Beyond Fans and Flexible Working: How to help employees thrive through menopause

Menopause has gone from being a never-mentioned workplace ‘secret’ to front page news and employers are expected to take note, understand and make provision. Writing ‘Menopause-friendly’ into a mission statement osn’t enough: female employees will have the right to ask their employers to recognise and accommodate their needs.

Employers are making adjustments - to ventilation, uniforms, working practices. These help employees to cope, and feel supported, but don’t alleviate the challenges of the hormonal maelstrom of peri-menopause. What if employers offered their staff a support-system that really helped through this period of their lives? As a boost to welfare and morale, it could benefit the organisation in terms of staff retention, efficiency and teamwork. We think that we can help make a fundamental difference that benefits both staff and their employer.          

With so much talk around menopause involving hot flashes, fans and flexible hours it might surprise you to learn that the biggest issue relating to menopause is fatigue, closely followed by insomnia. Other symptoms such as poor memory. anxiety and headaches are closely associated with poor sleep. Improve sleep, and  you improve these too, and are likely to have better morale and decision-making and less absenteeism and “presenteeism”.   

This is what real peri menopausal women tell us at Zeez Sleep:

“I’m waking up to six times a night. I am not rested and it affects my mood and activities”

“I am desperate, doing everything I can; good sleep hygiene, no tech in the bedroom, light in the morning, exercising, eating well but I feel there is nowhere for me to turn”

Women are 40% more likely than men to face insomnia. The US Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) reports that the prevalence of sleep disorders increases with age, ranging from 16% to 42% in premenopausal women, from 39% to 47% in perimenopausal women, and from 35% to 60% in postmenopausal women Why? It’s down to the effects that perimenopause and menopause impose on the brain and body, that of diminishing hormones, including sleep-inducing hormones.

For too long, women have soldiered on through menopause while feeling lonely and exhausted. For too many, menopause has had a profoundly negative impact on wellbeing, career and pension expectations. 

According the the Fawcett Society, 

“one in ten women who worked during their menopause left a job due to their symptoms, with almost 30% taking time off work as a result, 22% of whom were away for over a month.”

That is a huge cost to the individual and their employer..  The expense of a replacement, the loss of key skills and experience, the  anxiety..The cost of the menopause on the country’s economy is estimated to be £10 billion, and the cost of poor sleep generally is around £40 billion (2016 estimate).

It’s enough to keep you awake at night.

We want to change things. There are simple steps that employers can take, and individuals can adopt, that will help women feel less alone and support their sleep. We can help, 

My company, Zeez Sleep, has developed a unique sleep device called the  Zeez Sleep Pebble.  It gently copies the brain frequencies of a “good sleeper” in a timed sequence over four sleep cycles and prompts a natural sleep pattern in a majority of users. Our biggest user group is perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.  Amongst this group, we have a success rate of around 80% - 90%. It isn’t always quick – hormonal challenges means that it takes longer for these women to respond to the Zeez Sleep Pebble than others, but when our device is used as intended, the results can be extraordinary. See Marianne’s story below. We are still a small company, and many of our sales so far have been through word of mouth to individuals, (as well as through the Gadget Show and Breaking Taboos series on Women;s Health). We are ready to do more - to help employers to support their  female employees to sleep better and have a better experience of their menopause.

We can work with employers and their HR departments to ensure that employees have good Information on how nutrition, daylight, exercise and sleep can help with menopause symptoms, and have access to practical support, including our sleep tech.  The Zeez Sleep Pebble has helped hundreds of peri and menopausal women to sleep better. We would love employers to offer the Zeez Pebble to their employees.  We would also like to run a few trials with businesses. Email us if you are interested in a trial, or want to know more about the Zeez or our sleep services.

This is Marianne, who was a high-earning, highly successful executive, until menopause when –

“Sleep issues started”. She reduced her work but her sleep patterns just got shorter and more fragmented. “I felt lucky if I was achieving three hours of sleep twice a week. More often, I was sleeping one hour a night and sometimes not at all. I was desperate, trying not to become addicted to sleeping meds, a danger on the roads and I felt helpless and depressed.

“The first night with Zeez, I felt relaxed and drifted off for a few hours. The second night I slept longer and entered deep sleep. The third night I slept six hours. It was wonderful to wake up feeling my brain had rested. On a bad night I now sleep six hours with some waking. On a good night, eight hours without waking. I feel like the Zeez has saved my sanity.”

Contact Zeez for talks, trials, and courses on sleep and to buy or rent the Zeez Sleep Pebble. Info@zeez.org.uk