GABA helps reduce your brain activity by making brain communication easier. Slowing down the speed of our thoughts helps us get sleepy.

The Link Between Progesterone and Sleep Quality

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), progesterone promotes sleep as shown by the fact that when we experience a decline in it, such as at the end of the luteal phase of our period, we are more likely to be affected by sleep disruption.

How Progesterone Helps Improve Restfulness

Along with the increase in GABA, progesterone may make you feel less anxious, stopping those racing thoughts before bed, and help increase your respiratory drive, making you breathe better at night which is useful if you suffer from sleep apnea symptoms. It may also decrease menopausal symptoms that can be uncomfortable, helping you achieve more rest.

Benefits of Better Sleep on Overall Health

Better sleep is associated with better heart health, a decrease in risk of chronic conditions like heart disease, helps your body repair itself, affects how you react to insulin, improves your mood, reduces stress, and helps you take in long-term memories. While we may think it’s worth losing an hour of sleep to get up early for work or play on our phones before bed, science says it’s just not worth the risk to our health and happiness.

Circadian Rhythms and Hormone Absorption

Some hormones are only made or absorbed by your body at night. For example, melatonin increases in the night and peaks in the early morning, insulin levels reach their lowest levels between 3 am and 5 am, and your growth hormones reach their peak between 2 am and 4 am. If your circadian rhythm is disrupted, there may be adverse effects to how, when, or if these secretions and absorptions happen.

What Are Circadian Rhythms?

In rough terms, these are the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that an animal or organism goes through in a 24-hour cycle. You and I might think of it as our internal clock when our body indicates to us that it’s time to get up or go to bed.

How Timing Affects Progesterone Effectiveness

When taking progesterone, it is recommended to take it at night and on an empty stomach (2 hours post your last meal) to have the best effect on your system while feeling the least amount of side effects. In terms of using it for contraception, it is generally recommended you start taking the progesterone-only pill (POP) on days one through five so you stop the chances of getting pregnant immediately, later into your cycle and you may need to use extra contraception for a couple of days.

Why Nighttime Intake Aligns with Natural Rhythms

Because progesterone encourages GABA, which makes us more relaxed, it is advised to take progesterone hormone pills at night, and some people even use progesterone for sleep benefits (along with its other helpful effects).

Reducing Side Effects by Taking Progesterone at Night

Like with all medications, progesterone comes with side effects.

Common Side Effects of Progesterone

The absolute most common side effects are breast pain, bloating, nausea, vomiting, headaches, abdominal cramps, bloating, irregular vaginal bleeding, spotting, and yeast infections. While most of these are uncomfortable, they are not worrying. However, should they become severe, then speak to your health practitioner.

How Nighttime Dosing Can Minimize Symptoms

The side effects of progesterone can be mildly uncomfortable, but if you take progesterone at the right time or you don’t wish to experience side effects, then it is possible to sleep through them. This means you can have the benefits of improved sleep, without the drawbacks.

Managing Drowsiness and Other Reactions

Your first thought might be to grab the coffee or the energy drinks, however, this can have other effects on your system so don’t give in to temptation! If you are affected by drowsiness and other side effects, you might have the option to reduce to a more comfortable dose, however, you may wish to speak to your doctor about how other lifestyle factors such as alcohol consumption, nicotine, sugar, dairy, stress, and exercise amounts could be affecting the side effects you experience. It is also worth noting that it is best to avoid grapefruit juice while on progesterone, as it can interfere with the enzymes that break down progesterone and other medications in our blood. This increases the levels of these medications in our body past where they are meant to be.

Progesterone and Hormonal Balance

As a natural hormone that affects other hormones, getting the balance of progesterone can be a little bit tricky sometimes. If you are monitoring your levels and side effects or symptoms and something is still not quite right, there are other things that can be considered to help balance your system. One way of doing this is taking some extra supplements or vitamins such as the Mira Prenatal Multivitamins. Our multivitamins are designed to help balance your hormones, which in turn helps boost your immune system, your mood, and your fertility if you are TTC.

Timing for Optimal Hormonal Support

As mentioned before, if you are using progesterone for a contraceptive, there are optimal dates in your cycle to take progesterone, and it is usually advised to be taken before you go to sleep each night. However, each body and individual is different, and if you are finding that taking progesterone at these times is not working for you, then it is time to get some support and find the best time for your hormonal well-being. This is in part due to how progesterone links with other hormones and its role in the menstrual cycle.

Progesterone’s Role in Regulating the Menstrual Cycle

Progesterone helps thicken the uterine lining, which not only keeps an egg in place when we do conceive but is also the catalyst for our period if we don’t. It also inhibits the release of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), which helps your cycle continue at a natural pace.

Supporting Fertility and Pregnancy with Nighttime Dosing

Just because the side effects of progesterone happen overnight does not mean that its benefits only happen at night. It can take a couple of months for progesterone levels to build up in the body, depending on how you take it, but that can be enough to aid fertility and pregnancy.

Practical Tips for Taking Progesterone at Night

When creating good habits, sometimes there are stumbling blocks, so here are some tips and tricks to help you get started.

Establishing a Consistent Routine

Routine is everything when it comes to our sleep and developing habits. If you can find a consistent routine that works for you, that means you will have less trouble remembering to do it. Some women choose to take their birth control pill using a timer, and there is no reason we can’t do this with other medications as well if you have trouble creating routines. If you are someone who has found habit stacking or similar routines useful in the past, this is another area where it could be done, such as taking your progesterone after doing your nightly skincare routine.

Best Practices for Taking Progesterone with Other Medications

If you are on other medication, speak to your healthcare provider, as there can be many drug interactions that occur. We’ve already mentioned that grapefruit products can affect the benefits of progesterone pills, and antibiotics are almost famous for negatively affecting progesterone and other contraceptives. The same can be said about diuretics! Anticonvulsants and antifungals may affect your progesterone. Progesterone should not be taken with alcohol. The last big thing to mention is enzyme-inducing drugs as these affect how your liver works and how progesterone interacts with your system.

Monitoring Effects and Adjusting Timing if Needed

We all know our bodies best, and if something isn’t right it can be worth keeping a diary to monitor the effects of progesterone, and take this information to your healthcare practitioner should you think the dosage or the timing of progesterone should be affected.

When to Consult a Healthcare Professional

You should see a healthcare professional if the side effects mentioned above become severe or if you should experience an allergic reaction, blood clots, breath lumps, mental health changes such as depression, a stroke, sudden vision changes, unusual vaginal discharge, or liver issues. 

Addressing Side Effects or Unexpected Symptoms

Sometimes, we just need someone to talk to if we aren’t sure where our symptoms fall on the scale from mild to severe. It can be helpful to talk to others experiencing the same condition as you, such as support groups for menopause, as some people there may have advice on how to live with the side effects, but if you would like guidance from a fertility expert, there is always the Mira Hormone Health Clinic for Fertility. Our professionals are focused on helping you balance your hormones, your body, and can point you in the right direction should you need to see your general practitioner.

Frequently Asked Questions