Sleep Disorders

Treating Sleep Disorders

Dr. Pierce is a Chiropractic Neurologist who uses brain wave scans and lab tests to guide diets for brain health.

For many people, the struggle to get a good night’s sleep is both chronic and incredibly frustrating. We hear almost daily the benefits of sleep to regenerate cells, improve brain function and regulate your mood. Yet many people don’t know how to sleep deeply and consistently so they miss out on these vital benefits.

In my practice I help people understand the natural ways to get the sleep they need without filling their bodies with chemicals or medications. But to get to the “how” you first need to understand what’s going on inside your brain.

Why Are So Many People Plagued By Sleep Disorders?

Aside from a frantic lifestyle, there are several nutritional factors that erode sleep quality. Insulin resistance from carbs can cause poor sleep and agitation. Low protein and fat lead to imbalances in neurotransmitters and nerve signaling making it harder to get the sleep you crave. Your adrenal gland responses to stress also impact your blood sugar, your mood, your other hormones, your immune system, and even your susceptibility to some cancers.

Finally what you eat plays a factor too. Food intolerances can drive gut and thyroid issues causing real imbalances in internal temperature, weight gain, poor wound healing, bad sleep, and much more. Women with dietary-based hormone imbalances can have sleep problems at any age. This is totally avoidable but we have slipped into believing that we need drugs for all these problems and that having them is normal.

Why The Traditional Medical Approach Doesn’t Work For Everyone?

Traditional medicine in my experience looks to help resolve your symptoms first which often leads to medication prescriptions to help you sleep. This is done instead of examining the root cause, which is where you really need to be if you want to understand why you can’t sleep.

For example, the most common ways of dealing with hormone imbalances in women is to put them “on the pill.” When you have diabetic symptoms, the answer is to put you on insulin. Both of these may have “reasons” for being offered, such as reducing your immediate symptoms, but they are band aids on problems that can not only be resolved in most cases, but also eliminated altogether with the right approach.

When problems related to your body chemistry are treated in this way, they often morph into sleep dysregulation. The good news is that many can be reversed with food changes, lifestyle adjustments and stress management.

How Sleep (Or Lack Of Sleep) Affects Your Brain

Your brain and your body need sleep. Without regular sleep (about 7 hours on average for adults-teens may need up to 12 hours of sleep at times) you can start to develop a host of issues. Sleep deficiency can lead to brain wave abnormalities, fatigued driving, poor emotion regulation and weepiness, unwanted appetite surges, feeling too cold or hot, poor coordination, poor memory and foggy thinking.

How Sleep (Or Lack Of Sleep) Affects Your Mental Health

Your emotions are stabilized by good sleep. With poor sleep, you can feel out of control or have flares of past resolved issues come up for no other reason. Up and down moods or moodiness are common. When experienced over time, people can start to believe they have chronic conditions like depression and anxiety when in reality, they’re sleep deprived.

Other brain related challenges are often exacerbated as well. Concussions and traumatic brain injury may be worsened, and critical thinking is often impaired.

How My Alternative Approach Can Help You With Getting A Better Night’s Sleep

Getting to the root cause of a sleep disorder can be different for each person due to biochemical and genetic individuality. That said, the most common root causes regardless of race, age or gender is either a toxin, a food intolerance, a screen-time AKA EMF (electro-magnetic field exposure from devices), or sleep habit problem. All of which are easily corrected for most people once the “surprising” root cause is identified. Remember, most humans slept well under less comfortable conditions for eons without medication.

Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea is a condition that’s taken the world by storm since the pandemic started due to the shortage of CPAP machines in the US. Sleep Apnea is the sudden stoppage and starting of breathing during sleep that occurs in approximately 30 million people in the US according to the American Medical Association.

Resolving this condition is often relegated to hardware to help you sleep, but there’s more you can do. Getting a proper EEG-brainwave sleep study and examining mucus producing foods and food sensitivities is a good start. Even though it’s not a cure, anti-inflammatory foods, diets and herbs can often reduce measurable symptoms of apnea and give you back regular sleep in your life.

Co-Sleeping & Sleep Hygiene

Sleeping with a partner can help or hinder sleep, depending on the sensitivity of one and the activity of the other. Mattresses with different stiffness, temperature and tilt control can help couples tolerate sleep together better. Some do better with 2 separate beds in the same room, or even in different rooms for sleep quality. Discuss separate sleeping spaces, but do not let that sacrifice intimacy. Keep screen time away from bedtime, and turn on red shift-blue blocking settings on your devices after 5pm.

Insomnia

Sleep is regulated by hormones like orexin and is highly sensitive to food based imbalances that can be reversed. This includes diets that are overly high in carbohydrates, overly reliant on seed oils with omega 6 inflammatory oils, and thyroid-sensitizing foods like grains and dairy. Natural treatments like chiropractic and acupuncture can work very well for reducing insomnia once foods like these are eliminated from your diet.

Restless Sleep

Restless legs can be partly caused by magnesium deficits and heavy metals, aluminum, solvent or pesticide toxicity. Finding and correcting these imbalances can be done naturally. Neurofeedback may also help restore healthy brainwaves and reverse restless sleep.

Next Steps

I want to invite you to watch our YouTube channel for videos on treatment resistant mental health challenges and reversal.

Working In Partnership With Your Doctor

Your doctor is your primary advocate and it’s your job to get them aligned with how you want your mental health addressed. If medication and polypharmacy are not the approach you want to take, you have to get into a conversation with your provider to work on exploring how to change the approach. It’s time to think outside the box so you get the support you need.

It’s best to come to that discussion armed with information that your doctor can use to help you. Before your visit with your doctor, go to pubmed.com and put your issues into the keyword/search box. You may find that you have to use different combinations of words to get the search results/answers you’re looking for. Once you’re finished, you’ll have a list of articles to read and then show and discuss with your doctor.

Load a few of these on your phone and bring the links as well as any YouTube videos that you like to your doctor visit and ask your doctor’s opinion. Ask your doctor to theorize with you what could be the mechanism underneath your problem. Ask them to think outside the box. This approach isn’t just about adding a prescription, but more about addressing your whole brain, body, and environmental connection to get you closer to a solution that works.

Get Started Today

If you are facing any problem or have queries then you can simply contact us or leave us a message our team will get back to you as soon as possible.