HELP!!!! INSOMNIA

[D17wn]

Hi guys and gals. 

Yesterday was day 1 of my second W30. Last night I had absolutely zero sleep.  I had to stop my first whole 30 three weeks in in June this year because of the same thing.. insomnia! I am not even tired. Like, at all. Actually i feel completely WIRED. My diet wasn't really too bad before...little sugar, no caffiene at all for years, but maybe a bit carb-heavy. 

I have several chronic illnesses, all of which are exacerbated by a lack of sleep. I REALLY want to do the whole 30 days this time, so am desperate for any ideas (btw my sleep hygiene is good) 

I am going to have potato with my evening meal to see if the carbs help, but other than that, searches are throwing up nothing...

PLEASE HELP!!! 

[ladyshanny]

Hunh, that is unusual, actually. Some level of disrupted sleep is an issue for some people in the first couple of weeks (on my first W30 it took 14 days for my sleep to normalize) but three weeks seems a bit long.

What is your sleep like when you aren't on Whole30? What are your sleep habits normally like? Bedtime routine? Blue light avoidance, dark room, earplugs etc? Do you normally have nighttime disruptions? If so, what are they? Although you say you avoid sugar and caffeine normally, what is the rest of your diet like? Do you eat three meals a day, the first within an hour of waking? Are you doing that during Whole30? You could also give us a rundown on a couple of typical days of consumption including portion sizes related to the template and meal timing. Include fluids, exercise, stress etc.

People sometimes think that sleep is so natural that they don't have to work at it, but in this day and age of rising before the sun and staying up late, being on computers and devices all day, no napping etc, sometimes we have to teach ourselves how to sleep properly again. I've linked a couple really excellent articles below, have a read through.

http://whole9life.com/2014/09/improve-your-sleep/

http://whole9life.com/2014/09/improve-sleep-quality/

[ShannonM816]

You might check out this article:  https://whole30.com/2015/12/whole30-sleep/

You say your sleep hygiene is good, but how about the rest of your day -- do you eat within an hour of waking up? Get outside into the sunshine sometime early in the day? Get some moderate exercise each day? Have you tried meditation or yoga or gentle stretches before bed?

Is this something where your brain just doesn't seem to shut off and you can't stop thinking about stuff? If it's that, I sometimes find journaling before bed helpful -- kind of a mind dump, I just write what I've done that day, what I'm thinking about, anything that comes to mind. Just for a few minutes, it doesn't have to be a huge amount of writing.