Category: Health & Well Being

Hot In The City, Hot In The City, Tonight! 🎶

Summer is upon us, and I couldn’t be more exhausted. Or miserable! This time last week, we reached temperatures in the low and mid-30’s (Celsius) and I’ve been hiding out in the cool recesses of my basement ever since. I know, I know… I should stop complaining as winter temperatures in Saskatchewan can often hit -50 degrees Celsius and then there’s the shovelling. But I don’t function well in the heat, and would opt for an Alaskan cruise or deep-cave exploration as opposed to laying on a hot beach.

Diabetes doesn’t like heat, either. In fact, according to an article posted by the CDC, people with either Type-1 or Type-2 feel and experience heat a lot more than the average person. Why? Quite simply, nerve damage caused by Diabetes can affect the sweat glands, making it more difficult for Diabetics to cool themselves as efficiently. We also tend to dehydrate much easier, since when the heat starts to dehydrate us our blood sugars rise, we urinate more and lose more fluids… Wash, rinse and repeat.

The other issue is that heat simply slows down the will to move and you tend to want to lay in the shade and do nothing. This is one of the reasons why people in South America tend to go “siesta” in the afternoons, when the sun is at its peak and temperatures are highest. Maybe they have the right idea. Besides dehydration and other typical complications, high heat will also affect how your body processes your insulin doses, so more frequent blood glucose testing (if you aren’t using CGM) may be required to ensure you don’t hit too many highs and lows.

Your equipment carries an entirely different batch of issues. Insulin is the biggest problem, as it requires an ideal temperature range to be effective. Having insulin in direct sunlight or extreme heat will not only damage its effectiveness, but it may cause the medicinal ingredients to evaporate and turn your insulin into nothing more than very expensive water! But your equipment is no different, including insulin pumps, glucometers and even test strips will be adversely affected by the heat. So it’s important to keep these things packed in a cool receptacle when travelling outdoors for any period of time.

Yes, the summer season is nice to get out and get fresh air and enjoy the outdoors. But the heat can sure throw a monkey wrench into the daily life of someone with Diabetes. Especially since kids find themselves out of school and your routine may be royally shot to hell. But as long as your drinking plenty of fluids (non-alcoholic), using sunscreen and have a cool, air-conditioned environment to take breaks in, you shouldn’t have too many problems. Stay cool! ☯

It’s What’s Inside That Counts…

No, this isn’t a post about inner beauty and about how everyone is beautiful! I’ll save THAT conversation for another day, as I do have some definitive thoughts on it. But if you’ve had Diabetes for the amount of time I have, you’ve been through some shit. And you’ve put up with some shit. Diabetes is shit… That’s the takeaway! But in all seriousness, the topic of today’s post are physical scars, which are mostly inside. And having Diabetes or using the associated therapies can leave a number of different scars.

Let’s begin with the digits, shall we? The fingertips… Part of effectively treating Diabetes is the frequent testing of one’s blood sugar levels. Although I was limited to testing only once a day when I was first diagnosed, as a result of financial constraints and my parents being unfortunate enough not to know better, the ideal situation is to test at LEAST five times a day or more. This would include when waking, before every meal and before hitting the sack at the end of the day.

As I got older and took control of my treatment, I started to test my blood sugar more and more in order to avoid many of the complications I had as a child. The result of this is that my fingertips lost sensitivity and accumulated hard, shell-like scarring. This type of scarring is true scarring, same as you’d get from an injury or a wound. It happens due to the accumulation of a fibrous protein called collagen, and is the body’s way of helping to heal the wound. Although the scar tissue may soften over time, it never truly goes away. Even if I have feeling in my fingertips nowadays, you can still see the scar tissue if you look closely (especially since I still do finger pokes.)

