Sleep oh sleep, where art thou?

Good sleep is a wonderful thing.  Waking up feeling calm, refreshed, ready to face a new day.  But in reality, how often is this achieved?  Most of the time I end up having difficulties getting to sleep, or waking up in the middle of the night, waking up too early and not getting back to sleep, or just generally feeling run down.  I'm not sure why that is, but many people that I speak to seem to have similar issues when it comes to getting proper rest.

Stress is a big factor.  When laying in bed and thinking about too many things, it can become nearly impossible to fall asleep.  When I'm feeling calm it's easier to fall into that relaxed state where I can drift off into dreamland.  But often I lay there thinking about the day that has just passed and the day that is approaching.   I am envious when I hear people tell me that they can hit the bed and fall asleep within minutes every time.  Maybe I used to be able to do that when I was a child, I know I used to be a deep sleeper.  But now it seems like my mind likes to begin racing as soon as I lay down, no matter how tired I am.  

Naps are another wonderful thing.  The best is the middle of the afternoon, on a weekend, with the rain falling outside.  I had one of those a couple of weeks ago and I woke up feeling so refreshed and relaxed.  When we don't get enough sleep it feels like the body is running on adrenaline, and often lots of coffee, which just isn't the best way to feel calm and focused.

This past week has been particularly bad for sleep.  I eliminated caffeine for about 6 days and it seemed to have a slight improvement on sleep quality but not as much as I would have hoped, so I continue to enjoy my coffee and tea.   I did notice that I slept deeper and for longer, but I guess I didn't give the experiment enough time to notice the full benefits. 

Work has been extremely unproductive over the past week, so hopefully as of now I will be able to get some decent sleep and get things done.  Doesn't always seem to work out that way...

Finding the underlying issue behind eating patterns

When it comes to my eating patterns, in particular bingeing, there are several factors that come into play.   I tend to look at flour and sugar as the bad guys, triggering a neurochemical response that causes me to sometimes lose control and continue to eat way past the point of fullness.   However, something that is important to note is that sugar/flour sometimes cause me to eat to excess.   There are certainly times where I am able to consume these things without any craving or need to binge afterward.  It then seems inappropriate to look at them as the root of the problem, when there is another variable at play.  Sure, sugar can trigger a binge, but what is it that is causing me to have that response at certain times, while other times it doesn't?

I think it goes back to my emotional health and level of stress at the moment.  This weekend I was out of town visiting family.  One day, I had some pie for dessert, and then literally had a chocolate bar thrown at me, which I certainly ate.  I was able to stop after that and go to bed without much of an issue.   The day after, I ate lots of sweets throughout the day, and come evening had a massive binge on chocolates and other sweet things that was completely out of control.

So what was the difference between these two days?   These are potential explanations for the day of the binge:

• I had eaten sugar consistently throughout the day, before the binge began
• A particularly stressful/emotional day was coming up, and I didn't want to think about it
• I was alone at night watching TV
• I had consumed large quantities of caffeine during the day

I think stress is a huge factor here.  The upcoming day was something I was very concerned about, and when I'm worried about something I try to completely forget about it.  A binge is probably a way of helping me to avoid dealing with whatever is going on.  Not a very helpful method, but maybe at certain times I just don't know how to deal with things any other way.

What I think is important for me to learn is that sugar is not the root of the problem.  It triggers a reaction, sometimes, but the reason for this is deeper.  Simply getting rid of sugar and not dealing with the emotional issues that cause the binge is not solving the problem.   In a sense, a binge is sending me a message that there is something that needs to be dealt with.  I can avoid sugar for the rest of my life, but if I continue to be unable to manage my stress levels, am I really solving anything?

Learning to manage my stress may be the best thing I can do for myself.  By getting to the root of the problem, the symptoms can fall away on their own.  This sounds nice in theory, but managing stress is easier said than done.  I wish the problem was food itself, it would be easier to solve, but I need to start looking at myself and working on changing my habits and thought patterns if I'm going to find peace of mind.  I plan to explore different tools I can use to do this, rather than focusing only on the foods that I eat.

It's good to eat! Changing my attitude toward food

My diet seems to change from day to day.   One week I don't eat sugar, the next week I eat it by the truckload.  One month no coffee, then I'm drinking it like water.  All my efforts, no matter how good my intentions are, seem to vary so frequently that I just can't take myself seriously anymore.

