Please Help! Keep Waking Up After 6 Hours Of Sleep - Poor Glucose Metabolism-related Insomnia?

[KyleKingsly]

Having some serious sleep issues I could really use help with, I wrote a much larger thread detailing all my problems and the background that I think caused them here: Insomnia, Weight Gain, Stress, Extreme Hunger - Please Help! but no one ever commented on it sadly. So to make things easier for y'all and to hopefully get some good suggestions this time I'm going to try to be brief. In terms of background just keep in mind that I've gained around 50 lbs of fat in the past year from a combination of a pretty bad diet, a ton of stress from phenibut withdrawal and PAWS, and insulin resistance getting worse and worse over time (I'm decidedly pre-diabetic now with an A1C of 5.9%).

One thing that's absolutely destroying my life rn is my frequent inability to stay asleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at night. I keep waking up after that time with a sort of false hunger, with my stomach growling, a feeling of high cortisol, norepinephrine, or adrenaline (not quite sure which one but my guess would be probably cortisol or perhaps norep.), and overall feeling decidedly cold and weak.

I'm fairly certain these issues are related to my insulin resistance/inability to metabolize glucose properly because it's not quite a feeling of true hunger like I get when I try to eat a caloric deficit to lose weight. It's more of a feeling like my body is lacking energy even though my stomach feels fine mostly and my appetite isn't that noticeable.

I seem to be able to avoid these issues sometimes by eating a ton throughout the day so that I feel warm and sleepy after dinner, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get to that point. I seem to be needing more and more food to feel satisfied, but whenever I try to reduce how much I eat, I feel really stressed and unfocused and definitely will wake up after not enough sleep, sometimes after only 4 or 5 hours. It seems to be a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse whether I eat a surplus or a deficit of calories.

I don't think changing my diet around is going to help enough at this point and would really like to know what the very strongest, but yet still fairly safe, substances/supplements/herbs that could help me stay asleep and improve my insulin resistance/glucose metabolism without making me too much hungrier are.

The two main things I'm considering rn are:

1. Berberine - seems incredibly promising given its ability to replicate the effects of metformin on insulin sensitivity and activating ampk without a lot of the side effects. However, I'm not sure it's super peaty as it seems to reduce mitochondrial efficiency and also inhibits lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase (which I believe is a bad thing?). On the other hand, I really haven't seen many clear cut ways of losing fat that actually have worked for a lot of people on here, so I really don't know how to improve my sleep and stop gaining weight without resorting to methods that aren't perfectly peaty.
2. Pyrucet - this is the more peaty option for sure, though I can't quite figure out if this would actually be good for someone in a pretty unhealthy state like me. I listened to the danny roddy podcast on the bioenergetic view of weight loss and it all sounds great in theory, though I definitely don't understand everything discussed fully. I've seen a lot of talk about reducing FFAs and lipolysis and increasing sugar metabolism for weight loss and reversing insulin resistance, and as far as I can tell, pyrucet should be one of the best ways to do this by far. However, it also seems to increase hunger and sugar needs a lot and I'm not sure if it would be the best option for me given that I'm already struggling with hunger and sugar issues.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, as there's so much conflicting info on here that I haven't been able to figure out a clear path forwards yet. Thanks in advance :)

 

[charlie]

Berberine - seems incredibly promising given its ability to replicate the effects of metformin on insulin sensitivity and activating ampk without a lot of the side effects. However, I'm not sure it's super peaty as it seems to reduce mitochondrial efficiency and also inhibits lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase (which I believe is a bad thing?). On the other hand, I really haven't seen many clear cut ways of losing fat that actually have worked for a lot of people on here, so I really don't know how to improve my sleep and stop gaining weight without resorting to methods that aren't perfectly peaty.

Anything that acts like metformin I am gonna run the other way as fast as possible.

Starches wreck my sleep. Being replete in b-vitamins makes for deep sleep.

 

[Cirion]

I've started sleeping in colder rooms again. I used to be in optimal health and did this religiously, only to stop because of fear mongering from here that this would tank my body temps. Not so. In fact, your body wants to be cold(er) during the night to preserve metabolic energy for things more important like cellular regeneration/turnover. If you keep the room too hot your body presumably can't properly drop your temperature to the degree it wants, which makes you expend excessive energy, thus run out of glucose sooner thus fragmented sleep and hunger. Already last few nights doing this I sleep 2-3+ more hrs before waking up at all. I still haven't fixed my own sleep, but I seem to be moving things in the right direction now.

