Surviving The Night With Good Blood Sugar

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Since starting back up on a RP inspired diet, I simply can't beat this demon. Diet these days is fairly high fat (But focused on keeping PUFA low and SFA high, dropped fats a little recently at some peoples' suggestions here and now focusing on super low PUFA fats as much as I can like coconut oil, MCT oil but still having a little butter and beef fat and some cheese now and then), high sugar mostly in form of fruit, some skim milk, some OJ / maple syrup, zero starch and moderate protein.

This is the story of my life:

Wake up, feel like crap, hit up some sugar and maybe some coffee, usually manage to get my temps back up from the gutter to 98.6+, that's not too much an issue. I can manage to usually maintain my temps most of the day not too problematic, though I don't manage to feel energetic until close to bed time, which makes me not want to go to bed (although usually I'm good about forcing myself to). (Though however that certainly doesn't help my hours of sleep, thankfully I can wake up fairly late for work though).

Anyway, no matter what I do with supplements or food, I can not seem to get my waking temps to be good (or waking energy, for that matter). I am tired of being tired as they say. I've tried manipulating caffeine intake (reducing, changing time of day), tried aspirin / vitamin C /vitamin E, tribulus terrestris / pregnenolone, DHEA, Iodine, gelatin, magnesium, vitamin K2 MK7, selenium, generous salt intake, vitamin D to name a few. Always eat a good amount before bed. 300W incandescent light when at home. Incline bed therapy, nearly zero EMF in room (shut down breakers, no wi-fi ever in house, etc etc). Cold, dark room sleep environment (though not too cold to be uncomfortable). Always eat something when I wake up in the middle of the night (usually 3-4 hrs after going to bed), saturated fats, sugar, salt, protein. The only somewhat success I've had was eating a LOT (1000-1500 calories) after waking up 3-4 hrs after going to bed, problem is that I'm already quite overweight and that doesn't help with the body weight...

The thing is that despite my blood sugar problems, if it wasn't for night time / needing to sleep, I actually could probably heal my hypothyroid because its easy to keep blood sugar regulated when you can eat something at a moments' notice. I don't understand why TT or DHEA doesn't help my sleep. Everything I have read seems to imply poor sleep quality means bad DHEA, so it should help but really doesn't much.

Night time literally reverses my metabolism healing every night, without fail. I repeat the vicious cycle of Turn metabolism on -> screw up metabolism every night -> turn back on. So I've been spinning my wheels. I really sincerely believe that until I can fix my sleep quality, I'm not gonna heal. Simple as that. But how to do it??

Some how I need to break the cycle and bring my waking temperatures to 98.6F EVERY MORNING without fail. But I can't seem to do it. Actually its been getting worse lately not just stalling which really concerns me. For a while I was able to get 98-98.3F most mornings. Now I'm lucky to get 97.8.

The only thing I can figure is that my blood sugar completely goes to ZERO in just 4 hrs of sleeping, which may explain why I have to eat like 1000-1500 calories. But I don't understand, shouldn't energy expenditure go down while sleeping? 1500 calories in 4 hrs is insane, that would be 1500x6 = 9000 calories in a full day if you extrapolated!! A normal person shouldn't need 1500 calories on top of a 1000-1500 calorie dinner just to get through the night. The only other somewhat success I've ever gotten are when I can sleep in to 12+ hrs but that's not normal or doable during the work week. When I think further back I've almost always been that way though. For a while I did basically a "warrior diet" where I only ate one meal (dinner) which was a massive 3000-4000 calorie dinner and that was actually the best deep sleep I ever remember getting because I would immediately pass out for 8-10 hrs straight no problems whatsoever after that lol. My ability to hold glucose more than 4-6 hours has never been good in any point in my life that I can recall honestly except for that scenario.
 
