Combatting Insomnia Round 3---a new tool in the toolbox

 So, after a respite in the summer (here, its so hot nothing is really growing) my allergies revved up for their Oct-Nov run (as opposed to their March-April-May run). In the Arizona desert, that = when its beautiful outside. Allergies to me are worse at night, and the post nasal drip wakes me up and keeps me from falling back asleep.

I want to LIVE in these beautiful outside times, not just survive.

So, back to things that are helping me sleep (and my allergies).

1. CONSISTENT LIGHT FADING WIND DOWN
1. Consistent bedtime (wind down by 10/10:30, asleep by 11, never "push through" to the second wind)
2. Consistent light-dimming. No bright lights, or even cooler white lights, after prayertime ends (9pm).  I will literally shut my eyes and grope for a lightswitch to turn it off. Salt-lamps and dim incandescent lights in my room. (or super warm LED's that are supposed to feel like 2700 K incandescent) My Brother in law deals with his insomnia by going all the way to orange lights in the 3 hours before bed. It works for him. I might, but right now, these seem to be working for me to fall asleep.
3. Warm light (see above), also set my computer and phone all to turn orange ("blue light filter") after 8pm
2. LOW BLOOD SUGAR IN THE EVENING
1. Low-carb or no carb early dinner (see previous post on how this works)
3. CLEAN
1. Washing pillowcases & sheets every 3 days (change pillowcases every day)
4. Earplugs (sometimes)
5. Socks. Must have.
6. Sardines (see previous post on how this works)

AND THE THING THAT'S cut my respiratory symptoms by 70%

#7 DRUMROLL......I need to gluten free these months. I know, I know. I love gluten. I was never going to give it up. But I'm only giving it up 5 months of the year. It will make me cherish my french bread and triscuits so much more the other 7 months.

I don't know why. I've heard various theories. I only did it as a last resort. But it really seems to make a difference, more than allergy meds do (though I did find one that sorta works for me fenofexadine, I think its Allegra. But it messes up my sleep. So I only take it for one day if I'm going to be cutting Bermudagrass, or visiting cats...)

SO.....  I will eat gluten-free October, November and March April and May.

Good Gluten-free meals and switch outs.

1. Lots of Korean food (soup, rice, pinta-duck [bean veg pancakes], bibimbap, fish etc)
2. Lots of Mexican food (tacos, corn burritos, chips n salsa)
3. Bagel replacement--->3 eggs microwaved with butter in a mug. Sprinkle with everythying seasoning and a dollop of cream cheese. I actually always do this year round.
4. TURN mac n cheese--->Cheesy Potatoes baked in a 9x13
5. TURN pizza---> crustless pizza or fathead pizza dough (more protein!)
6. TURN grilled cheese sandwiches----> butter fried corn tortilla quesidillas
7. Corn tortillas fried in butter are pretty good for a lot of things.
8. Lentil Cheese crackers (easy to make) are a very good crunchy triscuit replacement
9. All the holiday treats & cookies---> meringue cookies, macaroons, coconut macaroons, cheesecake with oat-crust, pumpkin pie with oat-crust, rice-crispies, caramel popcorn. Lots of sweet potatoes with butter....
10. Keto Pumpkin bread!
11. POPCORN and cornchips

I'm hoping to get more probiotics into my life (more kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha) and see if that helps too, or enables me to eat gluten again.

 I have heard that perhaps grinding my own wheat, and making sourdough bread will enable me to have gluten year round. Maybe I'll try that in the spring. Right now I just want to sleep and survive.

Combatting Insomnia Round 2---breathing allergies cured by sardines [macrocytic anemia]---- Now onto glucose management!

I wrote about this earlier in my troubleshooting breathing issues with inflamed sinuses, and  combatting insomnia round 1

Breathing Issues Neutralized or Solved?

