Unable to sleep

Right now, I am laying awake and unable to sleep. Strangely, I don't feel tired at all however I know that in the morning, when I have to get up and go to work I will be feeling exhausted. After falling asleep at about 9:30, I only slept for about 3 hours before waking up, wide awake. After reading for over an hour, unfortunatly I am still not feeling as though I would be able to sleep so I have resorted to writting a post. Then, if I still cant sleep, I will probably put a series on.

Although I know that staying busy like this is probably the worst possible thing when you are trying to sleep, I just find laying there and trying to sleep far to frustrating. Atleast this way I dont get frustrated or angry about ot being able to sleep. Do you have any tips or tricks that you use whe you are unable to sleep? I honestly don't know why I am suddenly having trouble sleeping as my sleeping patterns have been a lot better lately. I guess that it is just one of those things that happens to everyone sometimes.

I don't know if this happens in the rest of the world but today is the day that we put our clocks forward one hour in Australia. In fact I just watched the clock on my tablet go from 1:59 to 3:00. So I have literally just lost an hour or sleep time too (Not a good thing to happen on a night when you are already struggling to sleep). This means that when I go to work at 8:30 in the morning, it will actually be like going to work at 7:30. Crazy right?

This also means that it will stay darker later of a morning which isn't a good thing as I was really enjoying going on my early morning walks with Tess in the sunshine. But atleast now it will allso stay daylight for an extra hour each night so I will have more time to walk Tess after work each night. I honestly don't know which one I wwould prefer more, having more time in the morning or in the evenings of daylight. Probably the mornings as I am more of a morning person and usually just like to stay home and relax in the evenings anyway.

Well I hope that you are having a great day, wherever you may be in the world :)

Waking up feeling fantastic

After a wonderful nights sleep last night, I have woken up feeling fantastic and positive and full of energy. I still fall asleep early every night while I am watchinng tv but I am managing to stay asleep until 6:00 am each morning which is amazing for me as I have had trouble sleeping in the mornings for the last few years. The only reason that I can think of that explains my improved sleep patterns is that I have allowed my body to heal through nourishing it and making recovery progress. So if you have troubl sleeping, impproved sleep may be another reason to motivate you to recover too! 

Today I am working at the supermarket which I am actually quite looking forward to as my cousin Jemma (who is also one of my best friends) is going to be working as well. Although we will obviously be working, it will still be nice to have one anoythers company. Even though we do get tired of telling the customers that no we aren't sisters or twins (as eryone seems to think we are)! It is also school holiidays a the moment which means that it will be quite busy at the shop which is really good too. I find that the dayss always go much faster when it is busy and when there is always something to do. 

My cousin jemma and me (Do you think we look alike?)

After a rainy day yesterday, it looks as though it is going to be a nice sunny day so I am looking forward to getting out and taking Tess for a nice walk before work. I also need to get ready and straighten my hair so I really should make a start. i am looking forward to having the day off tomorrow so that I can catch up on my house work and also so that I have some quality blogging time. I have had some good idea over the past few days for post ideas but just haven't had the time to write about them yet, so those posts will be comiing tomorrow!

Have a great day everyone, can you believe that it is the last day of September already? This year is going so fast! It will be christmas before we know it! 

Tiredness in recovery

Whilst in recovery, I think that it is incrediby important that you keep yourself well rested and that you get plenty of sleep each night for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I am not sure if anyone else has experienced this as well but my anorexic thoughts are always MUCH stronger when I am tired. I don't know if my anorexia can somehow sense that I am tired and more vulunerable so it gets louder or if the thoughts just get to me more easily whilst I am tired but they definetely do get worse.

Whenever I get run down or exhausted I start getting really bad body image and find it much harder to fight my anorexic thoughts whenever they arise as I simply dont feel like I have the energy to do it. I also find it much harder to think rationly whilst I am tired and my anorexia can therefore 'get away' with more then it would otherwise.

Recovery really does take it out of you, both mentally and physically so you may find that you actually need more sleep whilst you are in recovery then what you would otherwise. As I am sure many of you know, having a constant argument going on inside of your head really is exhausting so your poor brain needs time to rest so that you have the energy to continue fighting each day.

Whenever my anorexia is incredibly strong, I usually just try my hardest to get through the day as best as I possibly can and go to bed as early as possibe. When I wake up in the morning, as long as I have had a reasonable nights sleep I usually find that my anxiety is much better and my anorexic thoughts have quietened down once again too.

