Sleep Issues?

Not getting enough sleep is not good IMPO. Specially when you slept well before. Or did not have sleep issue.

Being active, exercising, plus a restricted diet can increase cortisone production. As someone who has problem with my hormones, and is on supplemental cortisone, I need to take more cortisone when I exercise, and when I'm fasting, and when it's hot, and when I deal with stress, and when I'm on a limited sleep. My body doesn't make enough. I have HPPA axis dysfunction ( hypothalamus - pituitary-thyroid-adrenals) Mostly my hypothalamus - pituitary are not working as well as they suppose to. They are responsible to tell the glands to make hormones as needed. Mine don't.

If your body works better, it stimulates the adrenal glands so you are constantly high on cortisone. Cortisone is the "awake" hormone". Not enough make you sick and may even kill you, too much - same thing.

It would be easy for me to tell you - take is easy, try to relax, eliminate major stressors from your life, blah, blah, blah.... We know that's may be long term projects.

IN a meantime, you can try to help your body dealing with the stress, tension, etc. Things like adequate magnesium supplements (I take at least 1500- 2000 mg of magnesium in different forms every day), some calming techniques (meditation, massage, acupuncture, yoga, etc.), plus other "calming" supplements may really help.

When I don't sleep enough I take melatonin. Not necessary to help me sleep when I do, but melatonin is a critical hormone for us. When we don't sleep enough, our bodies don't make it, or not make enough. Melatonin has so many health benefits that I don't even try to list them all here, but it helps the brain, and it has a very strong antioxidant and cancer preventive hormone.

Melatonin is critical, but... supplements can give me a very very vivid dreams. Weird dreams.

Other relaxing/calming/supportive supplements are : l-theanine, L-glutamine, either 5-http, or L-tryptophan (I prefer L-Tryptophan, but i need B6 to properly mange it in y body), corydalis (great for pain and sleep), progesterone (specially for women, topically, in a second half of the cycle, or at least 3 weeks in post menopaused woman)- very little goes a long way.

And there are more, much more.

Often, based on a clinical trials, and my my personal experience with my friends - Person who has problem sleeping may respond to one supplement or combination of them, but that may work for 1-3 night, or even 1-3 weeks, and then "stops working". Our system can be really stubborn when we try to force it to do things. For people like that changing what and how much they are taking needs to be rotated- o some people need to switch every 2-3 days, other can be on "the stuff" for 2 weeks, then they need to switch.

Note: when taking magnesium - I had to increase very slowly. I deal with a chronic pain, and I'm on pain medication. Plus I have IBS-C (constipation), and the pain meds and muscle relaxants made that worse.

In evening I take mag oxide and mag citrate, (app 1200 mg) and during the day I take mag glycinate. Mag glycinate doesn't not make me very sleepy, but it may that type of effect on a person. Mag glycinate is known to be the best absorbable magnesium, and it has the least possibility of causing "runs".

If you are stressed - and tense, and you are not getting enough magnesium, low magnesium in our tissues can cause muscles' tension, increase BP, hearth palpitations (that can feel like anxiety attack) and many other issues. Blood test of magnesium doesn't correlate with the magnesium in our tissues. same like calcium in bool - doest tell you if your bones are strong or if your body is leaching the calcium from the bones to keep blood levels steady.

Some of the mineral in our blood regulate the blood acidity, and help with nerve signals, etc. Ph of our blood has to be strictly controlled or we die.