The more problematic scarring (because let’s be honest: as long as the needle pokes through the tissue and draws blood, fingertip scarring is no kind of a big deal), is Lypohypertrophy. You can check that term out on Google or Wikipedia if you wish, but the gist of it is a visible lump under the skin near your insulin injection sites. Besides being painful, it can also affect how your insulin is absorbed and the length of its effectiveness. I’m just going to refer to them as “Lumps” for the rest of this post…

People forget that insulin is a growth hormone and because of that fact, the Lumps you find at your injection sites are often an accumulation and/or growth of fat tissue. This is generally caused by using the same injection site repeatedly, but does go away over time. Depending on the severity of the Lumps, it can take several days, weeks, even years in some cases for them to completely heal and disappear. But they generally do, over time.

Here are a few ways to avoid developing Lypohypertrophy:

  1. Rotate your injection sites: This is something you should be doing anyway, but you want to avoid using the same spot over and over without allowing it some time to heal. In fact, my pump trainer was telling me about a Type-1 who only uses one side of his abdomen per month, allowing for a full calendar month for the other side to “heal” and for Lumps to disappear. I don’t go to THAT extreme, but I do switch sides with every new infusion set;
  2. Use a fresh needle: I used to be EXTREMELY guilty of this one. Either from laziness or trying to be cost-saving, re-using the same needle over and over can be terrible for you flesh (see illustration below). Even after one use, the point of a needle begins to warp and change shape, requiring more pressure to breach your flesh and causing more damage on the way in. This can lead to actual scarring as opposed to just Lumps. It will also increase the chances of inflammation and infection;
  3. Leave some space: If you are injecting on the same side and are close to the previous injection site, make sure you leave at least an inch of space between your current site and the new one. Like I said, insulin is a growth hormone. If you inject too close to the previous site, absorption and effectiveness can still be an issue;
  4. Give yourself time to heal: Alright, this one may be riding on the coattails of #1, but it’s important. Like anything else, injection sites need time to heal and get better. No matter what you may read online (this blog included), your body is unique and your healing time will be yours alone. So make sure you’re giving it the time it needs before poking into your preferred injection area.
Microscopic view of a needle tip after repeated use

Obviously, if things seem kind of wonky with a previous injection site, such as discolouration, throbbing or pain or the tissue is hot to the touch, you should seek medical attention as it could be an indication of a worse injury or even infection. I’ve just complicated matters for myself, since CGM requires a second injection site and is supposed to last for seven days. So I get to yo-yo two different injection sites with different change times and try to prevent reusing those sites too frequently.

At the end of the day (or week), those Lumps will disappear as long as you stay true to fresh needles and fresh injection sites. You may develop Lypohypertrophy on occasion even IF you do all these things, so don’t be surprised if you get the occasional Lump. Just be sure to take care of them properly and you’re good to go! ☯

Another Piece To The Puzzle

I started CGM last week. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, CGM stands for Continuous Glucose Monitoring, and it’s a device that measures my blood glucose levels every five minutes and communicates them with my insulin pump. In some ways, it’s the same as my FreeStyle Libre, with the exception that my FreeStyle doesn’t communicate with my pump.

Although having a device that instantly tells my pump whether it needs to suspend basal delivery because of a low and maintain a better percentage of “time in range,” it stands to reason that a more complicated device will theoretically have more issues. And I have found this to be true with CGM. The FreeStyle Libre has been good to me overall, providing little in the ways of problems and interfacing with my phone for a quick, easy means of checking my blood sugars.

When I started the insulin pump in early 2015, I was resistant to CGM. Hell, I was resistant to the pump itself, but the medical professionals through my work kept “encouraging” it, and since they were footing the bill I figured, why not? And no, that isn’t a brag about the fact my pump was covered by my medical insurance. I’m well aware that most people don’t have that benefit, so I’m grateful rather than bragging.

But given the potential violence of my work, I felt that it wouldn’t be ideal to have a device hanging off my gut, around the clock. I also didn’t want to feel tethered to a machine, having grown up watching my brother hooked to machines all his life. I conceded to try the pump, but I refused the CGM as it would be a second module attached to the body and I felt as though one was enough. I mean, come on! Life with Diabetes is difficult enough without turning myself into a cyborg, am I right?