The breathing issues are gone---none whatsoever. Which may be why I'm getting a solid 6 hours now, instead of 3-4 hour chunks. [I used to wake up and then need to sneeze 3x and drink a hot cup of tea to calm down my sinuses to lie down again]

1.  Dust Free Sleep environment. Deep Cleaning my room!
1. I got all the exposed fabrics out of the room, clothes only in the closet or in a dresser. 
2. Washed curtains once a month. 
3. Washed my sheets every 7 days. BUT washed my pillowcases every 3 days. I picked up a bunch of 100% cotton pillowcases at the thrift store, and now throw pillowcases in with the other laundry constantly, to have a steady stream of clean pillowcases.
4. I washed my blankets & quilts and ran them through the dryer ever 2 weeks
5.  Mopped the hard surfaces
6. Was vigilant about not letting kids climb over my bed as a couch during the day. They track in pollens etc. Was vigilant about not sitting on my bed as a couch during the day as well.
7. Also, maybe the summer pollen count not being as bad as the fall/spring...
8. Ironically...getting more sleep. This is recursive. Interesting how my twin says her breathing issues get worse on sleep deprivation. That poor sleep actually increases allergies. [a destructive positive feedback loop here]
9. Air filter running (but I had this all along. I think with a dusty room it didn't help)
2. Fish Fix Also my twin got diagnosed with macrocytic (sp?) anemia, which is an anemia caused by some people with this gene needing stuff in sea-weed and sardines and daenjang....so Korean blood needs Korean food, I suppose. As my Korean mom always said "If I don't eat Korean food for 2 weeks, I get sick". So more sardines, more kimchi, more Miyeok Guk AND---macrocytic anemia causes worse respiratory symptoms, and exacerbates respiratory allergies. When my twin (with horrible dust-mite allergies) at a strictly Korean diet, all of her allergic symptoms went away.

Getting 6 hours, and able to fall back asleep afterwards, but struggling with tiredness....Glucose?

 I am now getting 6 hours a night, zero breathing issues. I don't even wake up sneezing, like I used to for months.

So now, when I wake up after 6 hours, I sometimes doze back for small trippy dream chunks. (Which I didn't used to be able to do). So that's a plus. BUT.....I will crawl out of bed, 8 hours after I went in, very tired still, despite being in bed 8 hours and having (I think) a solid 6 hours.

I will often mispell words (for me, a sign of sleep deprivation). Lately I have been spelling things like "King Arther" and "whent to the store". This is a sign I've had for 10 years, that I'm not sleeping well. But right now, its when I appear to be sleeping, but still wake up tired and can't spell.

I have trouble remembering, and generally feel overall crappy & tired.

From my research, excessive cortisol makes it hard to sleep long. AND having too much glucose in your blood at night also messes with sleep.

Glucose is my old enemy. I remember when I was taking my blood-sugars for my pregnancy with Irene, whenever I woke up so tired, waking blood sugar was over 85. When I woke up feeling extremely tire, more tired than when I went to bed, it was 95-100.

When I woke up feeling ok, it was usually in the 80-85 range. When I woke up feeling awesome, my waking blood sugar was 75. 

So sleeping with highish blood sugar (note, still within range for doctors saying its ok) but I could literally FEEL the difference between a waking blood sugar of 80 and a blood sugar of 95.

Back when I was battling gestational diabetes, I would eat nothing carb-y at dinner (I still ate green beans etc, with my lentil curry, so some carbs---but no grains, no wheat, no pasta, etc), and I would sleep better. Also, I had to eat early dinners, and no snacks afterwards---not even cheese or vegetables. I suppose this was a 'time restricted feeding' sorta thing, though I didn't realize it. I just knew that not eating for a good stretch before trying to go to sleep helped me wake up rested.

Breathing issues solved. Next up: Blood Sugar

1. Keep evening glucose LOW
1. Build muscle mass to help with glucose management----Lift 2x/week. GOAL: Gain 7 lb of muscle by Christmas 
2. Early (5/5:30pm) Low-Carb/Keto-ish Dinners? [make sure you eat more food earlier] 
3. ?Running machine to soak up glucose---but it must be a good bit before bed, so as not to spike your cortisol before sleep----you are all done by 7pm [so like 1 mile, resistance 5-10, right after dinner]
2. LIGHT and Circadian Rhythms
1. SUNLIGHT---20 min walk in the morning, in the early morning sunlight together. 6am
2. Make sure all the blue light filters are on on the computers
3. Meditate/give our worries to God/Pray together before bed by candlelight.
4. Find and set aside a Josh-Hannah talking time. And make it illegal for Hannah to talk after 10pm??? [then must go to our room by 9:30pm]
3. CLEAN AIR---Keep bedroom clean 
4. Fish Fish---eat Meukguk every Wednesday, Kimchi, Daenjang, and Sardines a few times a week to cure Macrocytic Anemia, and help with the Respiratory system.