Last edited:

tankasnowgod

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,131
Some how I need to break the cycle and bring my waking temperatures to 98.6F EVERY MORNING without fail. But I can't seem to do it. Actually its been getting worse lately not just stalling which really concerns me. For a while I was able to get 98-98.3F most mornings. Now I'm lucky to get 97.8.

The only thing I can figure is that my blood sugar completely goes to ZERO in just 4 hrs of sleeping, which may explain why I have to eat like 1000-1500 calories. But I don't understand, shouldn't energy expenditure go down while sleeping? 1500 calories in 4 hrs is insane, that would be 1500x6 = 9000 calories in a full day if you extrapolated!! A normal person shouldn't need 1500 calories on top of a 1000-1500 calorie dinner just to get through the night. The only other somewhat success I've ever gotten are when I can sleep in to 12+ hrs but that's not normal or doable during the work week.

Well, your blood sugar is not going to ZERO. Otherwise, you would be dead.

Have you read Peat and Broda Barnes? Most of the time, 97.8 waking temperature or higher is considered really good. It usually takes movement or eating something to warm up. Waking temp near 99 is usually thought to be running on adenaline.

IBT can keep your waking temps closer to that 98.6 ideal, as it prevents the nighttime drop in temperature that "normally" happens at 2-3am.

You also say you tried everything, but you didn't list the number one thing Ray Peat recommends in regards to metabolism- thyroid hormone.

Lastly, if you think that blood sugar regulation is an issue, I think a full iron panel (with ferritin) can be really useful. I noticed a dramatic improvement in bloth blood sugar control and energy when getting de-ironed, and this is in line with studies that have looked into this.
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Cirion
Couple notes that may help or may not:

- that one 300w bulb light set up leaves a lot to be desired... I personally have 2000watts of light in my room and it’s a game changer. Ray mentioned that incandescents can stop stress processes as well as sunlight but that people seldom use lights that are bright enough. Mentioned a 1500w light set up as being a vary powerful tool... saying that a few minutes exposure to that every hour might be more effective than one strong light bulb used continuously for hours.

- I don’t think sleeping in a dark room is ideal. Sleep protects against the catabolic effects of darkness but complete darkness is still problematic in my opinion. I keep 400 Watts on far away from my bed up against the other wall, wouldn’t have it any other way and I went through a year long period of sleeping in pitch black darkness. “Just 15 mins of darkness is enough to lower the efficiency of mitochondrial respiration.” If you wanna implement this idea you can start small and you really don’t need 400ws but that’s what works for me. 130v is recommended because they give off more redlight. Using a “redlight only” product might be useful for this situation but they’ve never agreed with me.

- on a related note I don’t know if your still trying to sleep 10 plus hours but I just don’t think that’s very helpful. Metabolism is always suppressed during sleep. The fact that your sleeping in complete darkness makes this even more problematic. It’s very hard to get “rested” when hypo but I don’t think the answer is more sleep (rays never recommended that ever). When I was hypo as long as I got my 8-8.5 hours in I’d get up put my redlight on and have a big meal and if all goes well an hour later Id be feeling “rested”.
Edit :
“ a few
seconds’ exposure to the direct light of ten 150 Watt incandescent
bulbs, for just a few minutes every two or three hours, might
provide more effective protection than continuous exposure to a
single 100 Watt light.”- ray peat
 
OP
Cirion

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
@tankasnowgod
Haha true, you know what I meant in regards to blood sugar :p Just a figure of speech. I guess what I meant to say, is that my liver ran out, and adrenaline was secreted to make more glucose, which also woke me up.

I'm aware that 97.8 is supposed to be OK but I don't buy it personally. Why? Because the only time I EVER feel even remotely good waking up - one thing is ALWAYS a constant, and that's waking temp is at least 98.2-98.4F. I have literally never, not once, felt good unless my temp was at least 98.2 waking up. I also don't buy it because you should feel good virtually right as soon as you wake up (I've actually had this once or twice, and I can verify that its not stress hormones, because I feel good the whole day afterwards as well. If it was stress hormones I'd crash after breakfast, which I don't in this case).

