You’ll Sleep 8 Hours Without Interruptions the First Night You Try This

You're going to be able to sleep eight hours straight through the night and you're not going to have to take a supplement. In fact, your wearable, like an aura, a whoop, probably just throw it in the trash because the reality is it comes down to a very simple thing. You ever have one of those nights where you're like super exhausted and you know you're tired and your eyes are like even heavy, but then once you actually like lay your head down to sleep, your brain just doesn't shut off. You're laying there, your thoughts are racing, your heart rate feels elevated, like your legs are feeling twitchy, you keep repositioning. And then if you do fall asleep, you wake up like an hour or two later. So, you end up assuming that you're super stressed out or maybe your cortisol is high or you just have a lot on your plate, your mind is busy and all of that is real. But what if I told you that this might not be one of those like hormone or neurotransmitter or even thought problems at all? It's actually an electrical problem and more specifically, it might be a mineral problem. So, you're not going to need all the fancy gadgets and the supplements when you fix a simple thing. Sleep is not when the brain shuts down. Sleep is when the brain changes its electrical state. That transition depends on ions, it depends on charged particles that move across neurons with precision, okay? Our bodies are precise. So, in this video, we're going to break this down in a very simple and clear way so it's practical. So, first, we'll cover what happens if you don't have enough minerals and why your brain literally cannot enter a stable state of sleep. And then secondly, we'll talk about how they control whether neurons fire or stay quiet. Thirdly, we'll go through practical things that you could do literally tonight to start sleeping better. And after each section, I'm going to give you direct practical takeaways so you can apply them immediately. So, it's going to go step by step and I'm not going to like leave you hanging on anything. So, the first thing that we need to look at is that sleep is truly an electrical state. We think of sleep as the brain turning off because we're unconscious, right? But it's the opposite. Okay, your brain is still incredibly active during sleep and what changes is just the probability of neurons firing. So, when you're awake, neurons are excitable. They fire easily, it's a little bit more coordinated. To fall asleep, neurons must become stable. And what has to happen electrically is you have a resting membrane potential that stabilizes, the firing threshold increases, excitatory inputs weaken, and basically inhibitory signaling dominates. So, it just changes into the brakes versus the gas pedal. So, your brain becomes harder to trigger, which actually requires extreme energy and very precise ion balance. So, it's not a neurotransmitter thing, it's definitely not willpower, it's ions. So, minerals control the ion movement across cell membranes, okay? And the ion movement controls electrical behavior. So, sodium and potassium set the baseline excitability and then magnesium prevents the overfiring. I'll explain all this because calcium comes in too and it controls neurotransmitter release. So, if those minerals are off even a little bit, your brain stays in this hyper alert electrical state, which you have experienced. You feel like you're just tired but wired, right? So, if we look at the human evidence, we can see how minerals affect this. There was a huge study, it was published in Appetite. It looked at dietary intake and sleep duration and it found that when they looked at proteins, carbs, fats, caffeine, alcohol, water, vitamins, and minerals, there was a specific finding and that was that low potassium and calcium intake were associated with the shortest sleep duration of about five to six hours. Low sodium and magnesium were associated with very short sleep. So, this is super important, meaning mineral intake tracked directly with sleep quality. So, why is this happening? With sodium and potassium, it's about neural stability. If magnesium is the brakes, then sodium and potassium are the engine. So, every neuron depends on a sodium-potassium gradient to maintain a resting membrane potential. So, sleep requires neurons to fire in these slow synchronized waves, and if that destabilizes, the neurons depolarize, and this feels like restlessness. So, it feels like nighttime awakenings, that wired but tired, and even muscle cramping to a degree. So, at the center of all of this is this thing called a sodium-potassium pump. Now, this maintains what's called a resting membrane potential. So, it helps neurons basically do their thing properly and prevents spontaneous firing. Spontaneous firing is that feeling when you're like, why can my brain not shut off? So, this sodium-potassium pump literally resets neurons