I am on day 3 of LCHF and am having some issues sleeping. Since getting my CPAP a few years ago I am a pretty sound sleeper. I go to bed about the same time every night and wake up about the same time every morning. 7 1/2 hours of sleep is pretty much the norm and I almost never make it to my alarm clock going off. When I wake up I feel well rested. Since getting serious about low carb that has not been the case. For the last 2 nights I wake up several times each night and then lay there trying to fall back asleep. Also where before LCHF I would occasionally wake up hot and have to take off my coverings, now I wake up cold wishing I had more. When my alarm clock goes off it rips me out of REM sleep and all day long I seem to yawn. My hope is that this is just part of my body adjusting to LCHF and will be very short term. On a side note, I do not tend to suffer from LC Flu and have consumed a cup of buttery broth each day to help make sure my sodium level remain up.

Thoughts?

A lot of people find deep ketosis can make sleeping harder. Dr. Eades recommends saving your carbs to have just before bedtime. But if you google "ketosis sleep" you'll see lots of other advice out there. Various supplements, minerals, stuff like that.

Lately I've experienced a few nights of very unusual (for me) insomnia. Waking up at 2am and not feeling sleepy at all. No anxiety, but the unstoppable swirl of thoughts you get in the middle of the night.

I'm thinking it's the avocados. I buy them by the bagful at Costco, and they have to be eaten as fast as they ripen. Having a whole avocado each day for four or five days in a row is a decadent treat. But perhaps quite a large slug of fat and fiber? I'm normally in ketosis, but this might be sending me over the top in some way.

I think this is a temporary condition. I'm going to follow up on Nancy's suggestion and do some research. Maybe cut back on the avocado, too.

Best wishes.

Yes, I had insomnia first month on LCHF. I started taking Magnesium Citrate before bed, but still had about a month of insomnia. It stopped and now I don't have it, so the body will adjust.

Insomnia is pretty common...here are a bunch of previous threads on it:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=466778

Agree that you will adjust and magnesium helps.

Thanks everyone. I will have to look into some options like Magnesium.

I've been a hard-core insomniac for 25 years. It's so bad that it's been a contributing factor to other health issues and one of the main reasons I had to leave my job 13 years ago. I have tried all kinds of treatments and still take meds to help with sleep.

I started LC 10 months ago and had a few days of restless sleep that I think were due to the adjustment going on in my system. I do not think carbs are necessary for sleep just like I don't think they're necessary for athletes. Hopefully your body will adjust. I'd give it a few more days before you start adding supplements. If you don't let your body get used to something new before you add another variable, you won't really know what works and what doesn't.

Just a suggestion. Hope you get some sleep. I know what hell it is when you can't.

Thanks. I did not mean to make sound as horrible as it perhaps did. I am sleeping just not quite as much or as deeply as normal. I have also had some cramping so I was already considering a magnesium supplement. This is not my first time doing LCHF, this is just the first time I am doing it correctly and permanently.

The other thing, of course, is that you are just on day three. Your body has not become adapted to your new WOE, and will continue, for quite a while, to respond in ways that may or may not feel the best.

You could be started the carb flu, that happens when you have used up the easily available carbs in your system, but your body hasn't yet learned to rely on the steady source of energy from fat.

Drinking salty boullion is very helpful with that "I'm tired!" feeling, as well as getting both liquids and salt into your system--LCHF is a pretty diuretic process.

I had difficulty sleeping at first too. For some reason didn't even feel like I needed much sleep when I first started hard core Atkins, I felt a huge surge of energy when I changed my eating habits. Didn't take long and now I sleep almost to well, in fact I probably sleep better since starting this than I have my entire life. I don't take any supplements at all. Just takes a little while for the body to adjust to the changes or at least it did for me.

Avocados: when ripe put em in the fridge. That stops the fast ripening process. Also don't store them in plastic bags on the kitchen counter at room temperature.