The things you can figure out by monitoring your health!
I recently discovered that I get really bad night sweats if I drink a lot of milk before bed. By a lot of milk I mean half a liter (about a pint for the rest of you).
I don’t usually drink a pint of milk before bed, so this wasn’t easy to pick. But today I Googled it, and sure enough there is a little bit of anecdotal evidence. It’s not common, but I have company.
And apparently it’s not all milk, just pasteurized milk. So I have some more testing to do.
I’m a great believer in self-tracking, which is why I spend most of my time developing health monitoring software. Which is a nice segue to a brief advertisement. :)
Optimism 3.0 will be out very soon! But updates are free for life so don’t wait. For a short time there is also a 10% discount at the checkout. Tell your friends!
I’ve found other unusual connections. The big one is that certain foods make me depressed. Not immediately depressed, but after a 2 to 3 day delay and lasting for about a week. Preservatives and indulgent amounts of sugar are the biggest culprits. It took about 2 years to discover the link.
Another interesting one is sleep. Normal amounts of sleep will produce normal mood, other things being equal. If I have less than 5 hours a night for a week I’m not pleasant to be around. That’s also pretty normal. But there’s a sweet spot for me – 5 or 6 hours a night – that after a week will leave me fully charged and ready to go. That’s not totally uncommon, but it’s counter-intuitive and took me some time to discover.
Do you have stories to tell? It’s helpful and interesting to hear them so put them in the comments! I’ll be adding a forum to the site soon so that software users and others can also share their flaws.
jessica fenlon 27 Nov 2009 @ 2:57 pm
After quitting smoking, I ate whatever my body craved, in order to answer whatever I needed to repair the seeds of destruction I’d planted within me.
Intense food cravings for pineapple, almonds, walnuts, salmon sushi, and limes? all are decongestants (fruit), cleansers, and incredibly good for cardiac health.
I would eat things that my body asked for, and look them up later. Cigarettes are an antidepressant, and I found myself eating for brain health as well (all that sushi… )
Go with it. We can disenfranchise the experts a little bit here and there, and use common sense, and care for ourselves. Worked miracles for me!
John 6 Jan 2010 @ 5:45 am
Here’s a story, stay away from milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized, good luck with that, its nearly impossible. Also, stay away from artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrups. This list can go on all day, but if you make a solid attempt at eliminating as much of those 3 things as possible, you will be much, much better off. The End.