Natural Options for Restless Legs

All right, guys. So let's get started with our discussions this week. And the first one, again, an article from Wellness Resources. This is natural remedies for restless legs. So again, if you're a person who's dealing with restless legs, there's many reasons why you could be dealing with it. So we'll talk about the most common reasons on the natural side and things you can do about it. Okay. So the main reasons are nutrient deficiencies, oxidative stress, mast cell release from histamine. I'll talk about that in a second. Gut microbiome imbalances and changes in gut integrity that, and all these things may contribute to the urge to move your legs. Okay. And when we talk about mast cell activation, we're talking about the release of histamine. I've talked about histamine on the show. We typically talk about histamine as far as their allergic response. So we'll go through that as well, but we're going to deal with the nutrients first and why that is important. Okay. So there's many nutrients that are used for proper function of the nerves, muscles, and the brain. You have to remember that the nerves, the muscles, and the brain are all intimately involved in terms of dealing with and supporting your health. And if you're dealing with restless legs, okay, what are the nutrients involved? Let's take a look. The first one is iron. Okay. Now, iron is probably the biggest deficiency in the world right now. So sufficient dietary iron is essential for nervous system function and the production of neurotransmitters. We know what the big neurotransmitters are dopamine, right? Those that's a big one. Okay. Dopamine, especially those neurotransmitters like that are used in nerve communication and nerve stability. So anything that impacts dopamine or impacts neurotransmitters and or their ability to be stable can affect the rest of the body. Okay. And it can lead to things like restless legs. So what do you want to do? You want to make sure, obviously, if you're dealing with restless legs, you want to take a look at your iron. You want to see if maybe you're dealing with any kind of iron deficiency. Now, the normal iron blood test that a doctor will give you, you know, many times it really is not accurate. Many times it doesn't show you your accurate iron stores. You have to remember there's your body stores iron and your body releases iron. There's a difference many times between the storage of your iron, how much is in storage and actually how much is released, right? So the normal iron test sometimes doesn't really factor that in. So I always recommend getting a serum ferritin blood test. Okay. And this is typically the first stage indicator of your iron stores. So you actually know how much iron your body's actually storing. Okay. And the test provides insight into your iron levels, but your iron levels, even before you actually develop iron deficient anemia, that's key. Okay. Because remember you can be deficient in iron, but not exhibiting symptoms or not being anemic yet. Right? So this type of test can actually show you what your iron stores are. And if your stores are low and if you're heading in that direction, very, very key here. So let's check that out. Okay. So that's iron. Next vitamin D. There's been extensive research that indicates that individuals with optimized vitamin D levels experience better relief from restless legs. Okay. So obviously you want to get your vitamin D stores. We talk about that on the show all the time because, excuse me. So if, you know, obviously avoidance of the sun, you know, not taking any, you know, vitamin D supplements, right. Insufficient glutathione levels. Okay. Because glutathione is also intimately involved in vitamin D activation. A lot of people don't know that. Okay. You know, at winter time, obviously your vitamin D goes down. Also people who have a problem converting or activating vitamin D, these are people with a genetic polymorphism or a genetic snip, right. A single nucleotide polymorphism. A lot of people in the world have that. They have a problem converting or activating vitamin D. Okay. You may not know that you have that, but all these folks in these categories may be very low in vitamin D. So what do you want to do? You want to make sure your vitamin D is optimized. Okay. Especially in the winter time. Again, this, you know, vitamin D and DHA are also needed for which helps to affect the impulse and the need to move. Okay. So all that is, you know, an effective approach there. The third nutrient of the three that we're going to talk about is magnesium. Now, nearly 80% of individuals fail to meet or the actual dietary guidelines of magnesium. 80%. Think about that. That's crazy. And we all know that magnesium is really not, um, you know, prevalent in the soils anymore, right? It's very, very deficient. Okay. So a lot of people are calling magnesium deficiency, a public health crisis. Okay. So supplementing with magnesium is always a good idea. And, um, it can be very helpful if you're dealing with twitchy legs or restless legs, or any kind of twitching in the muscles or any kind of nerve or brain issues and stuff like that. So magnesium intimately involved, and we're going to talk about, by the way, the forms of them when we get to the, the rest of, or towards the end of this article. All right. So those are the three nutrients. Next, we're going to talk about what are the things that can happen besides the nutrients or the deficiency of nutrients that can, uh, you know, be a problem or that can lead to restless legs. Next one is a mass cell activation. What is that? So again, we've talked about mass cell activation in terms of the histamine response, right? I've talked about that on the analogy, right? You're taking in foreign substances, mass cells are immune cells, right? They're immune cells that are found in your nerves, your brain, your