And ^^ b vitamins too should hopefully help. Choline, caffeine, anything that helps the liver should help. I actually eat 2 lbs of potatoes (so lots of starch) soon before bed with seemingly no ill effect. I used to think starch was the problem because for a while I would sleep only 2-3 hrs and wake up but this hasn't seemingly been happening since I started B vitamin supplements / sleeping colder.

Also, I religiously do epsom salt + baking soda bath before bed always now as well.

 

[redsun]

Having some serious sleep issues I could really use help with, I wrote a much larger thread detailing all my problems and the background that I think caused them here: Insomnia, Weight Gain, Stress, Extreme Hunger - Please Help! but no one ever commented on it sadly. So to make things easier for y'all and to hopefully get some good suggestions this time I'm going to try to be brief. In terms of background just keep in mind that I've gained around 50 lbs of fat in the past year from a combination of a pretty bad diet, a ton of stress from phenibut withdrawal and PAWS, and insulin resistance getting worse and worse over time (I'm decidedly pre-diabetic now with an A1C of 5.9%).

One thing that's absolutely destroying my life rn is my frequent inability to stay asleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at night. I keep waking up after that time with a sort of false hunger, with my stomach growling, a feeling of high cortisol, norepinephrine, or adrenaline (not quite sure which one but my guess would be probably cortisol or perhaps norep.), and overall feeling decidedly cold and weak.

I'm fairly certain these issues are related to my insulin resistance/inability to metabolize glucose properly because it's not quite a feeling of true hunger like I get when I try to eat a caloric deficit to lose weight. It's more of a feeling like my body is lacking energy even though my stomach feels fine mostly and my appetite isn't that noticeable.

I seem to be able to avoid these issues sometimes by eating a ton throughout the day so that I feel warm and sleepy after dinner, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get to that point. I seem to be needing more and more food to feel satisfied, but whenever I try to reduce how much I eat, I feel really stressed and unfocused and definitely will wake up after not enough sleep, sometimes after only 4 or 5 hours. It seems to be a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse whether I eat a surplus or a deficit of calories.

I don't think changing my diet around is going to help enough at this point and would really like to know what the very strongest, but yet still fairly safe, substances/supplements/herbs that could help me stay asleep and improve my insulin resistance/glucose metabolism without making me too much hungrier are.

The two main things I'm considering rn are:

1. Berberine - seems incredibly promising given its ability to replicate the effects of metformin on insulin sensitivity and activating ampk without a lot of the side effects. However, I'm not sure it's super peaty as it seems to reduce mitochondrial efficiency and also inhibits lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase (which I believe is a bad thing?). On the other hand, I really haven't seen many clear cut ways of losing fat that actually have worked for a lot of people on here, so I really don't know how to improve my sleep and stop gaining weight without resorting to methods that aren't perfectly peaty.
2. Pyrucet - this is the more peaty option for sure, though I can't quite figure out if this would actually be good for someone in a pretty unhealthy state like me. I listened to the danny roddy podcast on the bioenergetic view of weight loss and it all sounds great in theory, though I definitely don't understand everything discussed fully. I've seen a lot of talk about reducing FFAs and lipolysis and increasing sugar metabolism for weight loss and reversing insulin resistance, and as far as I can tell, pyrucet should be one of the best ways to do this by far. However, it also seems to increase hunger and sugar needs a lot and I'm not sure if it would be the best option for me given that I'm already struggling with hunger and sugar issues.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, as there's so much conflicting info on here that I haven't been able to figure out a clear path forwards yet. Thanks in advance :)

Increasing GABA and reducing noradrenaline and cortisol can help with sleep. P5P, zinc, glycine, magnesium. All these reduce excitement caused by estrogen and noradrenaline and increase GABA activity and will help sleep and help you stay asleep.

 

[nbznj]

+ 1 here for B vitamins and more magnesium

Black rice, buckwheat, spinach... loaded with Mg

 

[charlie]

+ 1 here for B vitamins and more magnesium

Definitely magnesium with the B's. Good call.