Hello, CGM! Welcome to the party! (Pointing out my freckle is not necessary, thank you!)

My endocrinologist did it right; sneaking the FreeStyle Libre into my life, calling it the “poor man’s CGM” (although it’s far from being cheap, by any means) and allowing me to get comfortable with the prospect of a second device on my person. I have been using FreeStyle for about two years now, and with the advent of my new pump that I started mid-March (Presenting, The Medtronic 670G), I decided to stop being such a stubborn princess and try the CGM that my pump is designed for. (Don’t get any ideas, I’m the only one allowed to call me a princess… And maybe my wife…)

So, here are the problems… Because this is me, and of course there are problems… The first glucose sensor I installed at my pump training failed within hours. Either from a faulty sensor or from scar tissue (which I’ll be covering the day after tomorrow) we don’t know. But it was a pain in the ass, nonetheless. Installing the sensor is tedious, involving more steps than refilling the insulin pump AND using enough adhesive to make Red Green‘s duct tape jealous. (If you don’t know who that is, click on the link and I apologize for aging myself so severely)

This happened last Monday. I was frustrated and I already felt as though the CGM would cause more problems than it was worth, so I shut the option off on my pump. I’m also a bit old school and it takes me a while to put the fate of my well-being in a machine I’m unfamiliar with (Not today, SkyNet!). On Tuesday, I went cycling with a friend and felt it wasn’t a great day to re-install, so I went without it. On Wednesday, I realized that I was actively avoiding it, so I installed a new sensor and started the whole thing up.

I also needed to demo the installation for my wife, who will be the one helping me install it on my tricep, should I decided to use that as a potential site (cue the naughty nurse jokes, here.) Here’s the thing: it’s been helpful. I’m eating an entire murder of crows admitting this, but having the ability to simply glance at my pump screen and see my trends and know what I may be currently sitting at has been nice. Also, my pump is set to automatically suspend my basal rates if I hit 4.0 mmol/L, making it a whole lot safer for me at night. Now, I just need to see how the device will hold up to extreme exercise or cycling, and how I’ll handle a punch to the gut when I return to karate, for the jury to fully have a verdict.

I guess my point behind all of this, besides pointing out how stubborn I am, is that although we don’t have a cure for Diabetes yet, technology has carried us lightyears beyond where we were in the early 80’s when I was diagnosed. When I think about the brick of a glucometer I used to carry around, only testing my blood once a day, “eat no sugar” being my only mantra and the fact that I was excused from most if not all sports due to the fact that “Diabetes makes it dangerous to play sports…” Pffft… what bullshit! If I only knew then what I know now. But I digress…

My point is that we’re getting there. Different technologies are at least making Diabetes manageable in ways it never could be, before. Will we have a cure someday? Like a significant percentage of the Canadian population, I sincerely hope so. I just don’t know if it’ll be within my lifetime. In the meantime, I’m well on my way to becoming a cyborg. ☯

When The Unusual Becomes Normal

I’m sure we’ve all been there… Or at least, I have! You’re standing in line somewhere, perhaps a retail location, grocery store or the bank. The person behind you is basically at your heels, forcing you forward until you’re almost on top of the person ahead of you. Then it happens; the person behind you coughs or sneezes. Maybe they cover up properly. Maybe they don’t. Even IF they do, you may still be faced with the prospect of a fine mist of someone else’s bodily fluids impacting with the back of your bare neck and onto your clothing. Whatever typhoid they may be carrying makes its way into your pores and then you spread it all over the bloody place by dragging it along on your clothing…

Lovely, eh? As disgusting as that prospect may sound, we haven’t even discussed what the terminals, debit pinpads and counter at the location may be carrying as a result of people like that. And having someone essentially riding the spot on your shoulder where your conscience should be also puts you at risk for having less-than-trustworthy folks watching for your debit pin as you pay for your purchase. It may sound pessimistic (and maybe it is) but this happens far more often than we care to think about. And speaking of thinking, that’s exactly what this concept has had me doing recently…

