Help...My Sleep Is Suffering Since Starting to Fast. What Do I Do?

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Help, My sleep is suffering from starting to fast. What do I do?

This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert.

Expert and fitness hall of famer.

I've been on a lifelong quest for.

Answers to the toughest health questions, and.

Now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert.

Valerie from Facebook asks, help, My sleep is suffering since starting to fast. What do I do? Hey, it's J.J. and I've got intermittent Fasting expert Cynthia Thurlow with me now. Her TEDx talk on intermittent fasting. It's been viewed over 8 million times. So yes, she's a bit of an expert on this subject. In fact, she's my go to expert on this subject. She loves to travel and she's a voracious reader. She reads four to five books at once. Plus, like me, she's a total boy mom. She's got two human ones, although she's got two canine ones too. I've got Daisy Girl. You know, she'll be right back to answer this question, so stay with us.

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Well, this is a common concern slash complaint that I hear from women of all age groups, not just women that are middle aged, certainly women in their 30s as well. And so my first question is always, what was your sleep quality like before you started fasting? And this is critically important, if I can emphasize nothing else throughout this particular answer to this question, is that if you are not sleeping through the night before you start fasting, do not start fasting. Our bodies benefit from hormetic stressors, beneficial stressors, but there's a very fine line for where that falls for each one of us. So if you're not sleeping through the night, then you're not going to get the beneficial rest that your body critically needs in order to rest, rejuvenate, you know, all the brain physiology, the glymphatic system that kicks in at night when we get this waste and recycling process in our brains, the boosts and growth hormone. So getting back to the original question, so if you were sleeping well before you started fasting and now you're not, my questions are always, what is your age? Because if you are a cycling woman, you know, you're in the peak of your fertility years, you know, under the age of probably 35, 36. I always want to know, where are you in your cycle? Because sometimes there can be sleep disturbances as you get closer to menstruation. So the five to seven days preceding your period, you should not be fasting. So if you're having trouble sleeping, then it may very well be because you're fasting, because it's just too much stress for your body at that time if you are not getting enough food into your feeding window. And I don't count calories, I don't encourage people to count calories. I talk about macros because that is what is most important. Our body doesn't recognize calories per se. That's a unit of measurement. Our body recognizes protein, fat and carbohydrates. And so sometimes people make the mistake as they are transitioning to intermittent fasting that they don't get enough food in their feeding window and part of their problem is that their blood sugar can drop and they may wake up. So my question is always, are you getting enough protein and healthy fats into your diet and really being mindful about that, you know, fats are a much more nutrient dense macro, meaning you need smaller portions of them. So sometimes people overdo it with portions, but sometimes they, they will under, they'll restrict the portion size, thinking that's benefiting them. So I would tweak protein and fats and see how you do. Another thing to consider is sometimes when people are also very low carb, and for women, this is highly bio individual. I see women that do beautifully on keto and have no problems. I see plenty of other women that don't or don't even do well on low carb. And what is low carb? So let's talk about this for a second. A traditional ketogenic diet is 30 grams of carbs or less a day. When I think low carb, I think under 50. But when the standard American diet, the average American is consuming 200 to 300 grams of carbs a day, this is where even under 100 grams of carbs may be low for each person. So it's very relative. With that being said, some people are very and particularly sensitive to low carb diets. So it could be that you're not eating enough good quality carbs. And when I talk about good quality carbs, I'm talking root vegetables, sweet potatoes, low glycemic berries, non starchy vegetables. I'm not a huge proponent of gluten. I know that probably bums a few people out. But gluten tends to be highly inflammatory. And if that isn't enough to dissuade you from consuming gluten, it's oftentimes you're exposed to glyphosate, which is this terrible protein that contributes to leaky gut or small intestine hyperpermeability. And so really we should try to limit or eliminate it. But if you tolerate, you know, like ancient grains like amaranth or teff or things like that, I'm tending to not recommend rice as much because I'm starting to see people that are getting a lot of blood sugar problems from that. But making sure you're getting, if you've earned your carbs, if you've worked out that day, getting in some good carbohydrates, some people will strategize a little bit. Maybe they find that they do better with them. Midday. Some people like to eat them before, you know, with dinner before bedtime. That can get tricky with perimenopausal menopausal women because we start becoming physiologically insulin resistant, meaning our bodies just don't do as well with carbohydrates and definitely not as the day goes on. So my general feeling is get the carbs in early in the day when your body's more sensitive to insulin and its needs so that you're not, you know, dealing with your blood sugar being dysregulated before sleep. So those are a couple things that I would think about. The other thing to think about is do you have a bedtime ritual? Do you have a way of telling your body it's time to go to sleep? Just like when my boys were babies and toddlers, we had a whole bedtime ritual so they knew it was time for their bodies to be getting sleepy going to bed. I think most individuals these days are not doing enough bedtime active strategies to get sleepy. And so sunlight exposure in the morning tells our bodies our circadian rhythm. Okay, let's get up and get moving. We have receptors in our retina that remind our bodies it's time to get up and get moving. So light exposure in the morning, super important. Getting daily movement in. And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to go to the gym and lift heavy. It could be that you just get outside and get a walk in. I did a four mile walk with my dogs this morning and that was like my movement before I had to sit down and start doing some recordings, making sure that in, you know, as the day goes on that you're cognizant of your electronic use. So we know that the more we are exposed to blue light from electronics, the more stimulated we're going to be. It'll suppress melatonin. So, you know, thinking about blue blockers that can help mitigate that involvement in the evening or as the sun kind of sets, thinking about, you know, not using stimulating properties, like maybe it's the time to take a magnesium soak, even if you're just soaking your feet. Maybe this is time to think about integrating a supplement like L theanine, which is an amino acid that helps up regulate GABA production. And so GABA is this calming neurotransmitter. And so just being really proactive about a bedtime ritual if you're struggling with sleep. And then lastly, there are just some people who can't fast or they fast too long, their schedule is too long, they're too aggressive. You know, people think if I can fast for 16 hours and 24 is better and they're doing it too frequently. And remember I touched on that hormetic stressor. You really want to be cognizant of of the fact that your body is very, very sensitive to too much stress. And fasting can be perceived as a as too much stress. So I would say back off on how many hours you're fasting for. Do it less often. Maybe you're going to fast, especially if you're a cycling woman. Maybe you fast Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Maybe you fast one 24 hour fast a week. You know, if you're really struggling, these are some strategies. I would kind of work your way through these things. I've recommended to see what might work best for you.

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