Healthy sleeping patterns are overrated, anyway

Over the past couple of days, I've managed to completely mangle my sleeping pattern; I go to bed between eight and ten in the morning and crawl out at around five or six in the afternoon which, given my shift patterns (evenings & overnights), is okay-ish but not ideal for my actual hormonal well-being... nor are my shift patterns in all honesty, heh.

Now, the sensible thing to do here would be to pull a twenty-four-hour run and just not sleep until after my shift tomorrow (a 17-23 one, so it's doable even when a bit tired) but I'm not sure if I can do that without bucketloads of coffee and caffeine, again, is not very good for my hormonal issues. I'll probably still end up doing it since I'm getting on a new cocktail on Friday so I might as well enjoy the last days of my unhealthy life. o/

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The original plan, Friday onwards, was to put me on menopause medication (not because I'm actually menopausal obviously, but because something needs to be done and we're running low on options) and in a way we still are but I've decided to approach that approach (...) with natural methods. Instead of pumping myself full of hormones and hoping for the best, I will be taking a herbal/alternative approach because quite frankly I'm tired of being a pharma guinea pig for a still-fairly unknown condition. I don't feel good on chemical cocktails and at this point I really have very little to lose anymore & am willing to try just about anything.

♰ Completely changing my diet? Sure.
♰ Giving up alcohol? Eh. It'll hurt but I'll do it.
♰ Weekly acupuncture? Shove those needles in my skin.
♰ Eating a fistful of sunflowers every day? Don't mind.
♰ Realigning my chakras? By all means, shuffle them around.

The only thing I refuse to do is to give up my ramen. That will never happen. I would rather abandon tea for life than give my noodles up. Hands off my pasta squigglies! They are essential to my survival!

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What I will actually be doing is as follows:

• for my anxiety, I'll be trying St. John's Wort. I've joined a few PMDD groups and people swear by the stuff when it comes to the mental instability aspect of the condition.
• for the constant inflammation/pain issues, I'll be trying out evening primrose oil; another herb that PMDD sufferers seem to praise to High Heaven.
• as much as I dislike the smell, I'll be looking into implementing lavender in the form of pills, oils and fragrances as a back-up anxiety remedy. It's also meant to help with sleeping.
• speaking of sleeping, I'll be going back to my valeriana and ditching actual sleeping pills.
• since I quit CBD oil, I've not been as well as I used to be, so once I can afford the price tag again, it'll be reintroduced to my daily routine.

On top of the herbal approach, I'll be blasting my body with vitamins, calcium and magnesium. I am pretty much willing to try anything before taking on any more pharma. No,  I'm not wearing a foley hat or preaching the Evils of Big Pharma, I'm just sick of being sluggish on medication that I'm not 100% is even working properly, if at all.

I'm going to beat this thing.

You just watch.