20 days in, still not sleeping

[rebbeca]

I'm 20 days into this Whole30 and still not sleeping through the night! I wake up every morning between 2 and 3am for hours at a time. When I finally do fall back asleep it is incredibly difficult to wake up in the morning (like right now...). I go to bed usually between 9:30 and 10pm. I try to spend a little time reading before I go to bed if I can stay up long enough to do it. I never have trouble falling asleep, in fact I struggle to stay awake until 10pm. Before Whole30 I was sleeping through the night until 5/5:30 without any problems. There's no new stress lately, in fact there's a lot less as the school year is now over. I eat dinner at 6pm every night, finish by 6:30 and only have water or the occasional cup of chamomile tea after that. Here's a link to my food log:

http://forum.whole30.com/topic/37105-rebbecas-whole30-log/page-2#entry398978

Any thoughts? Maybe this is completely unrelated to food and the Whole30 but so many people report improved sleep as a major NSV during their Whole30 and it's just not happening for me.

[Tom Denham]

I wake up every night to use the toilet, but fall asleep again within minutes. I am curious about what is going on with you when you are awake during the night. Are you hungry, hot, cold, tired, energetic? Are you thinking about things? Are you reading, planning, looking at your smart phone, etc? Good sleep hygiene calls for staying quiet, keeping the room dark and cool, and avoiding anything that could be stimulative - reading, watching videos, etc. 

 

I would be waking up hungry if I were eating similar to you. It is difficult to eat enough salad to make a meal genuinely filling. And it seems that you tend to eat small servings of most things except fruit. You eat a lot of fruit, larabars, and nuts. You're not saying you wake up hungry, so maybe that is not the issue, but I think you would be well served to increase the amount of protein you eat at each meal, eat more cooked veggies, and limit fruit to one or two fist-sized servings per day. Also, it would help to avoid larabars and nuts altoghether. Both are hard on digestion and larabars are supposed to be emergency food only. 

 

I find that eating a fist-size serving of starchy veggies at dinner helps me sleep. Another help is drinking a mug of bone broth before bed. Lately I have been drinking beef collagen and not making bone broth, but either one is helpful. The glycine helps. 

[Karen_Suep]

Your meals are also light on fat which helps with satiety

[rebbeca]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not waking up hungry but that doesn't mean I can't work to improve my meals. I agree there was definitely a lot of fruit this past week - I didn't want it to go bad! I'll be limiting what I buy this week. There were beautiful NJ blueberries at the farmer's market this morning that we could not say no to but I think I'll keep it to that. My mind is definitely pre occupied when I wake at night. I'm going to try a pre bed yoga practice tonight to try and calm everything down. Had a great day 20 that involved a nice long bike ride while pulling the 3 year old in the bike trailer. Hopefully I'm worn out enough to from that to sleep well tonight. Thanks again!

[jmcbn]

You might want to also have a read at >this article< on sleep hygiene (parts 1 & 2) to try & improve sleep...

[annc3333]

I have the exact same profile.  (Also an educator!!)  I'm post menopausal so my sleep is iffy anyway, but every single time I cut back on carbs or calories within two or three days I start waking up at 2am and staying awake for hours.  I got quite sick last Feb when I continued with the healthy sensible diet I was following (around 120 carbs/1500 calories) because of the severe insomnia I experienced.  After ten weeks I was in way worse shape physically than when I started because I couldn't get any sleep.  

 

5 hours of sleep + lower calories +working 10 hour days at full speed = exhaustion and physical breakdown.  It was stupid but I was determined to keep the good start to the diet going. (This wasn't an official Whole 30 since the point was to lose weight, which I didn't by the way).

 

After seeing a naturopath to help with sleep and energy and not getting anywhere, I went to my regular doctor and got sleep medication.  What an incredibly difference in my life to get a full 7 hours night after night.  I felt like a completely new person.  Now that summer is here I am off all the meds as I don't have to work 10 hour days.  However, I started on another Whole 30 type eating plan and wouldn't you know I woke up at 2 am and stayed awake to 4:30!  Very frustrating.  I've read that when your adrenal system is already stressed out that sleep can get very disrupted easily.   For me it is clearly about the number of calories and the number of carbs.  

 

Here's an interesting read from someone else with the same issues:

 

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread57032.html

 

Ann C.