I know that sleeping is not always the easiest thing to do whilst you are in recovery. I have struggled with insomnia off and on the whole time I have been sick and it really can take its toll on you. I have learnt a few different tips that help me to get as much sleep as possible, which I will share with you all. I hope that they help! :)

1. Try to go to bed  bed and wake up at about the same time each day. Hopefully your body will eventually get into a good routine and you will be able to fall asleep and wake up more easily at these times. This also helps you to make sure you get enough sleep each night.

2. Dont drink any drinks witth caffeine in them in the evening. This includes many fizzy drinks like coke or pepsi, coffee, Tea and energy drinks. Caffeine generally wakes people up and gives them a little 'kick' and this obviously is not want you want when you are going to bed.

3. If you wake up in the night, try not to check your phone or any other electroniic device, even if you are just checking the time. It has been proven that the just seeing the backlight on electronc devices wakes you up and prevents you from falling back to sleep as quickly. This is also why you aren't really supposed to use electronc devices, straight before going to bed.

4. If you have trouble shutting off from a busy day, try to do something to distract yourself from these busy thoughts. Some people find that reading right before bed is the best way to shut off from a busy day however I just find lying on the couch and watching a series is what relaxes me most (sometimes too much as I often fall asleep whilst doing this).

5. If you wake up in the night and you are hungry, EAT. I think that this was the main cause of my insomnia when I was in the earlier stages of my recovery as I would wake up in the night with hunger pains but not let myself eat anything until breakfast time. If you think about it, after eating recovery amounts all day, 9 or so hours is a long time to go without any more food which is why i suppose your body starts asking for more. Now I have a piece of fruit or something like that whenever I wake up in the night hungry and I am able to fall straight back to sleep once I eat.

6. Try to avoid long naps durin the day. If you sleep-in really late or have a lonnng nap durin the day, you will mosyt likely find it harder to get to sleep at a normal time that night. If you are feeling really tired during the middle of the day nd you are at home, you can have a little sleep but I always set an alarm so tht I sleep for no longer than half an hour or so.

Finally I just want to say how important it is for you to rest when you are feeling especially tired. Feeling tired or exhausted is a sign that you need to slow down and do less. Of course anyonne should do this however I believe it is particularly important for people in recovery from anorexa, as they always need to be ready and energized so that they can fight their anorexia, whenever they need to.

Need to normalise my body clock

You know your body clock is way out of sync when you are waking at 11:50 pm and feeling as though you are ready to start another day And the last one has not even ended yet. I have suffered from insomnia from time to time throughout my illness but my sleeping patterns just seem to be getting worse and worse.

I just feel so exhausted each night that I cant keeep my eyes open after 8:00-8:30, but then I am waking up incredibely early after getting between 6 and 8 hours sleep, wide awake. I know that if Istayed up later of a night, I would find it a lot easier to sleep later each morning but I just feel so exhausted each night, that I could literally fall asleep while standing up. No matter what I watch on TV, I fall asleep and I even fall asleep while blogging.

I suppose it is to be expected that I am so tired each night. Afterall my body is working very hard to repair and recover. Also the psychological stress od recovery is very tiring as well however I do feel as though putting my body clock back in sync would help with this tiredness a lot. If I got up at 6 each morning instead of 4, I would probably be able to stay awake until 10:000-10:30 instead of falling asleep at 8:00-8:30.

Since I have the day off today, I think I will try and have a decent nap half way through the day so that I feel energized enough to stay up a little later tonight. Hopefully If I stay up to 10:00pm or something like that, I will be able to sleep later the following morning. If I do wake up early still, I will make myself stay in bed and NOT turn on my tablet or phone, which is something I am often guilty of doing (hence why it is 12:52am, I have been asleep for 3 hours already tonight but now I am writing a blog post).    

Does anybody have any tips for me about getting a normal sleeping routine in place. I find that my life is so busy with work, my recovery and everything else that I just cant afford to be so tired and exhhausted all the time. Ok, I am off to bed to try and get some more sleep. Goodnight! xx

Waking early

As I started to get tired last night, I started to get more anxious about what I had eaten for my tea. In the end I decided the best thing I could do was go to bed and try and get some sleep, which luckily I was able to do. I woke up very early this morning feeling extremely hungry. I put on Greys Anatomy and waited for a while, hoping that the feeling would pass but when It still hadnt by 3:40 am, I decided to have some of my breakfast. I had a bowl of Caramel oats, with a sliced banana on top but still wasnt completely satisfied.

