Sleep, Stress, Mood, blah blah blah

(Crippie) #1

So I just wanted to chat a little. Maybe a little long and somewhat ranty, but wanted to just talk to fellow ketoers to help get past some rough times.

This past month has really thrown me off my keto game. I have been coasting, not really doing any IFing like I would normally, or any extended fasts, just been eating keto and going with it. Luckily I have not gained any weight, haven’t lost any, but no bump up, my belt has gone down a notch so I guess its still working out. Which is great! But I need to get back to my A game.

I live in Northern California, so stress has been HIGH since the fires, I was lucky and didn’t lose anything, other than some sleep, and lung capacity from the smoke. But I have friends and family that were not so lucky. Driving to work every day is a sobering reminder of what all was lost. And working for the county I see the reports on those still in shelters with nowhere to go, and how resources just don’t seem able to stretch and help everyone who needs it so its a very emotionally trying time to just see everyone needing help and not really able to do more than we already are. It has been rough and every time I go to focus on getting back to strict keto, or getting back to my exercise plan it just seems so unimportant right now. The general mood is still low and its hard to get traction with myself when mood is low.

Speaking of mood, I have found this last month sleep to be such a huge contributor to my mood. I have a 9 month old so sleep has been scarce for a while, but even more so the weeks following the fires as we slept with one eye open to keep wary of fires moving to us, and then sleeping in strange places after evacuations. To top it off there was a planned business trip that continued just 2 weeks after so I was away from home worrying about family and just unable to sleep, and jetlag, and airports, and all that fun stuff that comes with long travel. Followed by coming down with some sort of flu on my return. SO yea my sleep reserves came to an all time low. It really hit me when my daughter had one of the very few nights she slept all night. I woke up feeling like a new man the next day! Really hit home how much sleep was affecting me. Unfortunately that was short lived and sleep is still scarce again.

Any who I will wrap this up. Anyone have any tips to get over tough times like this? I have been trying to just Keep Calm and Keto on as best I can, which honestly has been amazing, but at same time when do I stop focusing on whats been going on, move past it, and get back to myself and strict keto? Today marks 1 month since the fires broke out, but it feels like a fresh wound and is hard to move past it, but if not now when is the right time?

(Stephanie Sablich) #2

This is… NOT a post from diet experience. I mean, really really just started this thing and I’m battling my own stress. But I can speak from my perspective in the social work field… you, and your community, experienced a trauma. It’s a big deal, and it isn’t easy to process- it TOTALLY makes sense that your body- as a stress response- is focusing right now on survival. I find it rather incredible that you’ve done so well and maintained your pre-trauma lifestyle.

Here’s what we know about trauma: a lot. But it all boils down to the necessity of processing. This looks different for everyone; some folks require really intensive therapy, others do well to just share experiences. Some find relief in writing or finding some other creative outlet. Whatever works for you, works for you. What we DO know is that repressing it, just “getting over” it, or trying to quantify it (“I didn’t lose everything, so it isn’t THAT bad”) is ultimately unproductive. Trauma sticks in our brains until we deal with it, causing all kinds of cognitive, emotional, and physical issues.

My advice? Be kind to yourself, and work on finding a way of processing your trauma. Pair that with your keto lifestyle and find some stability- you’re already doing an amazing job.

(Donna ) #3

Agreeing with @ssablich. Do what you need to do to process this trauma. Journal or talk about it.

We live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and experienced traumatic events during the Great Flood of 2016. This was the most traumatic thing to happen to my parents, my sister, myself and my family. We were all in shock. We all had to function while still IN shock. It continued for months, really it was a whole year. It was a horrible year for us. I will look back at it as a horrific year for our whole family. A long train wreck.

My parents lost everything. My sister got a couple inches of water, but her rebuild took longer than my parents’ complete rebuild. We gutted my parents’ house (our childhood home) ourselves, while my parents and sister lived with us while they rebuilt. EVERYTHING was stressful. Where people slept. What they ate (they were eating my special set-aside food and I had to ask them to stop, as then I had nothing else to eat but eggs, while I’d prepared all kinds of carby stuff they could eat. But they were eating my little bit of low carb food I’d set aside.) People living together that hadn’t lived together in 30 years. Everything was stressful. I kept telling myself that I needed to help these family members who were in crisis. Then, as I was aching from demolishing my parents’ home, all the bumps and bruises — everything over there was wet, molding, and covered with slick mud and I kept falling down and hurting myself, it occurred to me I AM IN CRISIS, TOO.

The stress was unbearable. My weight suffered. I didn’t take the time to process or take care of myself. I started drinking wine every night. Ugh. Bad year.

My parents lived with us briefly, then moved back into their gutted home and camped there during the rebuild. My sister lived with us for 9 months. It was not pretty. I’ve just now begun to get past it and get control of my life and health, again.

Anyway, all that to say . . . trauma must be dealt with, or it will deal with YOU in unkind ways.