Today we will start a series of messages to be posted each Monday called “Wisdom of the crowd” providing helpful insights and commenting on common topics related to burn-out and other health related topics
#1 Waking up at night between 2-3am: Until recently, nobody could tell me what I should do, when I wake up at night experiencing difficulty falling a sleep again. Restful sleep at night is desirable for all people and has been proven to maintain good health. Waking up at night not beng able to fall asleep again for 20 plus minutes has great impact on your health.
When the mitochondria (bacteria that produce our energy) have low energy reserves at night, and since the brain is quite active at night unlike the rest of our body it suffers from this low energy supply and triggers a waking-up reaction. This is what causes affected people to wake up in the middle of the night, typically between 2-3 o’clock If low state energy is the problem, energy supply is the solution. I started to eat something about fifteen minutes before bedtime. Preferably a wholesome whole grain bread with butter or lard (the fat delays the absorption of the carbohydrates). I also wake up sometimes at night and then eat, for example an oat bar or similar, this is also supposed to help raise the level of dextrose (used up in the mitochondria) A piece of bread with butter, honey with yogurt also helps and helps me to swiftly fall back to sleep. After I read about this way of dealing with sleepless nights, I have tried it many times and so far, it has always worked well, including last night. In summary, the energy consumption during the day was very high and therefore the body no longer has enough reserves to produce energy at night. The brain notices this and that’s why you wake up, quite simple if you know the mechanism. Try it out and let us know how it works.