Typically there’s two problems:
To get to sleep you need to create an environment:
You’re in bed, your brain is racing, and you can’t stop thinking about things. That’s the result of dopamine. It’s preventing you from falling asleep. The reason you can’t fall asleep is because of your inability to clear (metabolize) dopamine. In order to create this high serotonin environment, you have to eat foods that contain the amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan gets converted into 5-HTP via the enzyme Tryptophan hydroxalase. 5-HTP (which stands for 5-hydroxy-tryptophan) needs the enzyme DDC (decarboxalse enzyme), which is dependent on Vitamin B6 [1] (perodoxin) to decarboxaliate 5-HTP over to serotonin. That B6 is vital for that enzyme to work. If you have low B6 the conversion will happen very slowly.
[1] Vitamin B6: also known as perodoxin needs to be in the active phosphorolated form (Perodoxin 5 phosphate) to push 5-HTP to serotonin. The serotonin, will help you relax. It’s then convered into melatonin while you’re sleeping. When you run out of melatonin? You wake up.
The first part in the conversion of serotonin to melotonin involves the AANAT enzyme. Which is a circadian clock enzyme that works at night when we're sleeping. It’s dependent on vitamin B5 (panthathonic acid). The second part, is you need methylation to occur. (which just means you need to turn on or off certain genes) This process is dependent on having adequate amounts of methyl donors. (which is a substance in your body that can "methylate") It donates and “gives-away methyl-groups” to activate certain genes. Now the last step to convert serotonin into melatonin uses the enzyme (ASMT) which needs SAM. (a methyl donor) SAM stands for S-Andenlseen monomethionine. SAM is created from the amino acid Methionine. The other side of the story is Dopamine – The amino acid Tyrosine is converted into L-Dopa, and L-Dopa makes Dopamine. Which is a neurotrasmitter that increases in your brain. Dopamine is what keeps you awake, it's a stimulatory reward enhancing neurotransmitter. So when you're in bed and can't fall asleep because your mind is racing, it's the excitatory neurotransmitters from dopamine keeping you awake. You need sleep to get these dopamine neurotransmitters out of your brain. We’re talking detoxification! That's where COMT comes in. COMT is responsible for clearing, or detoxifing a lot of horomones and neurotransmitters. (like estrogen and dopamine) COMT stands for = Catechol-O-methyltransferase. It methylates catachols such as dopamine, adrenelin, nor adrenelin, and estrogen. Dopamine needs to be converted to the byproduct VMA (the end product of dopamine-clearance for detox) which gets excreteted out through our urine. This process requires magnesium. (You can actually follow the excretion of dopamine by tracking VMA levels in the urine) COMT also needs a methyldonor SAM for methylation. If you don't get enough methionine in your diet COMT slows down. As for magnesium - The inner core of COMT has a magnesium ion, which stablizes the COMT enzyme. If you run out of magnesium COMT simply doesn't work and you won't clear dopamine from the brain and it will keep you awake. The same thing happens with your other brain neurotransmitters. If COMT slows down? Dopamine has nowhere to go. COMT also clears estrogen. So if you don't have enough magnesium, COMT is stuck trying to detox both dopamine and estrogen.
This is why I supplement with Magnesium Bis-glycinate before I go to bed. It's a magnesium ion chelated to glycine molecules – which (glycine) feeds into the making of gaba in the body. So you're also providing the body with glycine in order to support the production of gaba. (an inhibitory transmitter) Gaba absorbtion occurs in our gut and then feeds into our brain. (it’s too large to cross the blood brain barrier by itself)
Now to address the other side of the coin. At the end of the day, serotonin converts to melatonin and you need melatonin to fall asleep. (cortisol wakes us up) Now anything that effects the retna like blue light from your cell-phone will effect the conversion of melatonin in the brain. So you need serotonin and some melatonin to fall alseep. As serotonin goes up, your dopamine goes down. It's the opposite when you wake up. You essentially wake up when you run out of melatonin. So the otherside of the problem is running out of melatonin. You’ll have difficulty staying asleep because your sleep is dependent on this process. The serotonin in your brain is being converted over to melatonin as you sleep. (remember Enzyme AANAT - works when we sleep) Which was dependent on vitamin B5. If you don’t have enough B5? You guessed it, this could be one of the three bottle necks that causes you to wake up in the middle of the night.
It’s fairly easy to see why so many people are having trouble with their sleep. One dominoe hits another and it creates a nasty negative feedback loop. What can you do? The easy fix, is to simply change your diet and make sure you get the necessary co-factors to not only fall asleep but to stay asleep. You want your body to produce it’s own natural endogenous melatonin. My other recommendation would be to read Dr. Satchin Panda’s book “The Circadian Code.” Something as simple as getting sunlight the moment you wake up can be a major game changer. Re-set your circadian clock and plug the nutritional difficiencies by eating real whole foods.
Magnesium is the one exception to the rule. I truly believe it’s impossible for anyone to get enough magnesium from dietary means alone. (Jarrow Formulas MagMind: L-Threonate – 1 or 2 capsule/day)
I’d also like to shine a light on tik-tok. Those short videos are designed to over stimulate dopamine. They’re going to cause the younger generation major issues down the line. If you’re a parent and care about your childs health, have them avoid tik-tok and youtube-shorts like the plague. Those videos are going to cause both physical and mental health problems in the near future. The sky high dopamine will overwelm COMT.
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