Food and Sleep
Hi All, I am still experimenting on this subject too. So many factors come into
play with sleep - how much exercise/work you have done, mood, interpersonal
relations that day etc. i do think that when I have been steady on a good O
diet and have eaten a good balance of carbs that it is best for me to fast
overnight. However, over the xmas season, my diet has been less than ideal and
the blood sugar regulation is not as good at the moment hence the need for food
at night…and waking up.
So back to a cleaner, better diet and very soon blood sugar should be good
again.
In reply to Axel…and Karen…
Blended walnuts - want to try…do you grind them in a coffee grinder? or what?
then you soak for 4 hours? or soak and then blend in what machine?
Soporific effect - please describe…mellow? or ?
Axel: You must have missed ALL of my posts! I was being humorous… Good luck
with
the walnuts… I hear they have a soporific effect! That and almonds….
I’ve found the soporific effect of almonds to be enhanced with the live
soak, then blended to release the enzymes (a form of predigestion as
breaking the meat apart releases the enzymes, like mastication) and then
left in that broken, blended state for several hours to “mature”. I don’t
know exactly WHY almonds are so much more soporific after this, other than
that maybe their energetic properties are more pronounced as they progress
along the digestive process even faster when blended and left at room
temperature for several hours…
Also, it
is not good to eat much food three hours before bed time, gastric digestion
interferes with sleep! If you have unsteady blood-sugar levels the best
thing to do would be to pursue the O diet, low-carb is THE solution for the
hypoglycemic whiplash-effect from carbs… Meat too stimulating? I’ll write
more below! Anyway, it sounds like the hypoglycemia might be the case,
sometimes by your admission.
Shouldn’t enough food in a day be enough to allow you to sleep on time? I
know how you feel, sometimes have the same problem, got better after
abstaining from food three hours before scheduled bed time.
Ann: I agree but it needs to be a good balance and enough calories
More below!
Karen, you are a secretor so it is different for you but I found that although
oatmeal was very helpful to me for sleeping..after about 3 days I would start to
feel brain fog and a toxic feeling from the gluten. Also it certainly adds to
weight very quickly for me. I also tried oatbran and although it says it has a
fair number of calories on the box, in fact it does not because in the body
those calories are not usuable because they are fiber. I am told that the
calories are determoined by burning the substance and seeing the amount of heat
produced but this is not always an accurate measure because of what happens in
the body.
Hey hey! You’re not the first person to find that the real world in your own
body doesn’t agree with what is written in a book! I think carbs are a good
way to get those serotonin levels up for the sleepiness, but being an
ultra-healthy dude I’ve found even a bowl of rice at 7pm doesn’t get me
unconscious by 10pm, I suppose if you like melatonin or have found melatonin
to be ineffective on the regular O meats and fats thang you might be able to
make good use of melatonin after a high-carb dinner… it works much better
for me (not just talking to you Maskell).
Ann: I have learned a lot about Melatonin lately. I did the Sleep Check from NAP
and had sky high melatonin results and then had conversations with a fellow at
NAP and then at Great Smokies and several other people. What I learned is that
Melatonin will not work if you do not have a melatonin deficiency. There are
only so many receptors. I have never experienced any effect from Melatonin. One
reason for my levels being so high were from 5 HTP, a precursor to serotonin.
As for meat’s stimulating
properties… who would have thunk just eating the right kinds of foods
could result in having TOO much energy!
Ann: Axel, you might want to do a little reading on the balance of the
neurotransmitters and brain chemistry. I have a book that describes that
serotonin and dopamine are on opposite ends of a balance beam, a teeter totter
if you will. So when you eat proteins, you reduce your serotonin levels that
calm you and you increase your dopamine levels that give you get up and go ie
energy. Vice versa for eating carbs. Very interesting and complicated subject.
Now, when it comes to sleep… you can have all sorts of tryptophan in your
blood stream from having eaten turkey and other (usually) protein sources but
tryptophan is the runt of the litter and cannot cross the blood brain barrier
without the transport of carbs or an insulin response. So just taking turkey
broth is only half of the story.
As a vegetarian I couldn’t get
enough energy… easy to go to sleep on the high carb diet. Salmon, sounds
good, fish aren’t nearly as stimulating as RED MEAT (smack! smack!). Why
haven’t you mentioned turkey?!? Gotta go for the big bird baby! Ever try
REAL turkey stock? Very healthy. All REAL stocks are terrific, joachim’s
posted on this many times (he knows his stuff). I have had turkey stocks
that simply PUT ME OUT! I mean knocked out cold. Good way to go, very easily
digestible, very healthy and healing, good for knocking yourself out. In
fact, now that I think about the quickly assimilable stocks and turkey’s
soporific effect turkey stock seems like a terrific pre-sleep meal. With
stock I’d be comfortable having an hour or hour and a half before sleep
instead of the 2.5-3 hour time seperation between solid foods and bed time.
Of course, if your really hungry no rule is going to keep a person from
eating, going to bed hungry isn’t fun and I find it practically impossible
anyway.
Tryptophan is not sold to the public in America (damn fuckers!)
anymore but you can make a kick-ass turkey stock! That’s probably better
anyway.
Ann: Tryptophan is sold here in Canada by prescription and my doctor was willing
to prescribe it for me a couple of years ago. However, it has some problems and
does not always work. It is a precursor for serotonin but sometinmes converts to
something else in the liver. It also requires that you take it with straight
carbs before bedtime - something that is sure to add on the lbs for some of us.
5 HTP or Griffonia is, I believe, available and is one step up - immediate
precursor. It does not need the carb carrier and has other advantages. See
Michael Murray’s book on 5 HTP. My experience with 5 HTP and indeed with
tryptophan is that they are great when you are calm but when I am stressed they
add to the stress because they stimulate cortisol production as well as the
serotonin. So just when i need 5HTP the most for sleeping problems, it has the
opposite effect on me. I tried it also on my DD and she says the same thing. She
is an A and i Know Dr D does not recommend it for A’s because of the cortisol
productions.
I hope not many Os out there regularly have oatmeal or any other
gluten-containing grains… now that I know I’m a secretor I’m even more
leery of freakin’ gluten. I’m supposed to be in the 80% camp who can
tolerate it better and have a neutral relationship with almost all gluten
grains… I have a lot of experience being on a high-compliant BTD and I
know that the gluten is NO good, even for secretors… and oatmeal is
particularly bad for people who wish to lose weight, it’s in CR4YT… of
course, if you’re not “pure” enough you probably can’t tell, but the
fucked-up feeling from the gluten is unmistakeable. A few of those Kavli rye
crisps I can handle, some manna bread (that stuff is the exception because
of the sprouting process) but that’s about it, otherwise I can feel the
distension and sluggishness of my intestines.
Ann: I’m a nonnie and really cannot tolerate gluten. Even manna bread. I do use
a few Ryvita several times a week and that seems OK. Gotta eat something!
Just a few thoughts on what I have discovered…Would like to know more!
Happy New Year to All, Ann