Underlying all of this chaos seems to be a distorted attitude toward food and my relationship to it.  I haven't had a major eating disorder, although I've certainly had a lack of peace when it comes to food choices since I was in high school.   I can remember for a long time always having a feeling of guilt while eating, as if I'm doing something wrong.  I always felt the need to control my diet in some way, to have some rules.  The thought of eating what I want, when I want, is kind of scary.  Maybe I think I would go out of control, eating junk all day and gaining 100lbs.  I'm not sure what the reason is.  But no matter what kind of eating habits I have, I always have some sort of background rules to try maintain some sort of discipline.

But what is the point in this?  Do I really always need to making improvements in how I eat?  When I'm eating only junk, sure this makes sense.  But the problem is, no matter how clean my diet is, I'm always looking for new ways to improve it and make it even cleaner.  It becomes some sort of obsession.  No wonder I always end up crashing and giving it all up, to maintain some sort of sanity.  I turn something which should be a positive change, and turn it into an obsession, which makes it unsustainable in the long-term.  Food happens to be the main area in my life where I do this right now, but it can also apply to many other areas.

But my attitude has been changing lately.  I've been seeing food as something positive, something that I need to nourish myself and be healthy.  Instead of worrying about too many calories, I'm starting to see that I've often under-eaten and probably been malnourished for a long time.  For years I didn't eat breakfast but just smoked cigarettes and drank coffee until lunch.  From what I learned in "Potatoes Not Prozac" by Kathleen DesMaisons, this can be a way of getting a beta-endorphin "high" through lack of food.  I no longer smoke and recently I've gotten into the habit of eating a hearty breakfast of eggs and potatoes,  not having any coffee until after I've eaten.  While I miss the caffeine buzz that I used to get, I feel much more grounded and I don't feel like a starving lunatic until I'm finally able to eat lunch.

My attitude toward food needs to change.  I need to nourish myself to feel healthy, there's no debate about that.  I think that even looking at food in a different way would make a drastic difference in my health, without obsessing and nit-picking about making specific changing and cutting out certain foods.  As much as I'd like to, I just don't seem to be able to avoid certain comforts at the moment.  Maybe if I can learn to look at food differently it won't be such an issue, and I'll be able to take or leave these foods without having to go to extremes.  This is what I'd like to achieve.

Anatomy of a craving

I'm fascinated with food cravings and what they actually mean.  When I really pay attention, my diet seems to be for the most part based on satisfying cravings, rather than what will nourish my body the most.  The strongest seem to be for caffeine, sugar, and bread.  But what's really behind these cravings?  What is it that I am lacking that is making me crave these foods which ultimately do not make me feel good?

In her book "The Diet Cure", Julia Ross explains how she helps many people overcome their cravings and food addictions by using amino acid supplements to balance their brain chemistry and blood sugar.  She says that we are trying to self-medicate ourselves using these foods which provide a temporary solution to our low levels of certain neurotransmitters.  Using food in this way prevents us from finding a long-term solution.  What I love about this is that it does not mean that those who overeat or who crave sweets are simply weak-willed or gluttonous.  I think this old view needs to be completely scrapped and replaced by a biochemical explanation which shows that when we crave something, it is our brain's way of telling us what we are lacking.  By using these cravings as clues to figure out what is out of balance, they can be a tool rather than something to feel guilty about.

When I have a craving, I can't seem to get it out of my mind.  On my way home today I was in such a frenzy to finally get there and eat the tuna sandwich with chips that I was fantasizing about since leaving work.  Instead of enjoying the warm weather and the walk to the subway, I was in a frenzy to just get home.  It wasn't so much a physical hunger, but a psychological one.  Usually this makes me feel like there is something wrong with me, that I need to crack the whip and stop obsessing about food.  I'm trying to instead accept that at this point in time I often feel the need to eat certain things, which either comfort me or provide me with what I think I need at that moment.  It's looking for the right thing in the wrong place.

I also happened to have a craving for pancakes soaked in butter and syrup today.  I remembered how my grandmother used to make these for me when I was younger, and how she used to always take care of me.  All of a sudden I felt sad, thinking about her and how she is sick now.  Then I realized that the craving could have been an attempt to relive my youth when I would spend time with her and always be well fed.  So it wasn't anything about the food, but what the food represented for me.  I think our cravings can also tell us a lot about our emotions.

I'm not going to fight against myself anymore.   I think by finding the cause of whatever cravings I have, I will be able to work through them and get to the point where they are not an issue.  Then I will be able to make food choices based on what my body needs.   Fighting these cravings with willpower misses the whole point; they serve a purpose and are taking care of a need that has not been satisfied in other ways.