Meditation and Essential Oils Are Not Enough
By Dr. Evelina Sodt, PhD
No one quite gets the maddening effects of insomnia until they had to deal with it themselves. The mind rushes endlessly deeper and deeper down a spiral of thoughts -- one crazier than the next, but in that particular moment, it all seems perfectly rational. We even think that the mind is sorting it and that the planning helps us. It doesn't. Anxiety is a useless emotion of the future. We need to live in the present. Anxiety is a 4D disorder -- time displacement. Thoughts keep racing, the body stays awake, we are tired and weary... and irritable. Don’t know how many times I have snapped at my family for no reason at all. At this moment, we are willing to try everything. Lavender essential oils, music therapy, valerian root, kava, mugwort tinctures, chamomile, music therapy, subliminal messages, meditation, yoga, etc, etc...nothing works. Why is that? What is going on? Biochemistry. It’s that simple and it’s that complicated. We have four main classes of neurotransmitters -- the chemicals that excite or calm the brain. These four types are amino acids, monoamines, peptides and other. Let’s talk about the sleep related ones, the excitatory and inhibitory amino acids. The main inhibitory amino acids (GABA and glycine) tell your brain to calm down. If you have a deficiency, you brainwaves cannot calm down enough for you to fall asleep. They keep racing through beta states and you need to go into alpha and then theta to be able to enter delta, the deep restful state the body needs to self-heal and recover. There are also precursors that could be at fault, tryptophan, theanine, lysine, tyrosine (and in general thyroid disorders), taurine and more could be to blame. Following this logic, some people reach for an amino acid complex supplement, GABA or glycine, which is fine for a while, but it will not address most deficiencies. Amino acids compete for receptor space. What that means, is that if you have a tryptophan deficiency, for example, a faster amino acid can plug its passage ways leaving tryptophan out in the cold. Unused. Tryptophan, of course is the amino acid that turns into serotonin minutes after entering the brain. Psychiatry addresses monoamines serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine, but the medications enable release, not production. Nutritional psychiatry addresses the deficiencies that create these imbalances. Release with production is vacuity. Using GABA, B vitamins and adaptogens is key. |
What is it?
Thorne’s Stress Management Bundle contains three nutritional supplements that can help with stress management, as well as providing support for healthy adrenal function — Stress B-Complex, PharmaGABA-250, and Phytisone®.* How to take: Stress B-Complex: Take 1 capsule one to three times daily. PharmaGABA-250: Take 1 capsule one to three times daily. Phytisone: Take 2 capsules one to two times daily. *These statements are not evaluated by the FDA. Nothing on this site intends to diagnose, cure or prevent disease. |