Christmas is a tricky time of year for energy-compromised people. I had my first crash in June and I was convinced I’d be fine for Christmas. Roll on 3 Christmases later, and I’m sure I’ll be fine by this summer…but still, another Christmas is over, and New Year beckons.
This year I was really lucky as my parents came to stay for the week. My dad cooked the roast dinner, my mum washed the dishes and did the housework and I napped, read books and generally flopped around the house feeling spoilt.
Interestingly enough, two of the four nights they were here we watched a film in the evening, and both of those nights I had a really bad sleep afterwards. The first time, I’d also had a tiny glass of mulled wine so I blamed that, but last night it happened again. I don’t usually watch much television, I wonder if the films were just too much stimulation before bed, even though they finished an hour before I turned my light off and snuggled down.
I thought I’d do a quick post with a “secondly” following on from the “firstly” I did about the sleep tracking. The second point is this:
Life works on a rhythm. As I’ve been tracking now for about 8-9 months, I can clearly see that my life works on a 4 week rhythm. The months I’ve been feeling better, there is less distinction between the peaks and troughs, the months I felt worse, the peaks are higher and the troughs are lower. (This graph shows my Heart Rate Variability overnight)
This is helpful so I can plan things around the better weeks, and chill out more on the down weeks. It’s also very obvious that menstruation plays a big part in my energy levels and sleep quality at the moment. I have to write off that week, and a large part of ovulation week as well, as a rest week rather than a doing week.
I think though, that this is really useful to see. We all know we have rhythm to our lives, circadian, menstrual, winter/summer etc and seeing it all graphed out just brings home that our bodies don’t need the same things every single day. I’m learning to be more aware of what my body is telling me, and giving it what it needs. Nurturing my body rather than just co-existing with it will hopefully lead to a more aware and fulfilling life.
Silhouette of Me 
Wow. So interesting about your sleep cycles. How do you track that? Any more thoughts on how to regulate your hormones so they don’t have an effect upon your ME? Sorry, if these questions are ignorant. Just trying to learn.
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I have an Oura ring – expensive but worth every penny in my opinion. You can get cheaper trackers, not sure how accurate they are, but also Fitbit and Garmin have decent ones. I think everyone should track their sleep for a bit, just to see where their optimum timing is! I’m working on the hormone thing still…
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This is so interesting, and a good reminder that we are cyclical. I no longer have the hormone cycles, being post-menopausal, but I have noticed that my anxiety/insomnia peaks in the 3 days following a new moon. I have no explanation for this, it just is. We are so used with this condition to watching our bodies carefully and when we get a symptom we attribute it to something we did or ate or thought. When really, with or without this condition, we are in a constant state of flux.
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That’s interesting about the moon – I’d never really thought about cycles other than the obvious but actually there are several. The sleep cycle is really important to respect I think.
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