Combatting Insomnia: Round One

UPDATE: These things helped, but most of all, what is helping is wearing earplugs (30 db, the orange foam ones you can twist in with the little blue handle, from walmart, a big pack for $5). It helps me sleep much better, getting 7 hrs, roughly 11pm to 6am.  And *always keeping the same schedule*, getting ready for bed when the sleepiness starts {10:30}, never pushing through to the "2nd wind", that really messes me up. And getting some exercise in.

UPDATE: Round Two here

 Struggling with Insomnia since fall 2023.

Underlying conditions...trauma? hormones? sublimated grief? perimemopause after uterine loss?

Things to try

Routine is everything. Build in the circadian rhythm. Work with your natural rhythm.

• Non-negotiable bedtime. Must be 8 hours in bed. (So working backwards from my inevitable 6am wake up, I need to be in bed at 10pm.)
• I need to go out in the morning sunlight. Melatonin levels

Build in the wind-down time. There are things you want to do. Find a time for it and work it in, so you are not tempted to stay up at night to do them.

• Downtime, to write
• Downtime, to pray, Bible, Journal
• Time to have that happy rocking and chatting time with the girls
• Time to talk to Josh (!) or I end up doing soliliquies at 11pm....

Prepare ahead of time, so you aren't dog-tired pushing yourself to get things done and then you realize you need to do these things before bed, and then kick off another wake cycle and climb into bed awake, having sacrificed the sleepy wave to try to rush to do them all.

• AHEAD OF TIME do these things
• Jammies Brush Teeth
• Check the washing machine, 
• putaway food, brush my teeth, EARLIER so I don't suddenly realize

Sleep Conducive environment---Clean Quiet Dark Room.

• Socks
• Warm blankets. Cool head.
• White noise
• Earplugs
• Black out curtains
• Make the kids be quiet before 7am.

When you do wake up, salt lamp light. Prayer.

• No screens during insomnia night. No bright lights.
•  If you have ideas, write them down in a journal by salt-lamp. 
• Read the Bible by salt lamp. 
• Have a prayer-journal by salt-lamp.

Exercise. My ancestors got a ton more exercise than I do. [drawing water from teh well, kids on their backs, farming with hand tools, etc] If that was the norm for millenia, it is highly unlikely that there's no connection between the sudden rise in insomnia and the sudden lack of physical exercise.

• 20 min of cardio, every day, on the treadmill, breathing through my nose
• Strength training
• Try to work outside [gardening etc] at dawn, a little every day

Combatting Allergies: my thoughts at 4 am with inflamed sinuses....

 UPDATE: Cure found here?

Root Causes: Immune system is funky. Off kilter. Over-reacting. Jumpy. Touchy. Just plain weird.

Symptoms: 

• nasal congestion at night. It feels like my body is actually producing more mucous as soon as I lie down,
• The "swelling feeling" in my sinuses when I lie down to sleep [sometimes with the 'popping' sound like a creaking wood ship, can feel it many successive pop pops. Sometimes squeaks.[hear inside my head, like that awful poprock candy]
• Vicious [cycle?] of only being able to sleep 3 hr chunks, often up for 1 hr between chunks. Getting only 6ish hours total of sleep a night. 
•  Itchy eyes. Tired all the time.

Clues: 

