Dr. Charlie Fagenholz

What causes sleep issues?  Sleep is crucial to healing.  Are you someone that has difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or both? 

If you have a hard time falling asleep this means that you most likely have a cortisol level that is too high for your body.  This is the person who has a stressful lifestyle.  Your mind is too busy.  We can check to see how your adrenal glands are functioning through blood pressure. 

If you have difficulty staying asleep this means your blood sugar regulation is off.  You are waking up because your blood sugar goes low.  The other reason could be that your organs are not working optimally.  So for example, 11pm to 1 am could indicate your gallbladder, 1 am-3 am is the liver, and 3 am-5 am is the lungs.  If you are constantly waking at the same time every night it can be related to one of those organs.  The issue can be structural, chemical or emotional. 

If you can’t fall asleep or stay asleep you have cortisol and blood sugar issues and your body is chronically stressed out with high levels of inflammation.  Many people live here!!

What can you do to sleep better? You have probably heard of decreasing your caffeine intake, exercising, meditating and decreasing EMF (electromagnetic frequency) waves.  Chiropractic adjustments help people sleep better because when there is a misalignment of the first bone in the neck sleep will be effected.  Bet you didn’t know that.  Also, have you heard of natural lithium?  This mineral is depleted from out soils.  Symptoms one gets from a deficiency consist of minds not shutting down, ADHD, mood swings, anxiety, and depression.  Taking lithium can help lower those high cortisol levels we talked about.

Here’s another thing to try . . . eat a diet high in protein and fat and less than 40g of carbs a day and see how your sleep changes.  Fat and protein help stop blood sugar swings which wake people up in the middle of the night.  A supplement called Berberine can help prevent blood sugar swings also; one capsule with each meal. 

Lastly, I find various essential oils help with sleep but specifically to help with those organs that may be waking you from sleep.  If you are interested in these, call the office and we will guide you to our oil expert.

Remember, just because you are asleep does not mean that you are getting restful sleep.  You need to wake feeling rested!