January 17, 2012 - The Importance of Sleep

I have written endlessly about doing my best to stick to eating and drinking the right foods, and not pushing myself physically when I'm not feeling well.  Those two things are extremely important factors in my being as healthy as I have been for the past 6-7 years.  They are, however, not the most important factor.  For me, the most important thing is getting full night of sleep.  If I don't get the proper amount of sleep, I am an irritable, less tolerant person.  I'm like a car in need of a tune up.  I feel like I am running on 4 cylinders instead of 8.  My brain does not function as well, I am less creative and am physically tired.  Those things aren't even important as it compares to what lack of sleep does to my immune system.  Everyone with Crohn's knows how tough it can be to sleep.  The cold sweats, the nightmares are just a couple of the things that can keep us awake.  When I was younger, I would just accept the fact that 4-5 hours of sleep a night was all I was going to get.  I was taking so much medication, the last thing I wanted to do was have to take something else to help me sleep.  How wrong I was.  Continuously getting a half night of sleep kept me from being able to effectively fight my flare ups.  Flare ups that would never go away, led to more and more damage to my intestines and eventually more and more surgeries.  Along with all of the changes in my diet I made 6-7 years ago, I also decided to try an over the counter sleep aid (Unisom).  Luckily for me, it worked like a charm.  I still take it every night before going to sleep.  I typically get 8-9 hours of sleep every night.  If I have something that I need to do early the following morning, I just go to sleep earlier the night before.  I sometimes am not very good when it comes to diet, however, I NEVER allow myself to go without the proper amount of sleep.  For me, it is the most important factor in remaining as healthy as I have been.

Today was a different kind of day for me in that I just did not feel like doing much of anything.  I really don't have these kind of days very often.  I had planned to run, but didn't.  I had a bunch of things I needed to take care of, but instead just moved them all to tomorrow's "to do" list.  It was the kind of day I would have if I did not get the proper amount of sleep, even though I did.  The only thing I did do was go to a 3:30 p.m. doctors appointment.  My appointment was with a kidney doctor.  Seems I have been manufacturing kidney stones.  A bunch of tests had been done and it was determined that certain nitrate levels were low, indicating a need for potassium citrate as a supplement.  The doc feels this will stop the stones from forming.  Doesn't seem to be any big deal because he and I spent way more time talking about the Giants than we did about me (I'm sure I'll still get a bill).  Rangers played tonight and I didn't even feel like watching the game.  At that point, I think Emily got a little worried?  Just a funky kind of day that we all have once in a while.  After 8-9 hours of sleep, I'm sure I will be raring to go tomorrow.