As the world slowly begins licking its wounds amid the lovely beast that is COVID-19, some of society’s strict quarantine measures are beginning to slacken. But as I’ve recently seen from my excursions into the urban wilds to obtain groceries, plenty of people are still wearing masks and gloves and washing their hands despite these requirements no longer being in place. And despite some industries re-opening their doors and some measures being lessened at essential ones, place markers are still present on the floors and directional arrows can still be seen for circulation in the aisles.

Will these things ever go away? A better question is, should they? All things considered, I’ve always felt that maintaining an appropriate distance in public lines has always been important. Not only for hygiene but for personal safety. I’ve often found myself asking the person behind me to take a step back when using my debit and/or credit card. I’ve gotten mixed responses to this, ranging from “sure, no problem” to “go fuck yourself.”

I don’t think I need to clarify that I’m a firm advocate of frequent hand washing, especially if you’ve read any of my posts related to hand washing. But I don’t think that frequent hand washing should have only become a “thing” because of the current pandemic. It’s something that everyone should have been doing all along, for their own personal health and to prevent the propagation of germs.

Masks and gloves are a different story. The first problem is that people need to understand that wearing gloves doesn’t protect you much beyond the immediate moment. Even medical professionals and first responders switch up their gloves often and between patients, so when you see someone using a pair of rubber gloves ALL FREAKIN’ DAY, it becomes easy to forget that whatever you pick up on those gloves stays there. And unless you switch them up, you’ll just spread that stuff the same as you would with your bare hands.

I get a kick out of the photo I’ve seen online, where there’s a man standing in line to pay for groceries. He’s got a face mask hanging off his chin and he’s eating what appears to be a small bag of chips. The joke is he’s eating the chips while wearing latex gloves intended to prevent the spreading of germs and protect himself. But I digress…

Masks are particular, since they’ve been explaining that it’s mostly to protect OTHERS since the beginning of this whole thing. And in fact, many countries have a large percentage of the population that have been using face masks all along. A neat YouTube video I recently watched, entitled Why Do Japanese People Wear Masks? is a good example, as the interviewees reveal reasons ranging from everything including having a cold and not wanting to spread it, to simply not liking the way they look. And that video was released in 2017, well before the advent of COVID-19.

I’m no boy in the plastic bubble, but some health and safety practices should have been implemented as a general part of daily life a long time ago. Maintaining one’s distance from the people ahead of us is a practice that people should have been doing in the first place. So, as strange and unusual as all of this may have seemed in the beginning, will social distancing become the new normal? Are we all going to develop a reflex for staying far away from the people in line with us and learn to distance? It will be interesting to see how society learns to adapt and adjust once it returns to “normal”… ☯

Is There Such A Thing As Healthy Paranoia?

My first instinct is to answer “YES” to the question in today’s title. And my judgement and opinion are likely clouded by my chosen career and past experiences, but what are we if not the result and development of our past experiences? But most people would disagree. Paranoia is usually not viewed as a good thing, but there are times when it can be a useful tool.

By most standard definitions, paranoia is considered to be a mental condition. This condition usually causes the afflicted person to feel persecuted, watched or threatened despite any evidence to the contrary. There are a number of outlying conditions that can be associated with paranoia, including but not limited to schizophrenia, Paranoid Personality Disorder and many others. But certainly, a person can be paranoid without having a mental condition. In fact, most people have experienced paranoia at some point in their lives.

“Fear Is A Logical Response To Actual Danger!”

– Peter Griffin, Family Guy

Paranoia can be a destructive instinct. It can cause damage to your job, home life and your relationships. Especially if you let it control you (I’m referring to non-mental condition based paranoia, of course). After all, developing the ability to trust others is the foundation of living within modern society. But being aware and wary of a real and genuine threat is a form of paranoia that can be instrumental to life and survival.

