Middle Of The Night Awakening

[natalie]

Hi all!

This is my first time posting here, and I am also new to Peat's stuff, but it seems like many of you have/do suffer from similar issues - so I thought I would give it a try.

Basically, I have a long history of an eating disorder. I went from anorexia to binge eating disorder, and cycled between restriction/starvation and overeating for many years. Fortunately, I found someone who helped me get over the mental part of it, so that I could develop a normal relationship with food, and my body and mind began to heal.

-constipation cured
-less PMS
-better skin
-fuller hair
-more stable mood

The changes have been gradual, but I am grateful for them. They really opened my eyes to how healing eating ENOUGH food is and how absolutely terrible and damaging underrating/dieting can be.

At this point, I feel pretty healthy. However, I still suffer some issues that I am hoping to get some light on. My main issue is that I have daily nighttime awakenings. I wake up once or twice a night (used to be way more when I was doing lots of cardio), and need to eat something to get back to bed. I have learned to put up with this but my sleep is never really deep and restful because of these surges (adrenaline, I think). However, even with this, my energy is actually awesome during the day. My hunger is okay- I don't really feel very hungry but I push myself to have two big meals a day and a snack in between. I tend to get really hungry for dinner but don't really feel it up until then.

Now- this is the weird part. When I go on vacation (I did last week), my body COMPLETELY shifts 180. I went to New Orleans last week and from day one, I slept through the night. 7 out of 8 nights I had the deepest sleep I have had all year. And like 10 hours of it. However, I also had no energy during the day. All I wanted to do was nap. I could barely walk a few blocks, let alone stay out at night. I drank caffeine (which I normally don't), and it didn't affect my energy or sleep at all.

Some things that were different were that I ate 3 meals a day (an early breakfast), I ate more calories, more carbs than normal and sugar. However, this started from DAY 1.

It does signal to me that maybe I need to eat more in my normal life- but I feel like it is more than that. Also, I don't want to have to feel like a zombie all the time to sleep. The day I got home, I didn't sleep well that night. It is like my body has these two modes. Either I am energetic but not sleeping well, or feeling dead and sleeping fanstastic. Truthfully, I prefer the night awakenings with my normal daytime energy--but I don't know if going on this way is healthy. I would love great sleep and great daytime energy. I think it is possible.

Thank you in advance for your advice!!

 

[Queequeg]

This came up recently in another thread. Glycine has a positive effect on sleep quality. I think 1-2 grams before bed. RP recommends milk with sugar in it. Glad you've come so far in your health journey.

 

[Queequeg]

Oversleeping

 

[InChristAlone]

In your case it seems like on vacation all stresses/anxieties get shut off and you feel you can relax again. Also where you are is it winter? New Orleans probably gets more sunlight than more northern states. I have a similar experience when I come down off stress hormones I feel sleepy. I am now able to sleep longer but I don't have the energy levels I did while high on cortisol/adrenaline.

 

[natalie]

I live in NY. Yes, it totally makes sense. I wonder how to get into the non-stress mode when I am living my normal life- which isn't very stressful. I seem to suffer these issues all year round, even when we get plenty of sunshine. How did you get off the adrenaline? Did it feel very bad at first?

 

[InChristAlone]

I don't mind the sleepy feeling from not running on adrenaline. It should go away once you've recovered some energy. Peat likes to say that with good thyroid function you are able to nap. It is hard to say all the ways to reduce adrenaline, it is basically the major fight or flight hormone so anything that calms down fears/anxieties works like meditation.

 

[Peaterpeater]

Nathalie, I think I may have experienced something similar to you when traveling. I've noticed sleeping better after going on a long haul overnight flight. I always wondered if going on an airplane (I'm assuming you took a flight to New Orleans) helped the body retain more CO2 due to the higher altitude thus breaking the stress cascade (at least temporarily) allowing your body to reset and come out of the stress cycle. I believe airplanes have a set cabin pressure around 5000 feet altitude (please correct me if I'm wrong) which is much much higher than where I live. This is just a theory that I've come up with recently to try to explain why I generally sleep more and feel more normal after flying. I and am seriously wondering if living at a high altitude might help me. I too feel energized during the day when I sleep poorly....I must be running on stress hormones.