 

[Kartoffel]

Having some serious sleep issues I could really use help with, I wrote a much larger thread detailing all my problems and the background that I think caused them here: Insomnia, Weight Gain, Stress, Extreme Hunger - Please Help! but no one ever commented on it sadly. So to make things easier for y'all and to hopefully get some good suggestions this time I'm going to try to be brief. In terms of background just keep in mind that I've gained around 50 lbs of fat in the past year from a combination of a pretty bad diet, a ton of stress from phenibut withdrawal and PAWS, and insulin resistance getting worse and worse over time (I'm decidedly pre-diabetic now with an A1C of 5.9%).

One thing that's absolutely destroying my life rn is my frequent inability to stay asleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at night. I keep waking up after that time with a sort of false hunger, with my stomach growling, a feeling of high cortisol, norepinephrine, or adrenaline (not quite sure which one but my guess would be probably cortisol or perhaps norep.), and overall feeling decidedly cold and weak.

I'm fairly certain these issues are related to my insulin resistance/inability to metabolize glucose properly because it's not quite a feeling of true hunger like I get when I try to eat a caloric deficit to lose weight. It's more of a feeling like my body is lacking energy even though my stomach feels fine mostly and my appetite isn't that noticeable.

I seem to be able to avoid these issues sometimes by eating a ton throughout the day so that I feel warm and sleepy after dinner, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get to that point. I seem to be needing more and more food to feel satisfied, but whenever I try to reduce how much I eat, I feel really stressed and unfocused and definitely will wake up after not enough sleep, sometimes after only 4 or 5 hours. It seems to be a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse whether I eat a surplus or a deficit of calories.

I don't think changing my diet around is going to help enough at this point and would really like to know what the very strongest, but yet still fairly safe, substances/supplements/herbs that could help me stay asleep and improve my insulin resistance/glucose metabolism without making me too much hungrier are.

The two main things I'm considering rn are:

1. Berberine - seems incredibly promising given its ability to replicate the effects of metformin on insulin sensitivity and activating ampk without a lot of the side effects. However, I'm not sure it's super peaty as it seems to reduce mitochondrial efficiency and also inhibits lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase (which I believe is a bad thing?). On the other hand, I really haven't seen many clear cut ways of losing fat that actually have worked for a lot of people on here, so I really don't know how to improve my sleep and stop gaining weight without resorting to methods that aren't perfectly peaty.
2. Pyrucet - this is the more peaty option for sure, though I can't quite figure out if this would actually be good for someone in a pretty unhealthy state like me. I listened to the danny roddy podcast on the bioenergetic view of weight loss and it all sounds great in theory, though I definitely don't understand everything discussed fully. I've seen a lot of talk about reducing FFAs and lipolysis and increasing sugar metabolism for weight loss and reversing insulin resistance, and as far as I can tell, pyrucet should be one of the best ways to do this by far. However, it also seems to increase hunger and sugar needs a lot and I'm not sure if it would be the best option for me given that I'm already struggling with hunger and sugar issues.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, as there's so much conflicting info on here that I haven't been able to figure out a clear path forwards yet. Thanks in advance :)

What are your blood sugar levels like? Do you tend to have hypoglycemia? Whats your fasting blood glucose in the morning?

 

[somuch4food]

I get that same type of hunger many nights a week and I find it matches the state of my gut.

There are foods that irritate my guts and I need to be careful about. They are mainly some colorful fruits and vegetables (high carotenoids) and high oxalates foods.

I have found some strategies that help mitigate those issues. Even though avoiding irritating my gut is the best solution, sometimes I make mistakes (I'm still figuring out what's safe and what's not) and need to find other means to improve my sleep.

I second B vitamins and magnesium. I've also found relief with peppermint tea and a hot bath with baking soda pr Epsom salt.

 

[KyleKingsly]

Anything that acts like metformin I am gonna run the other way as fast as possible.

Starches wreck my sleep. Being replete in b-vitamins makes for deep sleep.

Ok, I reread the threads here on metformin (which should apply just as well to berberine) and it seems like it leads to lactate buildup ( I guess through its lactate dehydrogenase inhibition) and also inhibits gluconeogenesis by activating ampk, both of which seem to be very bad things for metabolism tho I don't really understand them well. I guess even in my current state of bad insulin resistance and continually increasing weight they will not be a good idea?

As far as I can tell, it seems like metformin and berberine act in a manner complete opposite to pyruvate as seen here: Berberine Reduces Pyruvate-driven Hepatic Glucose Production by Limiting Mitochondrial Import of Pyruvate through Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier 1. So could @haidut 's pyrucet be the best solution to my issues? All the science behind the randyll cycle is a bit above me but it seems like my body can't use the sugar I'm providing it properly so maybe pyrucet would be just what I need? I saw that one person mentioned it shifted their metabolism from diabetic to oxidative.