I’m not saying that you need to be suspicious and wary of every other person and avoid the outside world. Doing so finds us slipping back into the mental health realm… But sometimes a dose of healthy suspicion is a good thing. The more you observe, the more you notice. So long as you don’t find yourself falling into the loop of more suspicion causes more worry and more worry causes more suspicion. ☯

Sure, Go To Bed Angry…

Have you ever heard the saying that you should never go to bed angry? Of course you have! Most people at some point in their adult lives have heard that saying. It used to be an important staple of relationship advice and previous generations stuck to it like glue. In fact, it’s even quoted in the Bible. Don’t believe me? Check out Ephesians 4:26 and tell me that Paul wasn’t talking about this exact thing.

Realistically, trying never to go to bed angry is an outdated and archaic way of looking at things. And it doesn’t just refer to marriage. It applies to most relationships, regardless of their nature and/or type. There are some sources that explain that going to bed angry can actually be helpful.

According to an article posted by Psychology Today, people tend to fight over nothing when they’re tired. They’ll even fight over issues that wouldn’t faze them if they were well-rested. The worst part is, resolving whatever the issue is winds up being more difficult due to the fatigue. The same can be said of trying to resolve a problem when you’re hungry.

Going to bed while you’re still angry is not only a good idea, it can lend some significant benefits. The fact is, you’ll likely be rested, refreshed and able to approach whatever got your hackles up with a renewed perspective. You may avoid saying something stupid because you were too tired. And as I said earlier, this applies to all relationships.

There are days when my 5-year old makes me angry as hell. Strange how kids can get under one’s skin sometimes, right? Rather than lose my temper and yell at him, I usually prefer to distance myself and let him go to bed. Once I’ve got a proper night’s sleep (or some close approximation) I can deal with the previous night’s issue with a better frame of mind.

The old school way of thinking isn’t always wrong; this just happens to be one of those times when it falls short of what’s necessary. So when tempers flare, don’t be afraid to take a step back. After all, “sleep on it” may be more beneficial than “never go to bed angry.” But what do I know? I’ve never fought with my wife before bed. ☯

The Right Frame Of Mind

Developing yourself and reaching a goal can be difficult. Especially when you don’t allow yourself to have a strong frame of mind or proper perspective. Having a partner when you work out can be extremely helpful, as I wrote about in a previous post It Takes Two, Baby…🎶. But although having someone there to spot you and motivate you can be quite the benefit, you need to allow yourself to have a correct frame of mind behind your workout.

The distance I achieved yesterday

A friend of mine recently pointed out something important as it relates to fitness. Let’s say that you’re trying to lose some weight. You intend on climbing the nearby mountain with a partner, which is not only smart for safety reasons but can motivate you to push further in order to keep up. As you start climbing, you begin to feel tired. Your body is having difficulty continuing due to the excess weight that you’re trying to shed, and you feel compelled to stop.

Perhaps you tell your partner you need a rest. Or perhaps you tell them you can’t go on. Maybe you surrender to your body’s urge to have you sit down and give up. A terrible thing to allow, especially if you’ve set yourself some fitness goals that can be important for your health. For someone with Type-1 Diabetes, this can be a common occurrence, since fluctuating blood glucose levels can have the unfortunate side effect of making a person groggy and sluggish.

Yesterday’s route around the Regina Bypass

As I’ve often mentioned before, it’s important to ask yourself why? What is the reason behind your motivation? Your body should and will give out, long before you do. Why do you think people listen to music when they work out? It’s not simply for their love of it, although for some I would believe that’s included. It’s because music motivates us (and in some ways, distracts us from the physical exertion we’re going through).

This is why it’s so important to motivate yourself and stay positive. When I started cycling for fitness this year, I would get home after about a dozen kilometres and my legs would kill, I’d be exhausted and I would feel like total crap. But as you can see from the images above, the day before last saw me hit 65 kilometres. And yes, when I got home my legs killed, I was exhausted and dehydrated and needed food. But I can promise that a dozen kilometres now seem like a trivial amount, and I can do it quite easily in only about half an hour. This is something I wouldn’t have imagined when I started.

