Thursday, September 3, 2015

hot flashes and circadian rhythms part 2

so far so good with my new way to get a better sleep. to review 1. at least 20 grams or more of protein and low/no carb breakfast within half an hour of waking even if i am not hungry. 2. verilux light box first thing in the morning 3. as much outside morning light movement as i can get, even if it's just a 10 minute walk and wait for the train. 4. try to get outside at lunch to get sun 5. another high protein/low carb lunch, eating until satisfied and not worrying about calories as much as food quality and high protein/low carb content. 6. trying to have a lowER stress day, including being more organized and patient with myself. 7. blue blockers on at 8 pm 8. to bed around 9 pm with comfortable pillow and sleep mask and 70 degrees AC. i have a situation now where i have too much night light coming in to my bedroom, so i need a sleep mask, which gets uncomfortable. when i don't need AC, i will move to a room that has better light blocking curtains so i won't need the sleep mask. 9. metformin 500 mg for my hyperglycemia at 12 noon(not officially diabetic, but i have the genes for it). any later and i will wake up at night to use the bathroom instead of right when i want to wake up. 10. relaxing white noise at night. right now i am looking for a way to see the time at night which doesn't involve a lot of light. maybe those old kinds of clocks with the faintly glow in the dark numbers and hands. right now when i wake up late around 3 to 4 am, i have an axiety that i need to see the time. then i have to put on my blue blockers and use my cell phone as a clock, and it's light is too bright, even with the blue blockers. right now my wt is trending down as well as my bg (the bg was trending down i think is because of the metformin, but before the new sleep plan, the metformin was not affecting my weight). there are no huge difference in bg and weight since i have only been doing this plan for about 4 days. the hugest difference is that i don't have temperature changes at night going from hot to cold, so i am sleeping better. i will need to see how this new plan works in relation to my PMS. even though i had no temp changes at night and slept better, i still have swollen boobs today. it is day 19 of my cycle. i often (but not always) have really bad temp changes at night and headaches during the day for about 2 days before my period to the point i need to take aleve. i also need aleve for heavy menstrual flow (that has made me repeatedly anemic for years. now i am just regularly supplementing with iron starting from this summer). i will be very interested to see if this new sleep plan leads to lighter menstrual flow or not. i hypothesize that by the end of september i will see better sleep leading to cumulative positive changes in bg and weight.

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