My experience with sofi so far

Hello! As I’ve nearly finished the 3rd bottle of the 2nd lot, I thought to gather my thoughts and share my experience. I just turned 88 years old and have struggled with my sleep for the past 50 years, which I unfortunately believe was caused by a self-inflicted sleeping pattern.

For all my life, I bred and raised horses, and during foaling season (feb-july) I would set my alarm to go off every 30 minutes throughout the night so I could check my mares on the cameras (and before that, in person), in case they had gone into foal. One summer, I had 9 different mares in foal at once!

It’s no wonder I now can’t get more than 3, 4, or 5 hours of sleep per night - even with those days behind me I think my body has just become used to the recurring wake-ups and years of doing things that way.

My main observation since taking sofi the past two months is that even if I only sleep for a couple of hours, I doze intermittently for the rest of the night. If not taken I just stay awake for hours, wide awake until finally I just decide to get up. I took my sprays again last night and managed just over 5 hours sleep, plus dozing on and off maybe an hour or hour and a half stints. I am certainly feeling more rested. It was probably not the best time to test it with the stress of recently moving house, but I am almost there now. I am feeling better. Very relaxed and my body too! I am able to be more active for longer periods of time. All down to the Valerian I think.

If I am stressed or bad tempered it calms me down and I am able to carry on sensibly without losing my temper. Therefore gives me the energy to continue working. Now and again I sometimes get gastric reflux when I take it. I probably reacts slightly with whatever I have eaten. Now that I am also taking magnesium my night time cramps have stopped and I think I shall get a better result with the new solutions coming soon! The nightly cramps waking me up did not give sofi a proper chance of proving how it can help, but even still, I have felt that it has.

I’ve nearly finished the 3rd bottle of the 2nd lot. If there is ever a 3rd lot then we’ll hopefully get a more correct reading on how sofi-Valerian works on me - fingers crossed, and I am looking forward to trying passiflora.

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It’s such an amazing narrative @valerie.jcurl and we are so very humbled and grateful to be able to be on this journey together. You know every time you build something from scratch you inevitably find challenges that make you think why are we doing this … and every time when the team here (which by the way, now considers all pioneers part of our team) read feedback like this it gives you a huge boost! Can’t wait to see what discoveries are ahead of us together and wishing you a wonderful weekend. :pray:

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Hi @valerie.jcurl,

Thank you so much for sharing your lovely story here with us. It sounds like you’ve had an amazing if somewhat sleep disturbed life :slight_smile:

And I’m sure @sonja.ekkers.77 can relate to what you’ve shared here!

It’s really heartening and at the same time exciting to hear it when people share their experiences with sofi and how it is changing their lives. Isn’t it amazing what a plant can do? Here we are popping pills and adding chemicals to our bodies which when sometimes the best thing for us are natural remedies to balance our lives out.

What an amazing boost to the team reading this so thank you again for sharing. (And a few pictures of your most memorable horses wouldn’t go amiss :heart: )

Have a lovely weekend!

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Hello @valerie.jcurl ,

What a wonderful and detailed account of your experience. Thank you so much for sharing it, this kind of detail helps us so much to understand what is going on and the different sleep stories everyone brings with them to sofi.

It is particularly heartening for me as the team herbalist, to hear you talk about the wider effects of valerian. It doesn’t just help sleep, it reduces anxiety (or crankiness!) so that you reach sleep time with less stress and therefore sleep is easier to come by.

The wonderful thing about herbs is that they work on the immedite level (helping you feel less stress in the moment) AND over the longer term (helping reset a sleep or other pattern that is years old).

So great to have you with us and thank you so much for taking the time to share with us :pray::herb:

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This was wonderful to hear your story @valerie.jcurl , I could see the pattern of habit being the cause of your sleep issues to. It’s a habit we all get into to make us unable to sleep I think, be it worry, stress, tension, depression, or simply just habits imprinted on your brain like foaling. Wonderful job by the way, I adore horses. Not much of a rider these days but damn did I love it when I did. Just in Ireland, it’s so damn expensive to learn to ride never mind find anywhere to do it. We have massive stud farms all over where Irish horses are bred for racing, some of the most famous of racing horses came from my own area. I am not into racing at all but I did love to ride a beautiful pony as a child my favourite toy was a set I had with a girl rider doll all decked out in the Enish style show gear, a beautiful replica of a dappled grey Andalusian and an Arabian like - you guessed it, The Black Stallion. Always wished for a horse right up until mid adolescence (15) but it would never happen. I got to go to some lessons that was all. My daughter then as a result of her cerebral palsy and surgery we had in the USA in Missouri home of some beautiful Clydesdales :wink:
Riding became the single BEST way for her to get strong in the core and weak leg muscles. See, post selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery of the spinal cord and inside, sensory nerves that misfire are cut, to rid her of the spasticity (drastically tight muscle tone) and naturally the brain rewires to use different pathways to muscles and riding was so helpful as it taught her to walk (the gait of a horse mimics the human gait so instills the motion of walking and imprints) and build core strength to be able to stand up. She doesn’t ride anymore but she’s stronger than ever.

I wish we could go back and do some more riding and take a trail but we don’t even have that kind of stuff here and it’s costs a small fortune to learn.
I don’t drive either due to my severe pain so even if I could afford it, I couldn’t get her or out to our lush green country side for trail riding. It’s so sad to better yourself and learn and enjoy a skill like that can help build a young person’s mind costs so much to do!
Imagine if all our kids learned to take care of a horse and ride as part of chosen school life skills. To realise how intelligent and noble these creatures are.
Sadly haven’t much in the way of anything. Lower than average income with both me and my partner having chronic pain but he works 3 days a week with the intellectually and physically disabled, those who have high moderate to profound I&P disabilities and other conditions that may cause both to happen at once . My girl would be classed as low end of mild. She has learning issues and mobility injuries sustained by her birth negligence where I pleaded with them to check me at the hospital and they ignored me, this was while in labour. Sadly she was strangled by the cord and was born flatline, brought back and resuscitated … They argued over whether I should get to hold her before she was put into ain incubator on high flow oxygen and a tiny feeding tube for the first 48hrs. It was tough. .but look where I got her to just by researching.
Kinds like how I found this place!
Anyway I’m rambling, excuse me!

I just wanted to say your experience so far gives me a lot of hope regardless of the many medications I’m on which I don’t want to be on whatsoever and it’s uplifting. 88years old? You have some fine life experience there. Treasure all the good things you’ve had as you try to fall asleep. I should be listening to myself but it’s hard when your partner is a drinker who is so defensive and will cause an argument at the drop of a hat. I got so upset last night that I shook so hard I dropped a bowl in my hand and burst into tears saying “I can’t take this anymore”
Didn’t sleep more than 2½ hours. .and I just feel so depressed like my life has meant nothing and will never be anything except my own worst nightmare. :cry:

Again, apologies for rambling… it’s just I wanted to reply because your story was so interesting :two_hearts:

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Hi slimj1980.
Thank you for the strength reading your post has given me. All too often when we are struggling/down we get wrapped up in our own world and a not so good (sometimes terrible) cycle takes hold. I know this is a reply to an older post but if you are still in the Sofi family i would very much like to hear from you to see how things are.
I have many struggles that i wont gon into right now but through all the posts ive read on here for the past 6 or 7 months, your post resonated (by far) the most.

Del604

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