Don't you always wake up with 98.6F? You've mentioned as much in your inclined bed therapy thread. Yes, I mentioned that I'm trying IBT, but I don't think it's doing all that much for me honestly. It doesn't seem to prevent the temperature drop for me at all honestly.

I did actually order thyroid that @tca300 had recommended in another thread, but I've only tried one small dose so far, admittedly. I'm wary of it because I'd like to heal my thyroid on its own rather than be dependent the rest of my life on it. But I guess if it works, it works, and maybe its necessary for the short term and can wean off it eventually. Do you take it not just in the morning but also at night? If you take it at night won't it keep you awake?
 
OP
Cirion

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
@ilikecats interesting thoughts, thanks, that's some gold suggestions there. Approximately what temperature do you keep your room at? I have been doing 60-65F lately.

What exactly does your room set up look like. 100-400W bulbs are not standard, obviously, so you can't just plug 10 of them into the ceiling lights you already have, so what's the set up look like without looking too wonky? I just have like $15 brooder lamps from amazon, but its tricky to get them set up since they have to clamp to something just right.

I have long pondered the idea of sleeping with the light on, so that's interesting that you do it. Don't you have problems getting to and staying asleep like that? It makes sense though, I'm well aware of darkness + stress for sure. Perhaps its because darkness makes it easy to go to sleep that is actually ironically damaging and unhealthy? In that, yes darkness helps you get to sleep, but that's only because darkness also lowers your metabolism, and causes torpor/hibernation which of course would induce sleep, but not in a good way. As most of us here probably know, torpor is opposite of GABA.

To clarify, usually when I'm sleeping 10-12+ hours, I don't do that straight without food. I don't think sleeping that long is bad IF you make sure to get some quality foods somewhere in the middle of all that. What will happen often is during the weekend when I have no responsibility, I'll wake up after 8-9 hr or so, eat some breakfast / have some tea or coffee etc, get my temp up to 99F, and find that I'm sleepy at this point, and go back to bed for 2-4 more hrs, wake up and temp is still at least 98.4, and feel great waking up the second go around, leading me to believe it was good quality sleep so I don't see that as all that harmful.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes after 8 hours of sleeping I feel so torporific that I decide not to even get out of bed and just fall back asleep for 2+ more hr and almost without fail feel even worse waking up again. In that case agree 100%, and its because I failed to eat to bring my blood sugar up, and it just dropped further.

This leads me further to believe that if you feel sleepy with a 99+F temperature that's actually a GOOD thing. This means your GABA is probably high, and sleeping at this point will result in quality sleep (This tends to hold true for me, I feel WAY more rested when I'm sleepy at 99F temp than if I'm sleepy at 98F). Feeling tired at 97-98F means your torpor hormones are high and this is NOT good. If my theory is correct, this verifies what Nate Hatch says that healthy sleep actually requires a HIGH metabolism (99+F).
 
Last edited:
T

tca300

Guest
@Cirion Often using thyroid isn't necessary consistently long term, just a temporary intervention to break the stress cycle, get things healed and or running properly, as well as occasional use during high stress and or winter time. Its good to experiment to see if it excites you or causes fatigue, which can determine how close to bed its taken. A good quality NDT or using T3 during the day and then a T3 T4 combination closer to bed is what seems to work best for most people.

Thyroid is supposed to maximize energy derived from food down the energetic pathway, vs energy waisting, meaning less food goes further in regards to energizing you, as well as increasing your livers ability to store carbohydrate and get you through the night.

