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Question about sleep and heart rate during fast

Since the beginning of December, I’ve been doing a weekly monk fast (36 hour water only fast). I start around 6pm on Sunday after dinner and go till 6am Tuesday morning. On Sunday night and all of Monday I’m great. Monday night bedtime, I tend to have crappy sleep and notice my heart rate doesn’t drop like it normally does (I wear an Apple Watch for tracking with AutoSleep) and instead I wake up several times feeling my heart beating faster than it typically would not fasting. This is confirmed but the sleep tracking app.

Is this normal? Does anyone else experience this? What is the reasoning behind it?

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Answer

Fasting raises cortisol.

I find this happens to me for a couple reasons: electrolytes aren’t right (usually magnesium before bed helps), not right potassium, or too much caffeine (have to do by like 10am).

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