Cortisol and circadian rhythm

pyttsan

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Joined
Jun 5, 2013
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42
I've been P-eating for almost five months now and although my health has gotten better in many ways, I'm starting to wonder if my problems now are rather because of a lack of stress hormones.

During the day I feel all tired and sluggish and then later in the evening/at night I seem to get a high cortisol response (feeling alert, vasodilation, extremities getting warm etc) - the result being very poor sleep and need of hypnotics. In fact poor sleep seem to be my biggest problem right now, for example I tried a heavy dose of Xanax one night and I woke up feeling more refreshed than ever.

I've always had messed up circadian rhythm and the only thing that ever helped was ramping up cortisol and catecholamines during the day, done by staying active, working out and getting light exposure early in the morning, using stimulants and eating a paleoish/primal diet. Now, this created a bunch of problems so I won't go back to that.

However, I wonder if I should try to change my eating pattern, for example by consuming most of my protein in the morning and most of my carbs later at night.
I guess ramping up my metabolism even further during the night might help, but what I'm doing right now barely helps at all (before bed I take some cytomel and cynomel, have some milk with salt and gelatin before bed and let some incandescent lamps shine on my feet).

Anyone has got any ideas?? :|
 

pboy

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Jan 22, 2013
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1,681
its a good idea to have a good amount of carbohydrate rather early in the day to refill liver glycogen after sleep, or after a long period without food, but then throughout the rest of the day you can just take measures to preserve that glygogen basically by not letting yourself get hungry...that way when you're fixing to go to sleep, your liver is still well stocked. I don't think theres any problem eating late or anytime, except that it might change when you'll have to have a bowel movement the next day and it may come at an inopportune time such as when youre working in the middle of the day. I'd say try to finish most of what you're gonna eat before its dark, but if you are still hungry at that point, go for simple easy to digest things like strained fruit juice. Don't let yourself become 'weak', even if you have to adjust according to your days schedule, such as napping or eating after dark, its usually better than being depleted. It becomes sort of an art once you get used to it. Ideally we'd all finish a large satisfying meal right as its getting dark, sleep a couple hours later, wake soon before it gets sunny...have a bowel movement, then begin eating again right when the sun comes up again, and peridocally throughout the day, and have a second bowel movement sometime before dark
 

readforjoy

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Jul 5, 2013
Messages
42
What helped me (I tested low on cortisol during the day and high at night) was pregnenolone. And Cytomel. I take 50 mg pregnenolone in the morning and again early afternoon. Sometimes I take an additional 10-30 mg late afternoon or early evening if sluggish. I eat carbs throughout the day and make sure I have some sugar right before bed. If I wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep, I'll take some more sugar and that helps. I'm on 15 mcg slow-release T3, too. I just started progesterone at night, and that is helping me sleep deeper, too. Hope you find something that helps.
 

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