" Increased body temperature improves sleep, especially the deep slow wave sleep. A hot bath, or even warming the feet, has the same effect as thyroid in improving sleep. Salty and sugary foods taken at bedtime, or during the night, help to improve the quality and duration of sleep. Both salt and sugar lower the adrenalin level, and both tend to raise the body temperature.
Hypothyroidism tends to cause the blood and other body fluids to be deficient in both sodium and glucose. Consuming salty carbohydrate foods momentarily makes up to some extent for the thyroid deficiency. " Thyroid, insomnia, and the insanities: Commonalities in disease

“Good sleep requires fairly vigorous metabolism and a normal body temperature. In old age, the metabolic rate is decreased, and sleep becomes defective.” Ray Peat

“Since glucose and salt are used to treat shock (intravenous 7.5% salt solutions are effective), it seems appropriate to use carbohydrate (preferably sugar, rather than starch) and salty foods during the night, to minimize the stress reaction. They lower adrenalin and cortisol, and help to maintain the volume and fluidity of blood. Thyroid, to maintain adequate carbon dioxide, is often all it takes to improve the blood levels of salt, glucose, and adrenalin.” Ray Peat

“The metabolic rhythm should correspond to the light-dark rhythm, because darkness is a basic biological stress, and sleep is protective against the stress of darkness. Since TSH has many maladaptive effects, and rises along with prolactin and cortisol during the night, some thyroid taken at bedtime helps to reduce the stress, moderating the TSH rise while keeping the blood sugar from falling too fast. Ice cream (i.e., sugar and fat with a little protein) at bedtime has a similar effect, reducing the rise of adrenaline, cortisol, etc., with the result that the morning cortisol peak will be lower, preferably below the middle of the common range, and then it should decline in the afternoon.” Ray Peat
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Cirion i have a standing fixture thats basically holds 3 different light bulbs, I put 3 150w light bulbs in there. i have 2 brooder lamps clamped to a rail like fixture in my room. I have 3 60 watt bulbs in my over head lights. I have another fixture identical to the one I mentioned earlier with 350 watts of light in it, a corner lamp with a 200 watt light bulb in it, and then 3 brooder lamps sans clamps that Ill have resting on various surfaces which is 600 w (200 a piece) total. So its actually 2180 watts total. I don't have a problem getting to sleep or staying asleep and yes darkness promotes sleep (torpor esque sleep) via the raising of melatonin and serotonin. As soon as its significantly dark cortisol starts to rise and thats definitely not helping anyones sleep. There might be an minor adaptation period but you can start slow if you're interested. There also might not. Being well fed is certainly a good thing but in my opinion all factors need to be addressed and in place if you really wanna improve your health. I can be well fed but if I'm in a poorly lit space for 2 hours I'm usually gonna see a minor decline in my physiological state. But thats while I'm awake, like i said sleep protects against the catabolic effects of darkness but its still problematic. 10-12 hours of darkness seems like it has the potential to be very problematic.

The stars need to be aligned for me to level up to a greater physiological state so align them I do.
 
OP
Cirion

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Lots of excellent well thought posts. Thanks to all who contributed. I now have some new things to try that should help. I will report back later

I believe a few more pieces of the puzzle have come together for me after reading some of these comments.
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Cirion just saw your comment about your room temperature... I think that’s way to low man why on earth do you keep it that low? Cold is a stressor and it’s one of the most damaging stressors, it raises Adrenaline and suppresses the thyroid. I keep my room at at least 70... it’s usually more like 75 when I’m sleeping due to the accumulated heat from the lights during the day.
 

tankasnowgod

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,131
@tankasnowgod
Haha true, you know what I meant in regards to blood sugar :p Just a figure of speech. I guess what I meant to say, is that my liver ran out, and adrenaline was secreted to make more glucose, which also woke me up.

I'm aware that 97.8 is supposed to be OK but I don't buy it personally. Why? Because the only time I EVER feel even remotely good waking up - one thing is ALWAYS a constant, and that's waking temp is at least 98.2-98.4F. I have literally never, not once, felt good unless my temp was at least 98.2 waking up. I also don't buy it because you should feel good virtually right as soon as you wake up (I've actually had this once or twice, and I can verify that its not stress hormones, because I feel good the whole day afterwards as well. If it was stress hormones I'd crash after breakfast, which I don't in this case).

