Maca: Nature’s Speed

I have been struggling with some of the worst insomnia EVER the last few nights. It’s as if my brain and body are on a speed ball (not like I’ve ever been on a speed ball, but I’ve seen Intervention, ok?) Anyhow. As I explored the wonders of the internet at 3AM this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that for the past 4 or 5 days, I’ve been adding Maca powder to my daily Green Vibrance Drink from Hell. It’s supposed to be a hormone regulator. It suddenly occurred to me as I clenched my jaw and gnawed on a ring pop while listening to Trance and flinging around glow sticks in my kitchen at 3AM this morning to Google:

“Maca and insomnia”.

Yeah.

So, looks like I’ll be decreasing my dose if I ever want to sleep again.

Sweet insomnia…how I’ve missed you…

For the better part of my adult life, I have battled insomnia. It’s a vicious cycle of waking up multiple times during the night (usually between 12 and 3AM), falling back to sleep around 5AM, just in time to drag myself out of bed around 7AM to get ready for work.  The lack of consistent sleep at night makes me exhausted and ready for bed around 9PM (real fun for Hubs!).

For the last few months, I was doing great with insomnia. I had quit caffeine and immediately began to notice an improvement in my sleep. Mystery solved! However, over the last week or so, the insomnia has crept back in. I had wine last night…so maybe alcohol did it? But there have been nights this week I haven’t slept where there was no alcohol at all. I’m thinking it might be the Provera. I’ve been having some cramping, headaches, night sweats and general lethargy on these pills. I’ve also been feeling a little bit like this guy:

You know the feeling? It’s like my brain has been left in a case of frosted glass. I try to smudge the glass so I can see clearly, but it just fogs up again. Everything is dampened and muted. Cracking a smile feels like an exercise in fakeness. I snapped at Hubs yesterday because he didn’t want to make dinner reservations for our two-day trip to Palm Springs next week and instead preferred to keep things looser on the trip. You would have thought that he had just told me he wanted a divorce.

I believe that I have always had mild to moderate depression. I have never been on medication for it, but sometimes I wish I could pop a pill now and then that makes me feel like this:

I have read about PCOS and depression being linked (there was a great article I read on Soul Cysters about PCOS, depression, and slightly elevated testosterone levels that really hit home). Or, perhaps my malaise the last few days has been due to the Provera…? Dunno. All I know is, this sucks…and the big question is: what infomercial should I watch? Slap Chop, or Proactiv?