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I am attempting to raise my metabolism.. my morning basal temperatures are around 97.2 F, and just a tad above 98 F later in the day after eating.
The real issue that I have is that my body’s rhythm is out-of-sync. I wake up late in the morning and by the time I’m done with everything and ready to eat, it’s already lunch time. I also am wide awake past midnight, and don’t really start feeling sleepy until around 2am. I’ve had this issue for a very very long time. My body’s rhythm is completely screwed up. So basically, I wake up around 10-11am in the morning and go to sleep at 2-3am at night. I don’t want to sleep like this and I hate that my body only functions at those times.
Is there anybody here who has experienced similar issues with their rhythm? I’ve read Eat for Heat, and Diet Recovery 2, and I know the importance of staggering most of my ‘warming foods’ and most of my caloric intake during the early part of the day, and NOT during the later part of the day.
I’m trying to figure out a way to transition from where my body’s rhythm is right now to gradually waking up earlier and earlier while also falling asleep earlier and earlier. I wanna just get this done very soon and just wake up early one morning and just stay up all day until bed time early evening and just try to force my body’s rhythm to adjust to that schedule. However, if I try to do this, my body will simply react back. I naturally fall asleep at 2-3 am so if I try to wake up at 7am, then I dont get enough sleep, and then when I try to eat a big warming meal, I feel drowsy afterwards.
Has anybody here experienced this? And what is the best way to overcome this? Is it possible to just force my body to transition quickly? Or is a gradual approach required. Anybody who has successfully tackled this issue, please do help me.
I’m in the same boat! It’s SO hard to change the rhythm, I’ve tried many times. I might have to just force myself to wake up early one day and try to go to sleep earlier and do it as long as my body gets used to it?
many people in the modern world suffer this same issue, including myself. i would say that your circadian rhythm sets itself by several signals you send your body, consciously or unconsciously. light exposure and meal timing are two of the biggest factors, so manipulating these can help you change your bed time most effectively.
try an experiment where you don’t eat a big dinner, then wake up and eat breakfast at your ideal waking time. you will be drowsy at first as your body grows accustomed, so you don’t have to eat a shit ton of food at first. just some toast or something. do this for a week or so, gradually increasing food intake, and see what happens. fixing your circadian rhythm is something you have to do in an indirect way, because it is an autonomic process outside your conscious control.
I’ve tried to do something like that. But I’ve found that if I go light on the breakfast (or even lunch), then I will feel drowsy and crash shortly after. Sometimes if I eat lightly throughout the day and eat heavily at night, then I will fall asleep quickly – most likely because my stress hormones have increased throughout the day due to the low amount of calories eaten, and then when I eat satisfyingly at night, that suddenly puts the stress system at rest and I fall asleep. However, I don’t do this too much anymore. I’m thinking does forcing oneself to adjust quickly actually work? If I force myself to wake up at 7am and then try to go to sleep earlier that night, would that work. If my sleep cycle is way off then I feel that my body will fight back.
I’m looking forward to Matt chiming in on this thread, as I know if I talked to him, circadian rhythm would be the first thing he’d tell me needed to be fixed. Waking up early and then trying to go to bed earlier NEVER works for me. My body will still stay awake til normal time that night. I’m in the same boat as you, Expert. I’ve never been an early bird, but need to do something!
I’m having the same problem, waking and going to bed at the same time as you. The answer for me is not to get up early and expect to get tired at a normal time–I simply won’t because of how shitty I feel after lack of sleep, those hormones keep me wired all day and I end up going to bed at the same time anyway. I’ve tried many, many times.
Ever since I was a kid, I stayed up late and never got enough sleep (since I went to school). I think it’s an authority issue for me, because I’ve always hated being told what to do. At night, I do what *I* want to do. And so I prolong it for as long as possible.
While I do want to wake and go to sleep earlier, I’m not sure if it’s that important (unless you’re totally out of sync, missing daylight altogether) considering there are big variations on how people sleep in traditional cultures. I’m mainly in it for the cultural aspect as everything is starting to shut down for the day when I’m ready to get out!
A good approach is probably to go to bed earlier and do it gradually. Like 15 minutes earlier each day. I’ve noticed it’s very difficult for me to use an appropriate amount of disciplinary force at night, cause I’m kind of in a meditative state (probably because that’s when I choose to use the computer so it doesn’t interfere with my activity during the day), so I’ve taken to setting an alarm on kukuklok.com to alert me when it’s time to start getting ready. Eating dinner late because of getting up late also interferes with this obviously, so I’ve thought of skipping breakfast, or just eating very lightly and having my lunch shortly after waking up, rather than the usual five hours later.
I don’t think eating lightly during the day is a good idea. Why not eat light at night instead, after a big lunch?
I’ve been thinking it would be useful to start/join a support ‘group’ for this! Last night I was in bed by 2:45, the night before 3 or so. My goal for tonight is getting ready shortly after 2. In a couple of weeks I have to take my little one to art class at 10 in the morning once a week, so my ultimate goal is to go to bed by midnight.
Sounds like more people experience Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome than expected.
The main issue here is the transitioning of our circadian rhythm to being awake earlier during the day and going to sleep earlier at night. Is there a way to safely and effectively make the transition from where we are now to being awake earlier.
Once we actually start to wake up earlier, then it should be fairly straightforward to maintain our new rhythm – Just apply the principles of Eat for Heat and Diet Recovery 2, where we eat the calorie rich warming foods early in the day at regular times, while eating less, but more cooling foods later in the day.I think that there are a few things that would be worth trying in order to actually transition our rhythm to a more earlier wake up, earlier sleep schedule.
This article describes that fasting may be used to reset our cycle:
http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-naturally-reset-your-sleep-cycle-overnightIt describes fasting for 12-16 hours prior to eating an early morning breakfast in order to reset our internal clock. So basically, do not eat anything at all starting the night before (after 6pm), and then eating an early morning breakfast (around 7-8am). Also, it appears that getting bright sunlight early in the morning may also be helpful in reseting our internal clocks. That combined with minimizing and even avoiding all electronics in the evening. So maybe doing both can help reset the body’s clock.
If necessary, then using melatonin might also be useful. If we fall asleep at say 2am, then maybe I could use melatonin to fall asleep earlier and earlier each day until my sleep time is just right, and thereby my wake up time would also be earlier if my bed time is earlier. The use of melatonin would, of course, only be a temporary strategy until I transitioned to an earlier bedtime.
Lastly, there is a new sleep device that claims to help reset your circadian rhythm. The details are in this article:
http://www.medgadget.com/2013/04/re-timer-sleep-device-helps-reset-your-circadian-rhythm.htmlEven if fasting for a long time is helpful in resetting our rhythm, I simply couldn’t do it.
I moved overseas a few months ago, in the ‘right’/easy direction and was able to easily reset my rhythm, but then my habits got in the way so it lasted only for a month or so. For me, I think it has more to do with habit than anything.
Good point about not using electronics at night. On the rare night I don’t use my computer, I tend to get tired from the boredom/lower brain activity/lower lights.
And another good point about getting sunlight early. I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time now but I’m always busy cleaning the kitchen in the morning and by the time I’m ready with that, having taken my shower etc, it’s time for lunch. I used to get lots of sun on my balcony in the spring, which made it easy to sit out there, but now there’s too much shade. Well, I’m just going to have to figure out a way.
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