Don't you always wake up with 98.6F? You've mentioned as much in your inclined bed therapy thread. Yes, I mentioned that I'm trying IBT, but I don't think it's doing all that much for me honestly. It doesn't seem to prevent the temperature drop for me at all honestly.

I did actually order thyroid that @tca300 had recommended in another thread, but I've only tried one small dose so far, admittedly. I'm wary of it because I'd like to heal my thyroid on its own rather than be dependent the rest of my life on it. But I guess if it works, it works, and maybe its necessary for the short term and can wean off it eventually. Do you take it not just in the morning but also at night? If you take it at night won't it keep you awake?

I haven't measured my waking temp in a while, but since starting IBT, every time I measured, it was 98.6. Felt really good, more awake. Since it's winter, I did up my thyroid dose, but all in all, still waking up feeling really good.

TCA3000 mentioned it, and thyroid does not always have to be taken for life. That's often what is said in the mainstream, but there are many examples of people discontinuing it. Peat has mentioned people who literally only needed to use it a couple of days. There have also been studies where people have been on thyroid for many years, discontinue it, and have their thyroids back up to a normal level. So it is not necessarily a lifetime thing. You may only need it for a month or two this winter.

By the way, when you say "I'm not gonna heal," what are you referring to?
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Cirion

Ray mentioning hibernation when he talks about the effects of a cold environment. Goes back to the whole restful sleep vs torpor thing. Possibly relevant: Oral temps are not necessarily indicative of the temperature of the skin and various tissues. If your sleeping at 60 degrees Id bet good money that parts of your body are dropping to very sub optimal temperatures. Cold feet produce various inflammatory substances and keeping them warm is highly beneficial even if thyroid hormone output isn’t being increased. Ray often talks about the benefits of various outer stimuli that warm the body.
 

tankasnowgod

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,131
@Cirion- I don’t think sleeping in a dark room is ideal. Sleep protects against the catabolic effects of darkness but complete darkness is still problematic in my opinion. I keep 400 Watts on far away from my bed up against the other wall, wouldn’t have it any other way and I went through a year long period of sleeping in pitch black darkness. “Just 15 mins of darkness is enough to lower the efficiency of mitochondrial respiration.” If you wanna implement this idea you can start small and you really don’t need 400ws but that’s what works for me. 130v is recommended because they give off more redlight. Using a “redlight only” product might be useful for this situation but they’ve never agreed with me.

- on a related note I don’t know if your still trying to sleep 10 plus hours but I just don’t think that’s very helpful. Metabolism is always suppressed during sleep. The fact that your sleeping in complete darkness makes this even more problematic. It’s very hard to get “rested” when hypo but I don’t think the answer is more sleep (rays never recommended that ever). When I was hypo as long as I got my 8-8.5 hours in I’d get up put my redlight on and have a big meal and if all goes well an hour later Id be feeling “rested”.

Piggybacking on some of these ideas...... I currently use "blackout shades" in my bedroom..... but didn't used to. Both in my current and former apartment, I used to sleep fine with just normal blinds, and fair amount of light coming in from the outside. What changed? Energy efficient bulbs outside. When those changes happened, I suddenly could not sleep through the night. Suddenly, a lot more blue light was flooding in.

I've noticed when I've slept in other places. Even concentrated blue light, like a few leds from a cable box, could wreck a night of sleep. But, an orange/green/red alarm clock numbers? No issue.

I certainly don't think that sleeping in a completely dark room is necessary. I think I might have even slept better with a bit of light coming in from outside if it was from incandescents, or that color pattern. I do think that excess blue light can completely wreck sleep, however.
 
OP
Cirion

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
@Cirion A hot bath, or even warming the feet, has the same effect as thyroid in improving sleep. Salty and sugary foods taken at bedtime, or during the night, help to improve the quality and duration of sleep. Both salt and sugar lower the adrenalin level, and both tend to raise the body temperature.

