Blue Light Blocking Glasses Ordered

Sometimes I'm slow on the uptake. I'd heard for years that sleep deprivation increased cortisol levels and was associated with the onset of diabetes, cancer and other bad crap.  So I bought OTC sleep aids which helped, but not entirely. I also tried melatonin, and valerian root.  Both of those helped and seemed better than taking the OTC sleep aid on a permanent basis, right?  I've been a night owl for almost all my life. When I was taking the valerian root and melatonin, I was hoping to get to sleep by midnight, which is early for me. I naturally fall asleep at about 2:00 am. That sucks when you have to get up and go to work, but I was used to it. I really did try to do something about getting more sleep.  I just had a hard time overcoming years of habitual night owlishness. I would often feel sleepy at about 6 or 7 pm, but if I let myself fall asleep, I'd wake up in a couple of hours and be awake for the rest of the night, so giving in to drowsiness early in the evening wasn't an option.

When I started this journey towards health, I armed myself with a couple of iPhone apps for low carb eating. One of which gathers the best low carb blogs together.  This, of course included Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low Carb http://www.livinlavidalowcarb.com/ which is a great resource. I don't often listen to podcasts, because I guess I'm more of a reader, and the question and answer thing seems slow to me.  But I do listen once in a while when I'm really in need of a motivational boost.  One of Jimmy Moore's more electrifying podcasts was with Dr. Jack Kruse. I immediately found Dr. Kruse's website http://jackkruse.com/jacks-blog/ and Facebook page and I also recommend these to anyone trying to go low carb or just heal themselves. Both Jimmy Moore and Dr. Kruse have compelling stories of their low carb, healthy living journeys. Just reading those will keep you going.

 Dr. Kruse has introduced me to some radical ideas, that after consideration, make so much sense. I am barely skimming the surface of implementing these ideas, but I've taken the first steps. Dr. Kruse is a big proponent of normalizing your circadian rhythms.  The science of it all can be overwhelming.  I'd read that his wife wears goggles at night to help regulate her sleep cycle, but I just couldn't imagine wearing goggles to bed, or even an eye mask on a regular basis. That's because I'd either misread or not read the right passage, so I didn't understand that Dr. Kruse's wife was wearing blue light blocking glasses BEFORE going to bed. Then someone posted a comment on Dr. Kruse's Facebook page about how much the blue light blocking glasses helped. I still didn't get it, not really.  But one day in boredom, I surfed the net and finally got it. Here's a quick article on the whys of blue light blocking http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/6/prweb9532967.htm.  Blue light emitted from artificial light sources stops melatonin production.  Wow! And so you don't wear the goggles or glasses to bed, you wear them three hours before you want to go to sleep.  Whoa! Well now that totally makes sense. I get it now DUH!  I just ordered some blue light blocking glasses, and I will let you know how that works for me. I went with the cheap ones, because $80.00 is lot to pay to try something out. The Amazon reviews said that the cheap ones work just as well, so what the hell, I'm in.