The Grandmother Hypothesis and Why We Wake In The Night
Have you ever wondered why, even without hot flashes or night sweats, you find yourself waking every couple of hours during the menopause transition?
If it happens to you, know you’re not alone, nothing is wrong with you, and maybe everything is just as it should be.
This sleeping pattern has its roots deeply ingrained in our biology.
Our biology has deep roots in evolution and the survival instincts.
Where does this idea come from?
It is known as the Grandmother Hypothesis, which was first formally proposed by anthropologist Kristen Hawkes and her colleagues in the 1990s. Their research on the Hadza people in Tanzania showed that post-menopausal women played a crucial role in foraging and caring for grandchildren.
The theory suggests that human evolution favored women who lived well past their reproductive years because they contributed to the survival of the group.
By supporting younger generations, cooking, gathering, and tending the grandchildren, the grandmothers increased the chances that their genes (and their community) would thrive.
But what if you don’t have children?
It doesn’t matter. This pattern isn’t only about your circumstances.
You carry an ancestral imprint, a role that belongs to you simply by being a mature woman. The body does not distinguish between individual biographies and collective evolutionary memories.
Why is this relevant to your sleep?
Think about it: if your role in the ancestral group was to be a night watchwoman, alert to any rustle, animal threat, any child’s cry, it made sense that your sleep would lighten as you aged. Waking easily was a form of protection.
Evolution doesn’t change its patterns in a single generation.
Our physiology is not separate from our history.
The anatomy supports the physiology, and the physiology supports the evolutionary function: the survival and cohesion of the group.
Hormones like progesterone are so often framed simply as a “deficiency” decline for a reason. This shift isn’t random.
The drop in progesterone and the resulting lighter sleep are part of a larger design: to keep you responsive, available, and aware.
Just as in late pregnancy, when the body begins to prepare for waking to tend to the newborn, the menopause transition reawakens this ancient vigilance.
Nothing is wrong with you, and it’s not just being Menopausal…
Your nervous system is doing precisely what it was shaped to do: watch over the circle, stay attuned, stay responsive.
Of course, in our modern world, this protective pattern can be tagged as insomnia and leave us exhausted. But knowing its evolutionary roots can bring self-compassion and sometimes a bit of humor to the long nights.
You are the living thread that connects generations.
You are the “grandmother in the making”; whether or not you have children or grandchildren, you are an important link in the chain of our society.
Knowledge is power.