Sometimes it’s better to take things in small increments. If I’d hopped on my bike and tried to reach 60k on one of my first times out, I likely would have floored myself and became discouraged. But by staying consistent and building myself slowly, I’ve been able to keep building and developing how far I can go. The same can be said of martial arts or any fitness regimen that you may be attempting.

Let’s get back to our friend who’s attempting to climb the mountain. When exhaustion sets in and you feel like you can’t go any further, there’s no shame in taking a breather. But then, look ahead and spot a point further up the trail and tell yourself, “I can push at LEAST until that tree…” Then go for it. Once you reach that tree, maybe you’ll need another breather, maybe you won’t. But fix yourself another short goal and strive for it.

I think it was a Navy Seal that I had seen years ago, who described taking his training in steps, from day to day. At the beginning of the day, he would tell himself to simply get past breakfast. That’s it. Once this period had passed, he would focus simply on getting through the afternoon. Nothing more. With each piece of the day’s puzzle reached, he would be able to shift his focus and move on to the next, thereby guaranteeing he would make it through the day before hitting the rack. If he were to focus on completing the entire day, he would likely become discouraged and lack motivation. This is a concept that anyone can apply to their daily routines.

The idea is to allow yourself the time to grow. Have a positive and motivated perspective and you’ll go much further. If your thoughts are negative as soon as you begin, you’re sure to fail. how can you be motivated if you’re already defeating yourself? But if you focus on the positive, music, goals, health benefits, perhaps the scenery that surrounds you as you climb, you’re more likely to push farther and accomplish more.

Your own health and fitness is important; critical to your survival, really. And the proper mindset is what will help get you there. For someone with weight issues or Diabetes, staying fit and healthy can mean the difference between life and death. This is one of the reasons I push so hard. Life has too much to offer to lay down and die sooner than necessary.

And Diabetes or not, death will take me. Of this, there is no doubt. But I can promise two things: Death will lose ten pounds in sweat trying to make it happen and he’ll lose a mouth of teeth in the attempt. I intend to go down fighting. (Gee, that would make a great t-shirt) ☯

A Gentle Hand In Hygiene…

Washing one’s hands has become a popular topic of most conversations regarding personal hygiene in recent years, and it still surprises me how many people go without washing their hands frequently and especially after prepping food, using the washroom or contaminating one’s hands with something potentially painful, like hot sauce!

I’ll admit I’m usually guilty of this, at least a couple of times a month. I’ll prep a plate of nachos with cheese, varying ingredients and hot sauce and sit on the couch to watch a show or a movie with my wife. I’ll be snacking away, happy and content with the deliciousness of my nachos when, all of a sudden, my eye will itch. Absentmindedly, I’ll reach up and rub my eye. Within seconds and for minutes after, my eye is a fountain of tears and irritation as the hot sauce residue teaches me the importance of washing my hands before touching my face.

I wish I could say I’ve learned my lesson, but I unfortunately repeat this vaudeville routine on a regular basis. One of the main ingredients in most hot sauces is capsaicin, related to capsicum, which is the primary debilitating ingredient in pepper spray. And I rub that shit into my eyes on the reg… Are you sure y’all should be listening to ANYTHING I say? But I digress…

The reality is that your hands carry a shit-ton of germs. And yes, that pun IS intended, considering fecal bacteria is the most common thing on your hands, your phone, etc… Most people don’t wash their hands properly, and many that do fail to scrub up for as long as is necessary for proper hygiene. The big problem is that we use our hands for everything. We touch our faces, eyes, nose, mouth… often without even realizing it. And whatever nasty bugs we have on them will find a good home in any of those openings.