1. Mold in my twin's AC, and that time 3 yrs ago, my AC.
2. Start sneezing a lot around Bermuda grass and cats. But when one allergy worse, all worse. Bc its an immune thing. Allergies seem to piggyback. When one is bad, then everything else gets worse.
3. Josh had bad allergies for 10 yrs. Took cetirizine and levo-cetirizine. Then finally gave up allergy meds, and 70% if his symptoms went away. The pills will help with the flare out, but consistent long term use overall made the problem worse. So in this case, drugging his immune system gave short term relief at the cost of long term symptoms. As if the immune system was 'rebelling' to being drugged, and then net, overcompensating. ?Like moving around in a canoe?
4. When I take allergy medicine [tried 3 kinds] I just feel exhausted and tired when I wake up, despite having supposedly more sleep.
5. ??Always allergies in the Spring, like March, April. When the heat really hits, it recedes. Then comes back in the fall, Oct, Nov?? I remember it being REALLY BAD March and April 2023. Got air filters, felt like I was jsut falling apart. But the allergies weren't even the cause, it felt like even when it went away, I slept poorly. Then it was bad again, in March/April 2024, wasn't sleeping well, so I got all social and invited people over bc I was sorta sleep deprived uninhibited all the time. Fall 2022, we had found mold in the AC unit. [Spring of 2022 I really started noticing my allergies getting worse]. Something to do with AZ wildflower weeds? Am I just allergic to my own house? What is going on?
6. ?Twin in 2020 went on a mostly korean diet, dust mite allergies went away
7. ?Identical twin sister always had mmuch worse allergies than me. Same genetics, same environment, but as if the switch "flipped" earlier. Cat allergies from teenhood. My cat allergies didn't start till 28 yrs old. Used to be able to share a pillow with a cat. Hah.
8. ?I have been sleeping poorly since March 2024, what would have been Anthony's due date. Good nights I get 7 hrs. Maybe 30% of the time. Reverse insomnia, inability to sleep longer than 3.5 hrs. Up middle of the night, alergies, etc. 70% of the time. Inability to 'sleep in'. Last few months, 6 almost solid hrs on a good night. more like 3 + 2/3 hr chunks. Tired throughout the day. Now in Spring of 2025, allergies flaring in April again. Not as bad as last year, but really bad the last week, despite no rain. 

Things that help my allergies: 

• sitting up. 
• Hot tea.  
• ???helps or is just a result? SLEEPING WELL.
• Not being near cats or bermuda grass

Things to try: 

1. Exercise, cardio, every day, while forcing myself to breath through my nose. Need to make my brain get used to that.
2. Boost Immune system with Fruits and Vegs and sunlight. Vitamin C, magnesium etc. Eat lots of fruits and Veg and meat and sauerkraut. Get 20 min of vitamin D sunlight on my skin in the winter. Sit on a bench with my back to the sun during the winter. [wear a hat]
3. KIMCHI every day 
1. We found a significant inverse association between kimchi consumption and the asthma. We believe that this is the first study showing an inverse relationship between kimchi consumption and asthma in adults. Source
4. Yogurt every day
1. A study in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy found that people with allergies who consumed Lactobacillus casei, a probiotic found in yogurt, had lower levels of antibodies that respond to allergic reactions
5. Sauerkraut every day. Home-made [live] Sauerkraut every day [why not?] Its white people's kimchi and they've been doing it thousands of years.
6. Try to get good sleep to boost immunse system [hah]. So good sleep schedule. e.g. in bed by 10:15 pm, every night, no matter what. Start the same nightly routine, every night, at 9:45 pm, no matter what. Date night with Josh every week [or 2x/week?], where we talk, so I don't end up doing random talking times late at night. Not Youtube in the evenings. 
7. Go on an evening walk/outside during the golden hour. Be exposed to pollens in a calm relaxed setting. Try to make my warhawk immune system realize the pollen isn't an invader. e.g. "See immune system? These are friends..."
8. Don't use my bed as a couch during the day. [or let kids into my room during the day] Introduces allergens. Get a shorter pew bench in my room, before the bed, to sit on. ?cut off access to the bed with furniture, so kids less likely to play hide n seek on it? Lock up my room during the day as much as possible. Keep it as allergen free as possible. Spend the rest of the day desensitizing  myself to allergens, but make my bedroom as allergen free as possible.
9. Air filter in bedrooms [already doing it, doesn't seem to be doing much] 
10. Clean out my bedroom until its all hard surfaces. No soft surfaces except the bed. 
11. Wash sheets&blankets every WEEK on hot. USE THE HIGH cycle on the dryer for sheets & blankets [kills dust mites]. In the winter, you can just run the blanket on high heat once a week for 10 min, to kill dust mites.  

 Basically its a 3 pronged approach

1. Boost the Immune system by giving it what it needs, vitamins, gut health, and sleep [strict sleep schedule and exercise]
2. Exposure therapy in a calm setting. [Go outside in the golden evening hour]
3. Cleanroom approach to my bedroom. [not the rest of my life. Just here]