sleep
Do you sleep well? I haven’t for years. Poor sleep is related to cognitive decline, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, depression, heart attacks and strokes. I’ve spent an enormous amount of energy trying to improve the amount and quality of sleep I get. I rarely buy books, preferring to borrow them from the library, but I have a collection of books about sleep. I’ve followed the instructions from each, precisely, without improving the outcome.
In fact, the current book about improving sleep sits beside the bed with a bookmark half way through as I’m not supposed to follow the advice in the next chapter until I’ve mastered the first step towards wonderful sleep. It’s never happened despite my dedication and determination to master the technique. So, just like every other book about sleep, actually, no help at all.
There’s no better click bait online for me than ‘How To Get Better Sleep’. That one item lead me to many other items about caffeine in the morning interfering with sleep. Apparently, the best time to enjoy your first cup of coffee is about 90 minutes after you wake up. Your cortisol levels peak three times a day and one of those times is when you wake up. About ninety minutes later, your cortisol has returned to normal levels.
Cortisol controls alertness, focus, regulates blood pressure and your immune system and metabolism. Cortisol follows your sleep-wake system and peaks about about 30 -45 minutes after you wake and then slowly declines. So here’s the problem; coffee interfers with the build up of cortisol and adenosine, which induces the sense of sleepiness later in the day. Caffeine is an adenosine blocker and therefore interferes with your circadian rhythm. The recommendation is to avoid caffeine for about 90 minutes to allow cortisol to be released which increases alertness naturally.
Prepared to try anything to get more sleep, I delayed the first cup of coffee for 90 minutes each morning for five days. After three nights of worse than average sleep I dug a little deeper to see if there were other variables which might help. Discovered drinking a glass of water, exposure to sunlight for about 10 minutes, stretching, eating breakfast and meditating are all recommended. Being outdoors as the sunsets works for some people, too. As this is my preferred time to garden, as it is cooler, I began this recommendation immediately.
The result? Three consecutive nights poor sleep, one night great sleep (so exciting), another dreadful night. I will persist a little longer
food
Usually I feel the last months of the year rush by, but March seems to have arrived very quickly this year. In the Southern Hemisphere, March marks the beginning of Autumn, but you’d never know it here in Perth, where the temperatures continue in the high 30°Cs. Humidity is high, too.
The early months of the year seem to be favourites for celebrations. We’ve finished with the really big one, Christmas, then the new years starts with St Valentine’s Day, next is St Patrick’s Day followed by Easter and finally, Mother’s Day. Then we get a bit of a rest depending on your family birthdays’ and wedding anniversaries. Preparing for Easter is always special so I’m beginning to plan now.
Meanwhile, I’ve used sourdough ‘discard’, leftover from feeding the starter, (getting it ready to make bread) and made more scones. Delicious.
Sweet corn, considered animal food in some countries, but popular in Australia, is at its best at the moment. Do you cook it in the microwave?
I put the cob onto the plate in the microwave and cook it for three minutes, trim the end, strip off the leaves and serve with butter and grated pepper.
Another vegetable in good supply at the moment is celery. I have begun buying it. I was growing celery from the cut off base but the stalks have begun to taste bitter. It is now compost. The last bunch of celery I bought was huge and I knew we wouldn’t eat it all while it was fresh. So I made celery soup using the recipe from Feasting At Home (here) There’s no cream or milk in this recipe so it was wonderful served cold. The recipe includes a pinch of cayenne pepper which really adds flavour.
Thickened with a small amount of potato, this celery soup is delicious hot or cold. The recipe makes quite a lot, so a jarful went into the fridge with two more containers of ratatouille which I made the same day.
When it’s was very hot and humid chilled celery soup and ratatouille were very welcome.
The new sourdough bread recipe from Feasting At Home, discussed on in previous two blogs, makes very good bread. So good in fact, we are eating it so quickly I am making bread every few days. The latest recipe I’ve tried to use the ‘discard’ from feeding the starter was corn fritters. So good with sweet chili sauce.
Loved the rustic looking boules/balls I first made but it is better for us to make a rectangular loaf. That way we cut of similar sized slice each time.
Did you know cigarette butts take 10-12 years to decompose?
