Exercise.... who knew?

So this anti-anxiety, anti-depression medication that I'm taking has been taking me on a minor roller-coaster (think teacups, not days of thunder) of side-effects. At first I had a lot, but only for a few days. Eventually it leveled out so I seemed to only be having trouble with some jaw tension, and vivid yet mundane dreams that sometimes tire me out (which I've had for some time, but have become more frequent since the medication). I figured I could handle that, at least for a few months, as long as I was able to be comfortable most of the time.

However, more recently, a couple of somewhat more disturbing (in both the physical and emotional sense) side-effects have cropped up -- more than usually jittery legs after having lay in the same position for a while, and a weird involuntary movement of my diaphragm that disrupts my regular breathing pattern when I'm drifting toward sleep -- both of which seriously derail my ability to get a good night's sleep. And you know how I feel about sleep. Not only that, but my strange dreams kept me popping in and out of sleep and full of exhausting worry during the sleep I did get. So unfair! This, and not headaches and jaw tension, was enough to make me think about calling my doctor for a change.

I had these side-effects when I first started taking the medication, but since I'd had them less intensely before when not on medication, and since they died off as the initial jitteriness caused by the meds calmed down, I wasn't worried about them. But when they started cropping up again, they were both disruptive and worrisome.

But another cofactor, which may have seemed fairly inconsequential but which I'm now thinking may have an important effect on regulation of the medication's ability to make me jittery, is the fact that around the time I started taking this medication, I also started going to Goodlife and taking BodyFlow or aerobic classes once a week. I noticed that even though I was very jittery at first, the night after BodyFlow or BodyJam, I slept like a baby.

Eventually, the side effects completely died down and I thought nothing more of them, until late July, when I had a few interruptions to my gym schedule, and stayed away for probably about a month. About three weeks in, my jittery legs and diaphragm were back and I was noticing headaches and jaw tension more. I wondered if there was any coincidence, since even through the screen of my habitual reluctance to drag myself out to the gym, I felt a longing to go there. A few nights, I tried doing a sun-worship yoga flow once through on each side of my body before going to bed, and things improved measurably. I was able to get through a night's sleep. Perhaps I was really on to something.

I mentioned to my therapist the theory that getting back to the gym might calm my jitters. She didn't endorse it one way or the other (although she's all for exercise as a good way to combat depression and anxiety), but she suggested that I test it by using the following week (this past one) as a trial period, to step up (reinstate, really) my exercise routine and see if it helped.

So I went and did a quickie workout (a 15 minute run, a few weight machines, a couple stretches) on Friday the 27th, and that -- probably in combination with lots of walking in shopping malls and beaches during the following weekend -- took me through to about September 1 with no sleep issues. Around the night of the 2nd, I got a few jitters and a few breathing hiccups, but nothing that kept me from sleeping the night. Yesterday I went again and went all the way through Goodlife's "FitFix" gym, and last night I slept soundly, without even any weird dreams to tire me out.

My theory is that maybe this medication really elevates whatever it is that makes me hyper and full of energy, and that I need to siphon some of that off every once in a while so that it doesn't prevent me from having downtime. So exercise is the key for me to get a good night's sleep. How's that for motivation to go to the gym?