The FastDay Forum

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone else suffered form awful sleep on fast days? I can't seem to fall asleep for what feels like forever and wake up multiple times in the night hoping that its morning only to find i still have hours of 'sleep' to go. I don't feel particularly tired the day after but its just so bothersome at the time. I am also doing ADR so this problem is literally affecting 50% of my sleep...

Does anyone have any tips??

Would be much appreciated! xxx

yep sometimes I do- in fact my gurgling tummy woke me this morning. I wouldn't be the best sleeper anyway. I actually downloaded a hypnosis app for weight loss but its mostly a lot of deep breathing which I find helps - I intend to look up more around relaxing and getting to sleep today except I forgot my phone I also have a bath which gets me in the mood....for sleep that is

Hij asp i have probs sleeping - any night tho not just after fasts
Some peeps here suggest keeping some of yr fast day cals for a bedtime drink of milk
so yr tum feels a bit happier and fuller and warmer when you go to bed
I sometimes find Bach Rescue Remedy helps..available from health shops x

I had the same problem and to an extent I still do. When I first started 7 months ago I posted an almost identical post and Carorees explained it to me as the body's response to hunger putting it into high alert ( so you could quickly spring into chasing after a nice tasty deer ) which of course is not so necessary for us modern day folks- my venison comes wrapped in clingfilm!!
There are several things you can try,ranging from oral magnesium supplements or as a soak in the bath with magnesium salts, supplement with vitamin D, try drinking a warm milky something before you go to bed, etc.etc.
I tried everything I could think of with varying degrees of success, but ultimately I have accepted that it will always be the downside of fasting for me. I have had a break now and then from fasting and my sleep improved but ultimately I preferred to lose the weight on 5.2 and now that I am not too far away from my goal weight I mostly just fast one day a week and skip breakfast some days.
Lots of the folk on here found sleep problems eased over time and sleep for others has improved, although from what I have read it seems men are less affected by this sleep problem than women.
Lots of posts on sleep problems and solutions on this forum, just type insomnia into the search box top left - hope it gets better for you, good luck!

What Dhana said!

Here are just some previous threads on the topic!

chat-f12/topic3933.html
topic4222.html
benefits-side-effects-f28/topic3475.html
chat-f12/topic5040.html
topic5720.html
the-5-2-lab.../loss-of-rem-sleep-t7960.html

Like Dhana, I've changed to 16:8 with just one fasting day as my sleep is so bad anyway that the additional insomnia from fasting was too much for me. I think, however, that for people who don't have problems normally, their sleep improves even on fast days.

Initially I found it hard sleeping on 5:2 but soon got over it. But over the last two weeks I have had a really difficult time of sleeping at night. I wake so many times in the night and am finding it hard to settle back down. I dont in any way relate it to 5:2 as I have had some worries but unless I take Nytol, I cannot get a reasonable nights sleep. Saying that though, I took Nytol last night and still had sleeping issues. I'm trying not to make a big thing of it because it'll make it worse but I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to feel desperate. Today I feel sooo tired.

I'm a chronic on-off insomniac. That said, I fasted yesterday and slept like a baby. I went to bed at 10.30, lights off at 11.15 and that's early for me, didn't wake till 7 then switched off my sleep monitor* and conked out for another 45 minutes. Total 8 hours 30 minutes! It may have helped that I was mostly AFK yesterday morning and had clocked up 6,000 steps in that time according to my FitBit.

*sleep monitor - my Sleep Cycle phone app, which has been recording my sleep for about 4 years. I average 65% sleep quality. A good night is 75% and last night I hit 79%, which is rare for me.

I find it difficult to sleep on fat days

After 10 or so years on sleeping pills (not sleep sleep, but the kids that let you fall asleep, I decided +1.5 month ago to stop. And imagine my surprise when I fell asleep (after just laying there for a while) and - slept for 4-5 hrs without waking up!! Imagine that.
Said that I can only agree with the choir (Swedish saying LOL) that on fast days it is harder to fall asleep, mostly due to being hungry and fantasizing about what to eat next day. And The DH snoring like an elephant don't help either The interesting this is that I don't wake up as hungry as I was when I went to bed.