“Good sleep requires fairly vigorous metabolism and a normal body temperature. In old age, the metabolic rate is decreased, and sleep becomes defective.” Ray Peat

Excellent, this basically proves my hypothesis. Interesting that "a hot bath has the same effect as thyroid in improving sleep".

@Cirion just saw your comment about your room temperature... I think that’s way to low man why on earth do you keep it that low? Cold is a stressor and it’s one of the most damaging stressors, it raises Adrenaline and suppresses the thyroid. I keep my room at at least 70... it’s usually more like 75 when I’m sleeping due to the accumulated heat from the lights during the day.

Good to know. I historically bring it low because it does help me get to sleep and stay asleep. But now I realize maybe that's because I'm used to falling asleep via the stress method.

By the way, when you say "I'm not gonna heal," what are you referring to?

As in, not fix my metabolism or correct my weight gain problems, energy problems, etc etc.

@Cirion

Ray mentioning hibernation when he talks about the effects of a cold environment. Goes back to the whole restful sleep vs torpor thing. Possibly relevant: Oral temps are not necessarily indicative of the temperature of the skin and various tissues. If your sleeping at 60 degrees Id bet good money that parts of your body are dropping to very sub optimal temperatures. Cold feet produce various inflammatory substances and keeping them warm is highly beneficial even if thyroid hormone output isn’t being increased. Ray often talks about the benefits of various outer stimuli that warm the body.


Makes sense, goes back into Wilson's temperature therapy suggestions also. Wilson is also big on temperature and doing what you can to bring it up to 98.6+ even if it means "Cheating" and taking hot showers/baths etc. I also always try to dress warm especially now that its winter.

Piggybacking on some of these ideas...... I currently use "blackout shades" in my bedroom..... but didn't used to. Both in my current and former apartment, I used to sleep fine with just normal blinds, and fair amount of light coming in from the outside. What changed? Energy efficient bulbs outside. When those changes happened, I suddenly could not sleep through the night. Suddenly, a lot more blue light was flooding in.

I've noticed when I've slept in other places. Even concentrated blue light, like a few leds from a cable box, could wreck a night of sleep. But, an orange/green/red alarm clock numbers? No issue.

I certainly don't think that sleeping in a completely dark room is necessary. I think I might have even slept better with a bit of light coming in from outside if it was from incandescents, or that color pattern. I do think that excess blue light can completely wreck sleep, however.

Yeah I use blackout blinds too but I'm gonna put more incandescant lighting with @ilikecats suggestion, so no blue light because I'm blocking all that but getting the red light from the incadescents.

BTW a note too for anyone using CPAP machines - do not keep the CPAP machine near you (6+ ft away) and do NOT use the heated hoses. I now realize why I never used to get restful sleep EVER when using my CPAP machine and its because the machine itself emits powerful magnetic fields and electrical fields, and most CPAP machines nowadays come with a heated hose that puts out 100 times the recommended night time electrical field right on your face due to the internal electrical wiring in it. This came to mind because I noted that historically my machine put me to sleep VERY easily, but now I realize its because (at least for me) a symptom of high EMF exposure is powerful torpor. That on top of a cold dark room = insane stress. No wonder my sleep has been bad. Nicolas Pineault in his EMF book also noted this with RF field exposure - being exposed to RF all night will make you wake up feeling drugged. I've since eliminated virtually all EMF including magnetic, electrical, RF, and even dirty electricity from my sleeping environment. The only thing I have not necessarily eliminated (As its hard to test for) is geophysical stress (this isn't talked about or appreciated much, but basically this is disturbances in the earth's EMF field that can occur sometimes, and sometimes just moving your bed can get you out of this disturbance).
 
Last edited:

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Cirion “Anyone who is willing to sleep while wearing a CPAP is being terribly misled.” Ray Peat PhD -more food for thought

Sleep Apnea, Hyperventilation & Hypothyroidism - East West Healing

CPAP Compliance

CPAP seems inherently damaging.... seems like it must produce a state of hyperventilation a la heavy mouth breathing.... thats going to directly tank CO2 levels...