As I mentioned before, I am concerned about the increased hunger and sugar needs from it, I'm not sure if that would stress me even further since I'm already eating so much and still not often feeling satisfied or properly fueled afterwards.

I appreciate the b vitamin suggestion but I don't think they'll be strong enough to do too much for me. I really can only afford to get one supplement for around $35 rn as I'm very broke for the moment so I'd like to get the very strongest stuff available to help my condition. I do have a bottle of energin lying around that I'd forgotten about so based on your suggestion I will try using it tho!

 

[KyleKingsly]

I've started sleeping in colder rooms again. I used to be in optimal health and did this religiously, only to stop because of fear mongering from here that this would tank my body temps. Not so. In fact, your body wants to be cold(er) during the night to preserve metabolic energy for things more important like cellular regeneration/turnover. If you keep the room too hot your body presumably can't properly drop your temperature to the degree it wants, which makes you expend excessive energy, thus run out of glucose sooner thus fragmented sleep and hunger. Already last few nights doing this I sleep 2-3+ more hrs before waking up at all. I still haven't fixed my own sleep, but I seem to be moving things in the right direction now.

And ^^ b vitamins too should hopefully help. Choline, caffeine, anything that helps the liver should help. I actually eat 2 lbs of potatoes (so lots of starch) soon before bed with seemingly no ill effect. I used to think starch was the problem because for a while I would sleep only 2-3 hrs and wake up but this hasn't seemingly been happening since I started B vitamin supplements / sleeping colder.

Also, I religiously do epsom salt + baking soda bath before bed always now as well.

I really wish I could sleep in a colder environment but I'm stuck at home rn until I can find a job (which is made much more difficult given how distracting my metabolic issues, insulin resistance, and poor sleep are). My parents limit control of the A/C somewhat strictly to save money but yes being in a cold environment is very healthy for sleep, I like to set the thermometer to 68 degrees year round when I have control of it and use heavy blankets as necessary.

I'm trying energin again, hopefully it helps! I just started taking tudca for my liver, my enzymes are within the normal range but I do suspect I might have some degree of subclinical fatty liver since my ALT is right on the edge of the healthy range at 46 and my AST is 22.

Increasing GABA and reducing noradrenaline and cortisol can help with sleep. P5P, zinc, glycine, magnesium. All these reduce excitement caused by estrogen and noradrenaline and increase GABA activity and will help sleep and help you stay asleep.

+ 1 here for B vitamins and more magnesium

Black rice, buckwheat, spinach... loaded with Mg

I get that same type of hunger many nights a week and I find it matches the state of my gut.

There are foods that irritate my guts and I need to be careful about. They are mainly some colorful fruits and vegetables (high carotenoids) and high oxalates foods.

I have found some strategies that help mitigate those issues. Even though avoiding irritating my gut is the best solution, sometimes I make mistakes (I'm still figuring out what's safe and what's not) and need to find other means to improve my sleep.

I second B vitamins and magnesium. I've also found relief with peppermint tea and a hot bath with baking soda pr Epsom salt.

My gut is decidedly a bit messed up, I have runny stools almost every morning. Since the phenibut withdrawal and post acute withdrawal symptom I think my endogenous opioid system got messed up (I also have anhedonia which tends to be associated with opioid system dysfunction) which is leading to IBS symptoms. I'm hoping tudca will help with that somewhat.

I really appreciate these suggestions, as I mentioned above though, I'm really looking for the very strongest supplement that might help me, I don't think stuff like b vitamins, magnesium, or zinc will be really noticeable enough for me and I can't afford to get a lot of basic things that might not be strong enough. I completely agree that these are all great suggestions (magnesium worked decently for sleep in the past before I started getting serious sleep issues) and I'd definitely buy them if I had more money but I have basically no income right now unfortunately. What do y'all think about pyrucet?

 

[KyleKingsly]

What are your blood sugar levels like? Do you tend to have hypoglycemia? Whats your fasting blood glucose in the morning?

