Sleep

Ah, sleep.  How I love/hate you.

Changes I've made to my sleep habits since July-ish: I make a pretty good showing at trying to get 8 hours.  On my last Whole30 I bought some blackout curtains and that helps a lot, when I remember to shut them.  We keep our apartment pretty cool at night (at this time of year, anyway!) and it's fairly quiet as well.  I operate best on around 7.5-9 hours of sleep, and find that an odd hour does me better than an even (no idea why, maybe has to do with my sleep cycles).  I've installed f.lux on my computer so even when I work at night (which I do, between my day job and grad school and social media work - sorry Dallas and Melissa) it's not as jarring.  I no longer take my computer in to my bedroom unless I'm using it to play music or something as I clean during the day.  I rarely turn on my bedroom TV (I've thought about selling it).  And yes I've used sleep cycle (the app), but I'm trying to keep my phone a little further from my bed - like, not *in* it.  I like NaturalCalm, even though it's kind of gross (I also find it helps my recovery).

But still sometimes I have trouble sleeping.  I've had severe anxiety issues in the past - when I was interning in DC I wouldn't sleep for days, and it threw me pretty out of whack.  So I called my doctor who got me some pretty white pills, which I built up resistance to pretty quick and was back to long nights of tossing and turning.   I slept better when I moved out and back to PA, but I was still on an anti-anxiety medication.  My anxiety skyrocketed again when I was living in Franconia and there were issues going on in my immediate family.  Most of my sleep issues are rooted in anxiety, I think.  Working out and eating clean helps a lot.  So today I'm completely off my anxiety meds (got off during my last Whole30!), but when I'm having a shitty stretch of sleep... I might still take a (very low dose) sleeping pill.  I hate the groggy "hangover" in the morning but I can usually get through it by my shower and at least I have the energy to be productive the rest of the day.  And it is what it is there.

I'm hoping the longer I eat clean the better it gets, and I'll try to keep my sleep as clean as I can in the meantime.  Cheers!