It’s the summer break. You’ve been waiting for so long! Now that you’ve time to rest and destress your peri/menopause symptoms are going to improve!

Except they don’t. Your sleep’s all over the place. You’re forgetting things left right and centre. Maybe you’re still a little grumpy — which is hardly surprising if your sleep’s messed up.

One of the things that term time has going for it is routines.

Routines mean we can do on auto-pilot and we have less to remember.

Now, we’re remembering a whole load of different things. Plane times. Packing. Organising kids around their various activities. Remembering where everyone is supposed to be! At least in term time you mostly know that!

I’m going to suggest something horrifying. Not only do you need to create new routines really fast, you need to stick to some of your old ones — especially as regards sleep.

Deep breath. I’d recommend you carry on getting up at the same time — for most of the time. If you are going to let it slip only do so for by an hour — and move it back during the last week of the break so you can get back into your old routine.

If you need more sleep try to do it by going to bed early rather than sleeping in late. Allow yourself a night off when you need a really good night out — and then push everything back into it’s normal time. Try disco naps when you have to stay out late — but don’t have too many afternoon naps as they can really affect your sleep at night.

What are the routines from term time that still work in holidays?

For example if surviving term time meant making sandwiches and prepping the slow cooker the night before, it might turn out to be easier to keep on doing that, rather than having to work out how to feed everyone in a completely different way.

After that look at all the things that are stable during the course of the holidays. Can you have the same routines in the morning? At night? At dinner time? Build as many habits as you can.

Let’s be honest here, if you were someone who really hated structure, you wouldn’t have thrived schools for so long. It’s just that you’ve had enough of that particular structure for a while. So getting rid of structure altogether might not be the easiest way for you to rest and recuperate.

What if you created a structure around your recovery needs? Do yoga before breakfast. Plan in a good walk twice a week. Sit down and read for 30 minutes before you go to bed. Create a film night. Calendar in your time with your friends.

The best thing is that you can keep this structure spongy. There are gaps in between to be spontaneous. You’re not forced to stick to it rigidly. You don’t have to stay in any particularly place until 3.30! You can change your mind if it’s not working for you. You can shift things round if someone invites you to do something fun!

You still have a sense of structure. You can still set goals. You can still make lists. Just fill them with the things that fill your soul!