I wish I had hypoglycemia still, I did almost every day for a couple months last summer when I would skip breakfast and have an insufficient lunch at work (probably didn't get enough carbs in overall either), unfortunately I did not really recognize that until the end of the summer. So that was the beginning of me messing up my metabolism I think. I tried to repair my metabolism by eating a lot more carbs after that, but I also started drinking huel and other meal replacement shakes in the morning basically every morning at college. I was trying to get enough calories in to avoid hypoglycemia but I think I started having too many calories that way because they wouldn't really fill me up much at all and I so ended up eating a ton of food throughout the rest of the day as well, almost as if I hadn't had any breakfast at all.

Since last fall, my blood sugar has been slowly getting worse and worse in the past year, as I said I'm pre-diabetic now partially due to genetics and partially to a bad diet and serious chronic stress over the last 6 months. Fasting glucose was 90 in March, now it went up to 106 a couple weeks ago!! I need to fix my insulin resistance asap before I become diabetic! Do you think pyrucet could help or what is the very strongest supplement you would suggest if not that to help my condition?

 

[Kartoffel]

I don't think a fasting glucose level of 106 is something to seriously worry about. It is slightly elevated but not indicative of an irreversible problem, and in some cases slightly elevated blood sugar can be very beneficial. Thiamine and thyroid would probably be the safest and most effective solutions. Taking one grain of thyroid can bring blood sugar down 30+ points within just 15 minutes. Avoiding any gut irritation and endotoxemia is probably the most effective way, but it is not always easy and straightforward to do that.

Have you done an OGTT, or postprandial measurements yourself?

 

[KyleKingsly]

I don't think a fasting glucose level of 106 is something to seriously worry about. It is slightly elevated but not indicative of an irreversible problem, and in some cases slightly elevated blood sugar can be very beneficial. Thiamine and thyroid would probably be the safest and most effective solutions. Taking one grain of thyroid can bring blood sugar down 30+ points within just 15 minutes. Avoiding any gut irritation and endotoxemia is probably the most effective way, but it is not always easy and straightforward to do that.

Have you done an OGTT, or postprandial measurements yourself?

Well as I said I also have an A1C of 5.9% which is decidedly in the realm of pre-diabetes, plus I have a serious family history of diabetes as well so I'd say I should be seriously worried. Especially given that my A1C has risen 0.2% over the last 3 months - at this rate I'll be diabetic within a few years. I also got a complete thyroid panel and all the numbers were well within range, even had a slightly high free t3 measure at 4.5 . I don't want to suppress my endogenous thyroid production since I'm so young (only 22). I am trying to take thiamine regularly now thru energin, the only problem is I keep forgetting to before it's too late haha. Yeah I know it's really important to protect the gut, I'm trying to do that as best I can but it is a bit difficult since I'm at home and eat what my family is eating sometimes.

No, I haven't done an OGTT or any glucose measurements myself. I do have a blood glucose monitor that I got from my doctor but I've heard the testing strips are expensive. I will say that if I eat too way many carbs, especially fast carbs at once, I'll get a blood sugar headache and get really tired and out of it for a couple hours, followed by a crash. Fortunately it's still difficult for me to that point but it's scary because I've never dealt with that until recently.

I still think berberine will be a great aid for me to improve my insulin resistance, I made a thread about in the supplements section of "ask for help".

 

[Vinny]

Well as I said I also have an A1C of 5.9% which is decidedly in the realm of pre-diabetes, plus I have a serious family history of diabetes as well so I'd say I should be seriously worried. Especially given that my A1C has risen 0.2% over the last 3 months - at this rate I'll be diabetic within a few years. I also got a complete thyroid panel and all the numbers were well within range, even had a slightly high free t3 measure at 4.5 . I don't want to suppress my endogenous thyroid production since I'm so young (only 22). I am trying to take thiamine regularly now thru energin, the only problem is I keep forgetting to before it's too late haha. Yeah I know it's really important to protect the gut, I'm trying to do that as best I can but it is a bit difficult since I'm at home and eat what my family is eating sometimes.

No, I haven't done an OGTT or any glucose measurements myself. I do have a blood glucose monitor that I got from my doctor but I've heard the testing strips are expensive. I will say that if I eat too way many carbs, especially fast carbs at once, I'll get a blood sugar headache and get really tired and out of it for a couple hours, followed by a crash. Fortunately it's still difficult for me to that point but it's scary because I've never dealt with that until recently.

I still think berberine will be a great aid for me to improve my insulin resistance, I made a thread about in the supplements section of "ask for help".

How are you doing, dude?