Day 7 - Sleep is My Friend

The importance of a good nights rest can not be understated. Sleep is important for health and wellness, and it's the most yearned for commodity in every young mother's life. I crave sleep. Ever since I was a child I have been a nightowl. I have a hard time shutting down my brain so that I can lay down and go to sleep at night. Once I lay down, I sleep almost instantly, it's just getting there that's the problem. For at least the past 10 years my normal routine includes going to bed sometime between 11pm and 12am and waking up at 6am. I drag myself out of bed and straight to the coffee maker. I'm not even human until I suck down at least two cups of java. I usually don't eat breakfast (another big time no-no!) and then by about 11am, I'm feeling so shakey I can't even think straight. (Brilliant, eh?)

When I look at this, I realize my pattern is terrible on many levels. First of all, every expert in modern medicine says that the human body needs at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a night for wellness. They also all agree that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I was recently reading an abstract from the American Diabetes Association publication "Diabetes Care" ( http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/31/Supplement_2/S303.abstract ) which talked about the link between abdominal fat and sleep apnea. I suffer from both of these issues. While no one really knows yet if being a lardass causes sleep apnea or if sleep apnea causes lardassitis, it doesn't really matter. The important thing to remember is that sleep and weight gain feed themselves and can become a viscious cycle. There are tons of studies out that talk about the different hormones effected by the sleep cycle and how those hormones interact with weight gain. I'm rather certain that my issues with insulin resistance (which is the cause of polycystic ovarian syndrome) and sleep apnea have contributed greatly to my enlarging body over the years.

So, what the hell am I going to do about it? Well, for starters I gave myself a bedtime. I am going to do my best to be in bed by 10pm, and I'm trying to sleep until 7am when I can. I am also forcing myself to have breakfast every day. This has worked out well this week so far. I find that when I eat breakfast, I think more clearly and I'm less likely to get hungry and become frantic and eat something stupid.

It's really silly that taking care of myself seems like such hard work. I'm enjoying breaking my bad habits though. It's almost like I can feel myself slowly getting better every day.