The next problem is that failing to properly wash one’s hands can lead to the propagation of those germs. By using our hands without properly washing them, we can potentially transfer germs and bacteria to food we prepare for our family or directly onto our children as we hug them and seek to protect them. And looking back on the funny story about putting hot sauce in my eye, there is another very unpopular condition that can be caused by dirty hands: pink eye!

Pink eye, or what’s known as infectious conjunctivitis, is usually caused by viruses but can also be caused by bacteria; such as the ones found on unwashed hands. I’ve been fortunate enough never to have pink eye, but it doesn’t sound like a spa treatment! And washing your hands regularly and frequently can go a long way towards helping to prevent it.

So, good hand washing practices are important, especially to help maintain proper health. Diabetics especially don’t need the added potential for germs and bacteria to cause infections and complications that could make us ill. The biggest challenge is trying to teach children. Trying to convince my 5-year old son why he has to go wash his hands before he eats, sleeps, touches the baby, etc is a battle unto itself…

Be sure to get your hands completely wet, scrub thoroughly with warm/hot water and soap for at least 20 seconds or more. Do this every time you’ve handled raw foods, did work outside, shook someone’s hands and especially after any and all bathroom use. And yes, you CAN overdo it. Washing your hands TOO much will scrub away oils needed to keep the skin healthy and cause dry, itchy skin. But you’d have to go a long way to reach that point. ☯

Sleepy Is As Sleepy Does 😴

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the importance of meals and which of those meals is the most important (despite all of them being important). One of the points I made towards the end, is that it’s important to stop eating at east a couple of hours before you hit the sack, otherwise your body is busy digesting and processing foods instead of what it’s SUPPOSED to be doing during sleep.

As a follow up to that post, I thought it might be interesting to examine and discuss exactly what the body IS doing while we sleep. For the purposes of today’s post, I won’t get into all the “brain stuff” like REM sleep and sleep cycles. Rather, I’d like to focus on the physical aspects that take place within your body while you’re dreaming about that log cabin on the lake that you plan to retire to…

Let’s start with some of physiological effects… According to a list posted by WebMD, your body temperature will drop during sleep and your breathing will deepen and slow. Your heart rate will fluctuate, but non-REM sleep will lower your pulse and blood pressure, allowing the heart and blood vessels to recover. Deep sleep cycles are where the body takes advantage to repair muscle and other tissues, as well as release chemicals that strengthen your immune system. Ever wonder why you need “rest” and sleep when you’re sick? That would be why.

While you sleep, your brain sends out messages to keep you from acting out your dreams. Essentially, your brain paralyzes you while you sleep… (because THAT doesn’t sound horrible!) During sleep, growth hormones increase and stress hormones decrease. There’s also a whole mess of stuff that happens with other hormones as well.

Sleep not only allows your body the opportunity to heal and repair tissues, it also allows your energy to be restored to face the following day’s challenges. Not to mention that your brain processes and stores information and possibly creates long-term memories during sleep. Not to mention eliminating toxins and waste from the body, which is why (outside of drinking too much water before bed) most people dash to the washroom, first thing in the morning.

So just imagine that with everything the body takes care of during your sleep cycle, combined with the fact that your metabolism slows down, you pile a bunch of food on top of it all to be digested right before going to sleep. Eating right before bed can cause heartburn, indigestion and can have an effect on your weight, since the improperly digested calories will likely be stored as fat.

Sleep is super important, and there’s a whole frontier of mystery behind it, as scientists are still uncertain why we have specific sleep cycles, why we dream and what some of the brain activity involved in sleeping is meant for. But one thing is for certain; not getting an appropriate amount of proper sleep can be disruptive and harmful to the body’s natural function. So, hug your pillow tight! Even while you’re at rest, your body continues to work. ☯

Make A Meal Of Some Information…

Mornings suck… I mean, you’re entitled to your opinion if you believe this to be false, but I dislike waking up in the morning. Maybe it’s because I never get a genuine full-night’s rest from my sleep, for various reasons. But getting up in the morning leads to certain routines that most people adhere to. Things like brewing/consuming coffee and perhaps having breakfast.