“The end product of respiration is carbon dioxide, and it is an essential component of the life process. The ability to produce and retain enough carbon dioxide is as important for longevity as the ability to conserve enough heat to allow chemical reactions to occur as needed."- Ray Peat
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@tankasnowgod yeah I use a blackout shade on my window plus the incandescents. I do that to block the blue light from street lamps but also to block sunlight coming in in the morning. If you wake with the sun it's fine but I think the sunlight coming through the window in the morning sends signals promoting wakefullness which end up harming sleep quality if you're gonna sleep through the sun rise like I often do. Most of the evidence that people use as reasons for sleeping in pitch black darkness are the melatonin increase and increased growth hormone secretion, not good stuff. @Cirion incandescents give off a little bit of blue light (if they didn't the light color would be red ) but it shouldn't be problematic but it is something to keep in mind. Once again the 130v lightbulbs give off more redlight than the 120v ones.
 
Last edited:

charlie

Admin
The Law & Order Admin
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
14,359
Location
USA
Have you tried grounding?
 

Whichway?

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
485
I wouldn’t be eating anything after waking up in the middle of the night. You say you are consuming 1,500 calories sometimes. Most people need 2 hours for their digestion to work properly before they lie down to sleep as your digestion slows once you are sleeping. So you may not be digesting all that food you are having mid sleep. It may be feeding the bacteria in your guts. It might also be giving you silent reflux and making you toss and turn, so that the last four hours of your sleep is not restful, hence you wake up exhausted.

It’s ok to get up and have some water. Maybe read for a while, or do some walking meditation, or relaxation exercises to get you back off to sleep.
 

tankasnowgod

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,131
@tankasnowgod yeah I use a blackout shade on my window plus the incandescents. I do that to block the blue light from street lamps but also to block sunlight coming in in the morning. If you wake with the sun it's fine but I think the sunlight coming through the window in the morning sends signals promoting wakefullness which end up harming sleep quality if you're gonna sleep through the sun rise like I often do. Most of the evidence that people use as reasons for sleeping in pitch black darkness are the melatonin increase and increased growth hormone secretion, not good stuff. @Cirion incandescents give off a little bit of blue light (if they didn't the light color would be red ) but it shouldn't be problematic but it is something to keep in mind. Once again the 130v lightbulbs give off more redlight than the 120v ones.

Very cool. I'm still a bit taken aback you can sleep with 400 watts of light in a room. Although, at the same time, I think the idea of sleeping in "complete darkness" is likely wrong as well. I remember Peat talking about the damaging effect of darkness, and how sleep was actually a defense against it. At the same time.... I can see how working up to that might also be beneficial.

Just looked up the 130v lights, and some of the standard comments certainly go to what you say, things like "I didn't think it would be so yellow." Great stuff for our purposes. Beyond using just red and infrared or standard incandecents, another idea might be to get some yellow/amber lights, more like a buglight. Maybe a buglight or two along with an IR illuminator?
 
OP
Cirion

Cirion

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
3,731
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Have you tried grounding?

Yes, I use a grounding mat on my bed have been for a couple months now.

I wouldn’t be eating anything after waking up in the middle of the night. You say you are consuming 1,500 calories sometimes. Most people need 2 hours for their digestion to work properly before they lie down to sleep as your digestion slows once you are sleeping. So you may not be digesting all that food you are having mid sleep. It may be feeding the bacteria in your guts. It might also be giving you silent reflux and making you toss and turn, so that the last four hours of your sleep is not restful, hence you wake up exhausted.

It’s ok to get up and have some water. Maybe read for a while, or do some walking meditation, or relaxation exercises to get you back off to sleep.

Kinda hard not to eat that the hunger is so intense that it gives you insomnia, not really a choice.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom