I was always a bad sleeper my entire life, hours to fall asleep, wake up in sweat, etc. I am sure many of you relate to this. I never really had sleepless nights or anything but it definitely still impacted my life negatively. I realized the standard advice was not working, melatonin, anxiety meds, therapy, cbti, etc. While all these can work they are not the end all be all. Note that I never used proper sleep meds like Z drugs or strong anti anxiety things like xanax. However I never gave up and always kept learning. I had the belief that a body that is in rhe right state (hormones, health, etc) will be able to sleep properly. So there was 2 main things I did to fix my insomnia.
Got my tongue tie fixed (I know it sounds odd) if you have a tongue tie it can cause you to have a narrow airway which means that your body has to dump a steady stream of adrenaline throughout the day (not just the night but waking hours too) to keep you breathing properly. This causes chronic stress on your nervous system and makes it harder to fall asleep and makes you sweat more when you do and leads to low quality sleep. After getting my tongue tie fixed I never wake up in sweat and always fall asleep on my first or second try. Your tongue needs to be on the roof of your mouth to activate your vagus nerve properly
, this nerve is paramount to regulate your nervous system.Nutrient deficiencies - mainly vitamin D deficiency which is paramount to have for circadian rythmn and overall hormonal function. I am an active person and am outside a good amount and my vitamin D level when I got it tested was 18. It is supposed to be at 40-60. Getting my levels up since I started properly supplementing has helped a lot. But you need to supplement it correctly. Do not just take a vitamin D pill and think it’ll work it wont. You need to get vitamin D + k2 and take it with food (particularly some form of fat, you need 2-5g of fat minimum, I usually must drink some milk) and I would take 10,000 iu per day for 2 months then 5,000 once your levels are normal. You also have to take magnesium at night since the two need eachother to metabolism properly. Do not just take magnesium gylecinate you need to take a full spectrum magnesium that has all the 5 types of magnesium and take this at night.
IF YOU HAVE HAD DENTAL FILLINGS READ THIS.
If you had fillings particularly if they were over ten years ago you need to make sure that if they were metal you have not been getting lead or mercury poisoning from them. These old fillings can leak into your body and cause poisoning which can lead to brain and nervous system damage. Get tested for poison levels and do your research. You can get the fillings removed and allow your body to heal.
Never give up always keep learning the body functions as a whole. Dont let some phyciatrist or doctor tell you otherwise. Look at the whole picture. Apart from genetic anomalies the human body was meant to work optimally when in good health. If your health is good your sleep will be good (again unless you have some genetic anomalie). And by health I dont just mean how you look or what a doctor tells you. I mean things like your airway, palate width, tongue posture, fascia, hydration and electrolytes, etc.