muscles, and other connective tissue. And what do they do? They release histamine and histamine is responsible for the allergic response. It's responsible for all the symptoms that you get when you're dealing with an allergy. Okay. So mass cells can also be intimately involved in this whole process or the histamine response in terms of jumpy legs. Okay. So stabilizing mass cells may be helpful in an approach to calm the restless legs. Okay. Very, very important. So again, mass cell activation is one of the things, and something that can actually help the mass cell activation is a supplement called PEA. It's known as a mass cell stabilizer. Okay. Cause it inhibits the histamine response. We'll talk a little bit about that later, but that's another key. Next lipid peroxidation. What is lipid peroxidation? It's basically an overabundance of oxidation in your body. Why is that important? Because what that does is it oxidizes all the fatty structures of your body, including the fatty structures of your brain, your membranes, your proteins, and the fatty structures around your cells and the cell walls. Okay. It actually oxidizes them. Okay. Creates inflammation, right? So that's lipid peroxidation. Remember lipid is fat. So when your fat gets oxidized, that's lipid peroxidation, basically. Okay. A lot of studies are showing that if you lower lipid peroxidation, there's less problem with dealing with restless legs. Also dealing with high C-reactive protein and cytokines has also been helpful in this process. Obviously with oxidation, you want to get antioxidants, right? So five to seven, you know, five to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. You want to get those antioxidants in to squash any inflammation and or oxidation in your body. Next gut microbiome and intestinal permeability. Okay. Leaky gut, right? So imbalances in the guts or, or even gluten intolerances may contribute significantly to jumpy legs as these factors affect brain and nerve communication, as well as nutrient absorption. What have I talked about? Right? The two lane highway that goes from the gut to the brain and the brain to the gut, right? More traffic going from the gut to the brain. Intimate love. You got to keep your gut in good shape. It's highly, highly important. Okay. Also making sure that your microbiome and the short chain fatty acids like butyrate are really, really in good shape because they play a direct role in how your brain manages oxidative stress, neurotransmitter levels, electrolyte imbalance and immune homeostasis. So again, all that works together. You got to keep your gut in balance. So those are the big things in terms of dealing with restless legs. Now we're going to go back to the nutrients for a second, and we're going to talk about which nutrients to get or the ones to take a look at. Okay. So the first one is iron. Now, when you go to your doctor, typically a lot of doctors are going to recommend you know, if you have low iron, they're going to recommend a sulfate form of iron, a sulfate ferrous form of iron. And that tends to have a negative effect on people's stomachs, sometimes causes constipation, those types of things. I don't recommend those. Obviously you're going to work with your doctor. If your doctor gives you that, that's a whole different thing. But the iron that I will always recommend is called iron bisglycinate. This is a chelated form of iron that is more easily absorbed and it's easier on the stomach and you know, it doesn't have any kind of irritation. Okay. So iron can be, iron bisglycinate can be found in wellness resources supplements. You can take a look at their blood booster, their daily energy multivitamin, and their super mini multi. That's the iron I recommend. Now for vitamin D, obviously I recommend D3. That's the big one. You can take a look at wellness resources brand of D3. They either have the 1000 units or the 2500 units. Now remember D3, not only D3 or your vitamin D stores basically. Okay. They can be low, but getting them up also depends on body weight. Okay. Size and weight have make a difference. Okay. So I would recommend adults take at least 2000 to 2,500 units of vitamin D. Very, very important. Very, very good to have. So vitamin D very, very crucial in this, but start in the late summer and do it through the winter to get your vitamin D levels as high as possible. Third, magnesium. Again, I've talked about magnesium on the show many, many times. I recommend magnesium glycinate. There's many forms of magnesium. You have magnesium threonate, magnesium citrate, magnesium oxide, but I recommend magnesium glycinate because it's magnesium bound to an amino acid called glycine. Your body recognizes the amino acid very, you know, very easily takes it in with the magnesium and it's absorbed very, very well. It's one of the best magnesium forms if you want to get your magnesium levels high. So I would recommend from wellness resources, again, relax mag and muscle mag. They're great. Relax mag can be taken for better sleep. And if you just want to kind of the relaxing effect, but it doesn't really make you drowsy during the day. Okay. But if you're dealing with stress, you can take it. And muscle mag is best taken during the day. It helps to reduce lactic acid formation in the muscle. This is very good for athletes. If you're dealing with a lot of muscle contraction, these things, muscle mag is very, very good for that. So check out those two from wellness resources, again, at my vitamin resource. So again, a comprehensive approach to restless legs. Hope you guys are getting a lot out of this, but this is a nutritional approach to restless legs. And, um, you know, something you guys can do, hopefully this helps you, but restless legs can be a major issue, but at least you have a starting point where you can take a look at some, uh, you know, alternative to deal with it. So check those out.