It was not until I had my toast at 5:00am that my stomach seemed happy. I had cashew butter spread on my toast however the cashew butter was rock hard and unspreadable because my kitchen was so cold. So I had to cook my toast and put a big lump of cashew butter on each slice of toast, that I then had to heat in the microwave in order to make the cashew butter spreadable. The reason I dont like having breakfast too early is because it seems too muck up all of my other meals for the day, as I always start to get hungry approximately 2.5/3 hours after my last meal.

Since waking up I no longer feel anxious about my Tea last night. Instead I am happy that I was brave enough to take the opportunity to face my fears and fight my anorexic thoughts. Yes I felt anxious afterwoods but I still didnt let this effect my actions which is all that you need to do in order to successfully fight your anorexia.

I am feeling quite positive at this stage but am not expecting to have an excellent day as I will be tired and my anorexic thoughts always seem so much stronger and harder to fight when I am tired. I dont know why this is the case but other people who suffer from anorexia that I have spoken to have found the exact same thing applies to them. I think the reason I find it harder is because when I am tired I lose the ability to think clearly and rationally.


I dont have many plans for my day off today so atleast I can have a nap if I get really tired due to the lack of sleep I had last night. I will vacuum my house as well since I am busy all weekend and wont get a chance to do it then. I also plan to make some more puddings of some description. Last time I made lemon but it was so delicious I am tempted to make it again.

I hope that everyone has had or is having a wonderful day today. :) To all of those fighting their illnesses, make sure you keep fighting and remember that recovery is possible, you just need to believe in yourself. <3

Can't Sleep

Its 3:00 am and here I am, laying in bed unable to sleep. Luckily I have already had a little sleep but I have had nowhere near enough. Of course my mind is begginning to whirl with thoughts about what I have to do today. I know that worrying wont solve anything but I cant help It. Unfortunately this is all a part of suffering from anxiety and I know that all I can do in order to feel less anxious is to keep thinking positively and try to stay as calm as possible.

I need to get up early so that I have plenty of time to get ready and drive the 2 hours into Launceston and find my hotel (which is also where the training course is held) All before 8:30 am. The wind is roaring outside my window which makes sleeping even more difficult. I know that the worst thing you can do while trying to sleep is use your phone/technology but I thought that writing a post like this may be able to help me think more calmly and rationally.

While being unable to sleep when I don't have anything important to do doesn't really worry me at all, it can be quite frustrating being unable to sleep when you have a big day planned. I know that tiredness can make my anxiety 100 times worse so days like today I really cant afford to be tired. I have already accepted the fact i'm not going to get a very good nights sleep however and am trying not to panic about it. Worrying about it wont change anything so I just need to believe that I will make it through the day.

I am the type of person that is effected by tiredness in one of two ways. I either get into an over tired stayed whereby I have tonnes of energy and almost get hyperactive or I totally crash no matter what I am doing and feel awful and drained until I get some decent sleep. Hopefully my body reacts to my tiredness the first way today and not the second ;).

It really is amazing how your body can look after you sometimes. I will never forget my year 11 end of year biology exam that I took after not sleeping at all the night before. I was nervous and my mind was racing all night, leaving me unable to sleep and I was convinced I would fail my Exam. It turns out however I did really well, getting straight A's in every criteria.

I dont really have any good strategies to try and get to sleep but I find that I only usually manage to fall asleep once I stop trying to. Like if I get frustrated with being unable to sleep and get up and start watching tv, I then fall asleep when im not trying to.

What do you do to try and make yourself sleep if you are anxious or just unable to sleep?

Insomnia and Anorexia

I suffered from insomnia back when I was completely starving myself and trying to lose weight as well as in the more recent past when I was eating quite a bit, but obviously still not enough. The information explains why I am finally starting to sleep better now that I have significantly increased my intake and now that I am providing my body and mind with enough energy to truly repair and recover. 

I used to wake up early of a morning (like 2am) with a strange feeling which was a bit like hunger. After waking I could never fall back to sleep until after I had breakfast at at about 5am. I know now that it was my body trying to tell me that it was trying to repair and although I was eating quite a lot at that time, it still needed more energy. Now, I am eating a lot more food so my body can repair properly and I eat something just before going to bed so I no longer wake in the night unable to get back to sleep hungry.

