Sleep, wonderful sleep. It’s almost impossible to have a decent quality of life if you aren’t getting adequate amounts of high-quality sleep, yet over 50% of adults in the United States suffer from significant insomnia, and the rate has been increasing over recent decades. What exactly is driving this troublesome trend? Lack of sleep tends to affect many areas of your life adversely:
- Cognitive functioning
- Physical and mental energy
- Sexual functioning
- Mood
- Relationships
- Work performance
- Overall quality of life and happiness
Once more, even most sleep experts have failed to account for this tsunami of insomnia adequately. The rapid rise in obesity is often mentioned, and I agree that this is a factor, but I believe the problem goes well beyond obesity. Allow me to explain.
Let’s Do the Bossa NOVA
I believe that the dramatic increase in ultra-processed food in our diet is driving both obesity and insomnia. The type of food has been defined by the NOVA classification with four groups of food:
- NOVA Group 1: Unprocessed or natural food, such as an apple.
- NOVA Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients, such as a peeled and cut-up apple.
- NOVA Group 3: Processed food with added ingredients like sugar, oils, and spices, resulting in apple sauce.
- NOVA Group 4: Industrial formulations with many added ingredients, resulting in fake “healthy” food like McDonald’s apple pie.
There is strong evidence that ultra-processed food can, over time, adversely affect brain function in a predictable way that fits the disease pattern. This type of food creates massive glucose spikes that cause excess dumping of neurotransmitters from brain neurons. This overwhelms the brain’s neurotransmitter recycling system, so many of these neurotransmitters are taken up by the bloodstream and cleared by the kidneys. You end up peeing away your dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and other key neurotransmitters. This results in a list of up to 22 brain dysfunction symptoms that overlap with many traditional brain disorders, creating a great deal of confusion in the medical profession. One of these symptoms is poor sleep due to the depletion of the sleep neurotransmitters like GABA and serotonin. This disrupts both the quality and quantity of sleep.
Twinkie Brain
These massive glucose spikes also lead to excessive fat storage and obesity. A glucose crash below normal follows each rise in glucose before it is restored to baseline. Humans didn’t evolve with glucose spikes because there was no ultra-processed food during our evolutionary history, so our brain doesn’t know how to read glucose spikes. We did have drops of glucose below normal, which happened when our ancient ancestors couldn’t find enough food. The brain would respond by putting the body in a famine-protective fat storage mode, where metabolism was slowed, and food was preferentially stored as fat. The repeated glucose crashes from consuming ultra-processed food also trigger craving for food that quickly increases glucose levels. That would be food loaded with sugar and high-glycemic carbohydrates. These sugar and starch cravings push you to eat even more of the food that is frying your brain! When you consume that box of Twinkies, the glucose spike and crash push your brain into that same fat-storage mode where you store excess body fat at any caloric intake. Obesity is strongly associated with sleep apnea, leading to another reason your sleep is in the toilet!
Dr. Wilson’s Brain-Fixing Protocol
Thus, the combination of depleted neurotransmitters and obesity-driven sleep apnea readily explains our current plague of insomnia. I called this pattern Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. It doesn’t matter what you call it. The key to your health is to prevent or reverse this disease if you already have it. If you have intense cravings for sweet and starchy food, listen up! I recommend you take the following steps:
- You need to suppress the cravings by supplementing with the right balance of amino acid precursors your brain needs to make neurotransmitters. I am selling a brand called CARB-22 on my website. A similar brand is called Appe-Curb. Taking extra amino acid L-glutamine can also be very helpful.
- You must understand and recognize ultra-processed food and eliminate it from your diet. Switch to a whole-food diet centered on fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes with small amounts of eggs, dairy, meat, and seafood.
- Exercise regularly, including both aerobic exercise and strength training.
- Practice stress management, which includes meditation, slow nasal breathing, yoga, and similar activities. I found that reading “Awaken The Starlight Within” by Issac Robledo helped me appreciate the spiritual side of this world.
- Take sleep-enhancing supplements, including 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-htp), melatonin, ashwagandha, and GABA.
- Avoid late-evening screen time or use blue-blocking filters.
- Consider taking a high-quality omega-3 supplement to get your AA/EPA ratio between 1 and 3. I take Omega Rx from Barry Sears of Zone Diet fame. This reduces brain inflammation, which can cause insomnia and other brain problems.
Physician, Heal Thyself
This topic is somewhat personal for me. Decades ago, after my previous wife passed away from leukemia and I was running a bustling solo medical practice, I had a great deal of difficulty sleeping. My physician prescribed the sleep medication Ambien, and I ended up taking it until about six months ago. I was following all the other above measures, so I decided to stop taking the Ambien. The following day, I was blown away! I spent the entire night with very vivid dreams, and I then realized I hadn’t done much dreaming while I was taking the Ambien. That suggests the quality of my sleep was impaired by the drug. Since then, I have continued to dream every night and feel much more rested than I was in the past. Years ago, I should have paid more attention to the Greek proverb “Physician, heal thyself”!
Edited by Andy Steinfeldt and Steve Wilson.
