Eat Breakfast, Count Sheep
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I thought the solution was so easy, until I heard his answer.
I laid out the eating plan: a big meal for breakfast, medium meal for lunch, small meal at dinner. Sound good?
“No, usually I skip breakfast, then dinner is my biggest meal. I’m just not a breakfast person”
This happens every day in the clinic, somebody with years of insomnia, has tried every sleeping pill and trick in the book, decides to give ‘alternative medicine’ a try. When they hear that they’ll need to change a part of their life, they say “I won’t do that, what else do you got?”
We all know the quote ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,’ Albert Einstein. *
This quote fits perfectly for this situation.
If you struggle with sleeping at night, doing the exact same things as yesterday to prepare for sleep, and hoping that tonight will be different, will end with the same result, no sleep!
Use Time to Digest
In TCM, blood is produced from the food that we eat and the air that we breath.
These inputs combine in the body to create Qi and Blood, the substances that keep the body animated, acts as fuel for organs, and keep us alive.
Today we are looking at one half of the equation, the food we eat.
I’ve written about how important food is here and here, including the importance of mental diet.
What good is food if our body isn’t digesting it correctly?
We can pile in all the purest, most organically grown vegetables from the whole spectrum of nutrition, and still be undernourished.
This is the focus of the Spleen-Stomach school of Chinese Medicine.
In this school of thought, the proper functioning of the digestive system is of the utmost importance. All disease stems out of improper digestion, too high or too little of an appetite, or eating at the wrong time of day, according to this school of thought.
I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it again: for health, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. In Buddhist monasteries, breakfast and lunch are the only two meals, dinner isn’t necessary!
In our modern debacle, we:
- skip breakfast
- chug a 20-ounce coffee on the way to work
- eat a meat-stacked sandwich for lunch
- eat a steak dinner with accompanying mash potatoes and gravy for dinner
Then we wonder why we have no energy, can’t sleep at night, and now our back aches all day!
We got so caught up in our modern duty as productivity robots that we forgot the basic truth “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”
Its All About the Qi
In the morning, the Yang (active energy) of the rising sun is reflected in our waking from sleep.
This early Yang of the day peaks at noon, then it turns to descend back into the Yin (resting energy) of night.
The rising Yang of the morning is the optimal time to eat your biggest meal, as this is when your own Yang has the capacity to digest.
If you wait until dinner, when Yin is growing to peak at midnight, your steak dinner is going nowhere fast. The Yin of night is slow to process, so your steak and potatoes sit in your stomach all night, keeping you awake and far from a restful sleep.
When you get up in the morning (you never really fell asleep), you skip breakfast (because you just started digesting last night’s dinner), throw back some coffee to stimulate yourself into productivity, and start the whole cycle over again.
I know its hard, but you need to break the cycle, start your day with a big breakfast with complex carbohydrates, protein, and veggies or fruit.
Lunch should also be filling, ideally eaten around 11am so you have time to digest before the peak of Yang at noon.
For dinner, it should be a small amount of reheated leftovers, eaten a hour or two before bed time.
Back to Bed
Ideal sleep should include: it is easy to fall asleep, easy to stay asleep, and you feel rested after waking.
During sleep, it’s a good sign to have dreams.
Dreams where you are outside, in an unknown place, with unknown people, is a strong sign that you are in deep sleep.
Having dreams of being inside or going about a normal day, are signs that you are not reaching deep sleep, but are floating just under the surface of sleep.
I’ve written about bed time routines before, but the biggest part of reaching this deep sleep comes back to when and how much you are eating during the day.
In Chinese Medicine we understand that the mind cannot rest while the body is digesting. This is why it is so important to limit your dinner to a small meal. This helps your body stay nourished during the night, but doesn’t force it to keep working.
Equally important is to avoid alcohol or other mind-altering substances at night.
The mind cannot fully delve into deep sleep while the body is processing alcohol, or cannabis. People use these substances to relax themselves into a shallow mimicry of sleep, but wake up exhausted.
It’s best to avoid these substances several hours before bed. Instead, opt for meditation or journaling before bed.
These activities will settle your mind, calm any lingering ‘to-dos’ of the day, and prepare you for the most important 8 hours of your life.
Count those Sheep!
If you are working through insomnia, take a look at your meal times and sizes.
Try eating breakfast every morning. If you feel that you are ‘not a breakfast person,’ I encourage you to try something small and easy to begin with.
Make some overnight oats with fruit and chia seeds in small containers. This will jumpstart your day with a bit of food that requires no work in the morning.
If you still can’t convince yourself to eat in the morning, I encourage you to find a local acupuncturist. An acupuncturist will be able to work with your individual situation and help you in your journey.
Have you found anything that helps you with sleeping? Leave a comment!
Thanks for reading,
*There is a debate on who actually said this