Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun
Ada Calhoun is an American journalist, and this book came out in 2020. In her early forties she found herself lying awake worrying about money, work, her body and the future, and she wanted to know whether other women her age felt the same. She interviewed more than 200 Gen X women, born roughly between 1965 and 1980, and mixed their stories with research and her own experience.
What she found was a lot of women who were doing everything they'd been told to do and still felt exhausted and anxious. She looks at financial pressure, caring for children and ageing parents at the same time, perimenopause, and the gap between what these women expected from life and what they got. She uses the term ambiguous loss for that hard-to-name grief. It's very American in its details, and some reviewers felt the generational argument is stretched, and that her advice at the end is fairly modest. Even so, many women say it made them feel less alone.
How it connects to my work:
I see many women in midlife who come to me about sleep, anxiety or feeling overwhelmed, and they often think it's a personal failing. This book is a reminder that much of that load comes from real circumstances. Hypnotherapy can help with the racing thoughts at 3am and with learning to switch off, but it helps to understand the bigger picture too. If sleep problems are new or ongoing, or you think perimenopause might be involved, it's worth talking to your GP as well.
Why you might enjoy it:
If you're a woman in your forties or fifties who has wondered why everything feels so hard right now, you may recognise yourself in these pages.
Have you read it? Did it ring true for you? I'd love to hear in the comments.
Want to read more?
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