00:00Hi guys, I want to tell you about a dietary change that I've made that has improved my sleep.
00:06So a little while ago I was going through a phase where in the middle of the night I would
00:11wake up
00:11with my heart racing and a little bit sweaty and just really really feeling stressed like and
00:19really wide awake like fight or flight response type wide awake. So I did a little bit of research
00:25where I looked into what could be the causes of this and there are a few causes that can do
00:31this
00:31and this is not medical advice. I'm just talking about my own experience and what I've done.
00:36So one of the causes could be if you've had a stressful day and it's called your stress bucket
00:40then overflows in the middle of the night. But another culprit that came to my attention is blood
00:47sugar. Now in the evenings our routine is that especially if I've had the kids for the day
00:54there will be maybe a little pocket of time in the evening when my hubby is supervising the kids
01:01and I can sneak in here which is in here right now into sort of my study area and do
01:07a little bit of
01:08whatever admin or computer work that needs doing. Now this is all after dinner everyone's eaten and
01:15all that and it's sort of getting late later in the evening and I had some hidden treats here.
01:22So I will show you what I was sneaking in and no it would not always be a giant Toblerone
01:31but it could be a triangle off this giant Toblerone and so I was having that as sort of a
01:39later in the
01:41evening sweet treat and obviously that would really hit the spot and I really do eat healthy like I
01:46would have a bowl of veggies for dinner and that sort of stuff but I would you know if I
01:50was in here
01:51I would just sneak a treat in here because it was just lovely and obviously you feel great and it
01:57gives
01:57you that sugar rush and and then the rest of the evening would roll on and we would all get
02:01ready for
02:02bed I'll put the kids to bed and then I would try to get some sleep. Then lo and behold
02:07a few hours
02:08into my sleep waking up like that you know that real real awake really alert all of a sudden feeling.
02:15So like I said I did do a little bit of research and blood sugar spiking and dropping can be
02:22a real
02:22culprit. So physiologically what I do suspect was happening with me because I have made a change now
02:30was I would eat that sweet treat and what that happens is obviously you get quite especially
02:36if it's like a big triangle off that giant Toblerone I would get quite a big blood sugar spike but
02:43the
02:43problem is having a blood sugar spike later in the evening is I'm sitting down so my muscles aren't
02:49moving and because my muscles aren't then using up that glucose that that hot that glucose that's going
02:56through because you get that glucose spike sorry glucose spike and because you're you've got high
03:02sugar in your blood and your muscles aren't moving you're not actually using it up so what happens is
03:08your pancreas goes into a bit of overdrive and shoots out quite a lot of insulin to get rid of
03:14that blood
03:15sugar spike and to move that a lot of that excess glucose into storage so that's all very good because
03:23then your body gets into equilibrium equilibrium again and then obviously you go to bed now the
03:29problem with that though is that the insulin the pancreas can go into overdrive there to get rid of
03:35that glucose and then a few hours later what can happen is you go into hypoglycemia which is low blood
03:43sugar
03:44and it can actually drop so low that you know your body recognizes that it it doesn't have then the
03:53sugar that all your vital organs need to be functioning so lo and behold what kicks in is cortisol now
04:02everyone knows cortisol as the stress hormone and true it can make you feel you know very stressed or
04:09whatever but the actual role of cortisol is it's sort of like your internal alarm system and basically
04:16it it it it's there to regulate a lot of things like it can regulate um weight sleep wake cycle
04:24it
04:24can regulate blood sugar and when cortisol or when your body recognizes that you're um in hypoglycemia so
04:32your blood sugar is really dropping down cortisol will kick in and tell your liver to to start
04:39releasing glycogen i think it is to then convert into glucose so to basically bring your blood sugar
04:45back up to uh equilibrium or to a safe level because cortisol really is like one it's your
04:52like internal alarm system but it's basically there to help you survive it's there to keep you alive
04:57basically so um you need some more blood you need some more sugar in your blood so then um so
05:05then the
05:05cortisol kicks in get your liver to release some of that glycogen into glucose glucose again into
05:10your bloodstream and lo and behold adrenaline also gets kicked in and that's to mobilize that sugar
05:18into your bloodstream so then a lot of people that do suffer from this will wake up at around that
05:24two three o'clock in the morning with that you know like you you just it's like it's a horrible
05:29feeling
05:30it's a fight or flight sort of response that that your body's going through really and it does usually
05:37wake people up so um that can definitely be a culprit of that two three o'clock in the morning
05:42waking up your heart's racing you feel really stressed and that's because your body is dealing
05:48with the stress hormones of cortisol and adrenaline to get your blood sugar back up to a safe level so
05:55that you'll live you know um cortisol doesn't care if you've had a good night's sleep cortisol cares
06:00that your heart still keeps beating cortisol cares that you've still got enough sugar in your blood to
06:06keep functioning or to keep living basically so when i discovered that i thought okay i'm gonna have a go
06:13at i won't have that sweet treat now i'll see if that sort of helps a little bit so that
06:18was hard
06:19i swapped my sweet treat for like a handful of nuts or something you know it always sucks when
06:25you have to give up something that you really love and so i did though i stopped having those
06:30sweet treats and this is really i really am here to tell you that those real nasty sort of wake
06:38-ups
06:38seem to have really petered off i mean i still have stressful days i still wake up some obviously in
06:45the middle of the night i've got kids all of that but i do think that it my sleep has
06:50definitely
06:51improved so i do think that making a simple dietary change like foregoing my late in the evening sweet
06:58treat which really sucks has definitely helped level out some of that sleep and i think has definitely
07:05damped some of that real you know real feeling of anxiety and panic and heart racing that that i was
07:13experiencing in the middle of the night which anyone that has experienced it it is a dreadful feeling
07:18and then you obviously start interpreting that that you think oh you know i really am stressed and
07:23all that but but look you know in my case anyway some of that was i think down to a
07:29simple blood sugar
07:30physiological issue where i do think that after that sweet treat where my blood sugar spiked and the
07:38pancreas went into overdrive to to ease off that that spike then after i went to bed i would then
07:45drop
07:45down below safe levels and the cortisol and the adrenaline would kick in to get those levels back
07:52up so that my heart would still keep beating and my brain would still keep functioning and all of that
07:57so
07:58that's a simple dietary change i've made so i i'm not having those i'm not having those sweet treats
08:04anymore i am just having like a handful of nuts but like i said this isn't medical advice this is
08:09just
08:10really honestly my my real life experience and ah just sort of doing a simple change to try and feel
08:17better and to try and sleep better and just try and manage what what does feel like especially juggling
08:23all the you know the kids and all that what does feel like a busy life
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