after every electrical impulse. It's like a slingshot, and it's like if you fire something, you need to pull that slingshot back again. And when you're out of balance, that doesn't really work. This whole process requires ATP, energy, and it requires minerals. So, if you're low in potassium, this leads to a very unstable membrane potential, and in low sodium means the pump cannot cycle efficiently. So, the result is actually hyper excitability at night. It's actually the opposite of what people would think. You're not tired and drowsy, you're actually tired and wired. There was a study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, and it took a look at 1,100 people. Those that had the lower potassium levels had a 1.5x higher chance of poor sleep, and they had significantly higher sleep disturbance scores. They woke up a lot more. This matches the biology because unstable neurons definitely lead to a fragmented sleep pattern. So, we know with this that it's very important. So, what are the practical takeaways when it comes to sodium and potassium? You want to watch for specific signs. Restless legs, twitching, frequent need to walk. You feel like you got to get up. The jittery feeling before bedtime or even in your in-bed. So, if you're starting to feel like this, it's not a bad idea to say, hey, let's go ahead and add a little bit of Himalayan salt to the diet. Let's add some stuff in, maybe add some electrolytes in, and you can start small. Start 250 milligrams at a time. So, add a little bit middle of the day. If you add it late at night, you actually sometimes find that you'll pee more at night. So, add the salt in the middle of the day. 250 to 500 milligrams to start, and then inch it up all the way up to 1,000 or more if you're really active. I put a link for the electrolytes that I would recommend. They're a little more sodium focused in this case. It's from a company called Element. They have packets, which are 1,000 milligrams sodium, 200 potassium, 60 magnesium, but they also have cans. And their cans, they have the full 1,000 milligrams sodium version, and now they have a smaller 500 milligram sodium version. So, a little less salt, and they taste really good, and they're kind of like a soda replacement in many ways. Like, they taste really good. I enjoy them. So, like, I'll have a couple to maybe even a few of the 500 milligram cans per day because I like it. I like having salt. I'm active, and I sleep better when I get enough salt. So, that link is down below, but it also gets you a free sample variety pack. So, even if you buy the cans, you get a sample variety pack of the packets, which are great when you're traveling, great when you just need electrolytes. So, especially if you're traveling and you need to sleep better, sometimes what happens is your electrolytes are out of whack. You're dehydrated from traveling, from the plane, all this. So, that link down below gets you that free sample variety pack with any purchase. I recommend you try the cans. They're really dang good. So, that link's down below, drinklement.com. So, with the sodium, the electrolytes have that a little earlier in the day, and the potassium-rich foods have in the evening. So, potatoes, squash, beans, bananas, avocados, chicken, high in potassium. And another thing to note is that if you're chronically under-eating, this worsens the sleep because that sodium-potassium pump requires ATP. This is why under-eating causes disturbances in your sleep. It's because you don't, literally, don't have enough energy to actually fire the pump that calms the brain down. Crazy, right? But let's talk magnesium for a second because magnesium operates at the ion channel level and actually prevents the excessive neuronal firing. So, without it, neurons become hypersensitive. Okay? So, it's why low magnesium feels like light sleep, like you're never getting into deep sleep. And mechanistically, if we look at the research, magnesium blocks the NMDA glutamate receptor. So, it prevents this calcium overload. It prevents overexcitability. Additionally, magnesium is regulating GABA signaling. Okay? So, it's reducing excitatory activity. It's literally the gatekeeper preventing overstimulation. And we see this. Magnesium is so heavily backed with the research, especially the human stuff. There's a double-blind RCT that gave people 500 milligrams of magnesium for eight weeks. Compared to placebo, they slept longer. They had better sleep efficiency. They fell asleep faster. They had lower cortisol in the evening and morning. They had higher melatonin. And they didn't wake up throughout the night. So, it doesn't just relax you psychologically. It's changing your brain's electrical firing probability, which is so important, especially if you're someone that is a busy person and your brain is racing. That is how you shut it down a little bit. Now, there's some practical takeaways with magnesium that I think would be