I  found the following information from this site really interesting as it kind of explains why I have suffered from insomnia throughout my eating disorder;

How Insomnia and Anorexia Come Together

Insomnia involves difficulty falling or staying asleep. It is one of the most common complaints heard by medical professionals. It can come with some serious side effects or it can be a serious side effect of another potential life-threatening condition. Anorexia is an eating disorder in which the patient either severely restricts the intake of food or goes on a binge and then purges himself or herself after the binge. With either method presenting itself, there are dangers involved. Besides noticing extreme weight loss, there are other physical symptoms present and insomnia is at the top of the list. Anorexia and insomnia can take over your life.

How They are Linked

The brain is a complex machine, but it is also very primitive in some of its functions. Some of these mechanisms are activated when the body and brain reach "starvation mode." Finding food becomes the number one priority, everything else falls by the wayside. It even takes priority over sleep; therefore, the body gets less of a chance to do so. Trying to sleep can also be uncomfortable. The body of the anorexic has changed and it might not feel comfortable doing what it did before.

Lion on the Savannah

If you are always hungry, then your body may not be able to think about anything else. Think of it this way: you are a lion on the savannah. You might be asleep, but looking for your next kill, constantly thinking about your next meal. When you are underweight because of the anorexia, your body cannot get proper rest. It is concentrated on finding the next meal. Your body is full of adrenaline, looking for its next fresh kill.

The following information was sourced from here and explains why You need lots of energy throughout the night as well as why I am now able to sleep through the night since starting to eat more and now that I am eating closer to bed time.

Eat right before bed
A lot of our healing, repair and regeneration takes place while we sleep. It’s like rush hour for building muscle and lean tissue, so eating a healthy snack right before bed ensures a fresh supply of nutrients that are available to “go to work” inside the body. A great option that won't leave you feeling stuffed might be a small bowl of pasta saladmade with 100 percent whole-grain pasta (wheat or a gluten-free alternative), vinaigrette made with extra-virgin olive oil, chopped or shredded veggies, and a lean protein such as beans, chopped chicken breast or an organic crumbled cheese. 

So to make sure I have a good nights sleep tonight, I have eaten lots of yummy foods to ensure that I my body has enough energy to get me through the night. I try to eat nice balanced meals so that I am providing my body with all of the nutrients it needs. These photos are of my Tea and dessert tonight :)

Cheesy beef lasagna with corn, carrot and peas

Hot lemon pudding with vanilla icecream

Insomnia

For the past two or three months I have suffered from insomnia which hasn't been fun at all. This insomnia began as soon as I went onto a new medication so I thought it may have been a side effect and when I researched the medication, it was in fact a posssible side effect. The problem for me is not actually getting to sleep as I can fall asleep quite easily, the problem is staying asleep. For weeks I was waking at 2:30 am every morning and was unable to get back to sleep. eventually I got sick of laying in bed and staring at a dark ceiling so I would get up and watch a series. As soon as I get up I don't feel tired at all but wide awake, it is the following afternoon I start to feel the effects of tiredness which is obviously not optimal when I am at work.

Since starting my recovery (over 12 months ago) I have been a very early riser and have always woken up early. I think this began when I started eating 6 meals a day as I felt I needed to eat breakfast early so I could space out all my meals throughout the day so my stomach had time to settle between meals. I am always up and eating my breakfast by 5:30 am and enjoy having lots of time in the mornings to get organised before work but obviously 2:30 am is simply to early. I know that getting four hours sleep a night is definetely not enough if I want to be healthy and happy. I considered going off the new medication but I am finding it so helpful in many other ways that I was reluctant to do this. The last few nights I have found that although I am still waking at 2:30 I am able to get back to sleep and sleep for a few more hours which is great. I hope that my sleep patterns continue to improve and that I am able to stay on my new medication without it effecting me.

I think that my insomnia has gotten a bit better for quite a few reasons. Firstly, I think that my body has become used to my new medication so I am no longer getting the side effects. Also I started a new job at the time my insomnia started so perhaps it was anxiety from this which was also causing my inability to sleep. Now I am becoming more confident and comfortable with my new job perhaps my anxiety levels are lower? Thirdly, this may just be coinsidence but my insomnia seems to have improved since I have increased my calories and started having a hot chocolate just before I go to bed of a night. When I was waking at 2:30 I was getting a strange hungry feeling and now I am wondering if it was my body telling me I needed more food. I mean, throughout the day I eat every three hours but then overnight I go 10 hours without food which is quite a long time. 

Has anyone else experienced insomnia or strange sleep patterns throughout their anorexia journey/recovery? Did you have any tips for how to overcome it? 

I hope everyone has a fantastic day! :)