My gf wants to do a longer dry fast but she already can’t sleep without melatonin and barely sleeps at all during dry fasts. Would a sublingual sugar free melatonin spray before bedtime once a day be acceptable on a 5-7 day dry fast? I know many people brush their teeth on dry fasts so the tiny amount of liquid in one spray of this melatonin (absorbed under the tongue not even swallowed) shouldn’t be that bad.
I can link the exact spray if that’s relevant.
Thank you 🙏
Melatonin won’t overcome the 3-5+ day dry fast sleep issues. Dramatically increasing morning and evening sun exposure can help the circadian rhythm more so, but even that has limited effect when the body is transitioning into full autophagy dry fast. At that point it really wants you to find nourishment and will not accept “i’m tired,” as an excuse. The best course of action, aside from breaking the fast if you need your sleep (eg for work or childcare), is to limit physical activity. The last few days of my 10+ day fasts are generally spent in meditation for this reason.
There is a person out there, Dr. Bright, who says that fasting causes high cortisol levels (the stress hormone; and that seems to be true in my experience). High cortisol makes sleep difficult because your body is going through fight or flight (or freeze) response.
Her solution to lowering cortisol is to eat or drink fat. Butter, cocoa butter, beef tallow, or coconut oil.
From my research, eating fat during a fast should not significantly reduce the benefits of a fast.
The primary things that stop a fast are: eating food that raises blood glucose (primarily carbs and excess protein), and things that provide amino acids that signal mTor, such as protein.
Fat doesn’t raise glucose, it doesn’t raise insulin, and it doesn’t raise mTor.
So it might be worthwhile to try a few spoonfuls of a good butter (like KerryGold salted) about an hour before bed.