helpful here. Okay? It's always best to get it through food, but the reality is, is that even if you eat leafy greens and pumpkin seeds and almonds, and that's great, but our soil is depleted. The symptoms that you need magnesium are going to be like eyelid twitching, okay? Muscle twitching, and the restless mind once again, but inability to relax. So, step one is reduce alcohol, okay? And chronic stress because these deplete magnesium. So, magnesium is their calming mineral. So, whatever you do, do it with the intention of calming down. I recommend magnesium malate for a longer acting, slower acting version that helps with ATP formation, helps with energy. Malic acid is very important for ATP. And since ATP is also required for that sodium potassium pump, it becomes super important. Okay? So, try dimagnesium malate. Also, magnesium glycinate has glycine bound to it, which is a neurotransmitter that can help influence GABA as well and help you sleep a little better and stay calmer. Also affects the bladder to make you not have to pee as much. Magnesium taurate, if you're very, very active, it's magnesium bound to taurine. Okay? So, those three options are really good. Now, we get to calcium though. If sodium potassium are setting stability and magnesium is putting the brakes on firing, calcium determines what happens when neurons fire. It points it in the right direction. So, there was a study, a review, that explains that an action potential alone is not enough. Calcium must enter the synapse to release neurotransmitters. So, calcium controls GABA, which is very important for sleep. It controls glutamate release for arousal and acetylcholine for REM sleep. So, sleep requires the synchronization of these neurotransmitters releasing across various regions of the brain, and low calcium destabilizes this whole thing. So, it's like, you don't get into REM, or you don't get into deep, because things are firing in weird directions. There was a public health nutrition study looked at over a thousand people. They found that low dietary calcium, not supplementation, predicted insomnia pretty much every single time. It also predicted anxiety, depression, and pain, which is interesting, which is exactly what we'd expect if synaptic signaling is impaired. So, with calcium, I don't recommend people just go and take calcium supplements. But what you want to look for in your body is poor sleep plus feeling anxious the next day, or if you're also feeling aches that coincide with the anxiousness and lack of sleep. So, the best way to get calcium absolutely is milk, yogurt, kefir, and cheese. The plant sources are okay, but it's just good to get it from dairy. Plain and simple. Magnesium and calcium must be balanced because magnesium controls the calcium entry into the neurons. The things that deplete calcium, caffeine depletes calcium, stress depletes calcium, and once again, if you're low in magnesium, it will deplete calcium because it's required for it. So, if you're going to take calcium, you have to take magnesium, but not at the same time because they cancel each other out. Sounds like you have to have a PhD in this stuff, right? Just take calcium in the morning, or your dairy in the morning, and your magnesium at night. So, here's what all this means, though. The fact is that sleep is not just hormones and light. Sleep is electrical stuff, okay? So, the minerals are signaling the proper conduction of electricity. If neurons don't maintain the ion gradients, your brain will not enter that deep sleep, no matter how tired you are. That is the worst spot to be in, and it feels like it's never going to get better. So, it's why so many people optimize their blue light, their temperature, their supplements. They're doing optimize, optimize, optimize, but at the end of the day, they're fixing a signaling problem with behavioral tools. It's not going to work because sometimes insomnia is not psychological. It very oftentimes is energetic and electrochemical. So, if you fix the electrical environment and the brain can feel safe enough to sleep because it has the signal, things fall in place. And once sleep stabilizes, metabolism, your hunger, your insulin sensitivity, all these improve automatically because deep sleep is when the brain resets that entire system. I did an interesting video on vitamin D as well, and how vitamin D has a huge impact on a number of things, but particularly building muscle. It's wild, but muscle is going to help you sleep in many ways because it acts as a glucose sink. So, when you eat food, the carbs are going to go into the muscle better, stabilizing glucose. So, there's a lot of reasons why muscle is great. People want to build it, but vitamin D is an interesting way to help you sleep, build muscle, and also even drop fat. So, I did a video here that explains a very interesting new study on vitamin D. I highly recommend you check it out. And as always, I'll see you tomorrow.