Now, I’m not a nutritionist or a dietitian and I have no formal training in those areas. I function solely on the personal knowledge and study I’ve accumulated over decades due to being a Type-1 Diabetic. And I will allow myself a brief vulnerability and admit that I’m probably one of the worst people for failing to consume what is generally considered the most important meal of the day: breakfast!

I grew up in a household where breakfast was not only considered the most important meal of the day, but it was mandatory. I have memories of my mother almost physically dragging me to the breakfast table during those awkward teenage years when all you want to do is sleep. There was no way I would be permitted to leave the house without something in my stomach.

The main idea is that eating breakfast within an hour of waking up helps your body to get the sustenance and energy it requires to attack the challenges of the day. Your body’s metabolism is usually at its lowest upon waking, which is why you need the nutrients and energy from a well-balanced breakfast to kick things off. Skipping breakfast and/or the first meal of your day can have negative effects on your body.

According to a paragraph in an article by Science Direct, “[…] the failure to eat (a well-balanced) breakfast has been documented to have a deleterious impact on cognitive performance […]” The takeaway is that trying to start your day without food in your system will affect your overall cognitive functions and impede your overall performance.

WebMD seems to agree as a quote from their webpage states, “Skipping the morning’s meal can throw off your body’s rhythm of of fasting and eating. When you wake up, the blood sugar your body needs to make your muscles and brain work their best is usually low. Breakfast helps replenish it.” The article goes on to explain that skipping breakfast can lead to feeling drained and “zapped” of energy throughout the day, an effect I can attest to have suffered from on a number of occasions.

I’ll admit that I’m quite guilty of this. My first actions in the morning usually include grabbing the first available source of caffeine and flopping down into my desk chair and working on this blog… Thoughts of food don’t hit me until close to lunchtime, by which time I’ve become hungry enough that I overeat. This is an issue that I’ve gotten into a habit of stemming by eating a simple english muffin with my coffee.

What you eat for breakfast is often as important as whether or not you choose to consume breakfast. A balanced meal of proteins, grains and dairy will help ensure your body gets the necessary “kick” it requires to make it through the day. On the flip side, if you constantly consume a breakfast heavy in fats and processed sugars like popular name-brand cereals and bacon, you may start the day with a full stomach but you may also be doing damage in other ways. So, be smart about what you eat and when (something that WOULD require the advice of a nutritionist or dietitian)

So if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, is there a LEAST important meal? The short answer is no. All three meals, accompanied with light, healthy snacks in between, are all just as important in the grand scheme of your health. That being said, lunch can be a bit on the light side, with an accompanying snack during the middle of the afternoon. Dinner (or supper) may end up being a substantial meal as it’s statistically the one we have at home with the family and is prepared to be larger to accommodate everyone. But there’s no hard and fast rule to this.

The one important detail to remember is that no matter what meals you partake in and what time you enjoy them at, experts agree that you should stop eating a minimum of a couple of hours before bed so that your digestive system has time to process your food before you try and sleep. Once you go to sleep, your body is meant to fast as it works on rejuvenating itself for the day to come; something it can’t do if it spends half the night digesting your buffalo wings from your Netflix binge!

Eating your meals at proper intervals will also help with proper blood sugar control if you have Diabetes. Maintaining a proper routine and healthy diet is always the optimal choice in order to help prevent spikes or drops in blood sugar. So, there you have it! If you grew up through the 80’s like I did and constantly heard commercials on Saturday morning about starting your morning with a healthy breakfast, that rule is still a reality today.

For myself, I usually end up skipping breakfast in favour of sleeping in for that added twenty minutes and rushing off to work. But the reality is that most studies will show that getting up a touch earlier and having a proper breakfast may go farther towards ensuring you’re awake and alert than hitting the old snooze button. So take time to grab a meal before facing the world. It always looks better on a full stomach. ☯