How to Sleep Better by Fixing Blood Sugar and Sleep Disruptors | Dr. Jolene Brighten

Dr. Brighten: [00:00:00] Better sleep means better hormones and better hormones means better sleep. But what do you do when sleep is your problem? Welcome to part two of our sleep series on the Dr. Brighten Show. I'm your host, Dr. Jolene Brighten, and if you've already optimized your hormones. And you're still struggling to sleep.

It might not just be your estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol that we talked about in episode one, but it, it probably is still cortisol because that is such a problematic hormone when it comes to sleep. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, you definitely wanna catch part one of the series, but we're gonna go ahead and dive into three often n, but also incredibly important reasons that you are not sleeping, especially if you are in perimenopause.

So today's episode we're gonna talk about blood sugar crashes, histamine surges, and what happens when you have A DHD. I'm also gonna walk you through how to know if each of these is affecting you and what [00:01:00] you can do to get your sleep back on track. Last episode I gave you tons of tips. This episode gonna be a lot of the same, so we are gonna strategize and we are gonna get your sleep back on track. 

Now before we jump in, can I ask you to take a minute to leave me a review, even if it's just clicking five stars and not writing anything that still helps support the efforts of me, my team, and this podcast to get out in the world. And if you've already left a review or you're someone who comments regularly, thank you.

I see you. Appreciate you being here so much. Let's get into blood sugar crashes, especially those that we are filling in like the two to 3:00 AM hour. This one gets missed all the time, but it is super common. Uh, so blood sugar crashing in the middle of the night. Common reason for women to wake up, especially if you have PCUS, maybe even if you're postpartum.

We see it all the time in perimenopause and menopause. Remember, perimenopause and menopause while estrogen is changing, that's [00:02:00] not the only hormone changing. And if you missed my episode on insulin dysregulation, please go listen to that. 'cause I go over the exact lab values. So labs you should get done and the values you want to see to make sure that your blood sugar is in fact in check. 

with blood sugar crashes, you are waking up in the middle of the night because your blood sugar has dropped and your body has to spike cortisol to bring it back up. So stress hormones will come up, tells the liver, let's release some of that stored sugar and liberate it so that we have that. And that is why I said like it's probably a cortisol issue 'cause like cortisol seems to be involved in just about everything. as I had said, with perimenopause and especially if you caught the first part of this series, estrogen drops and insulin resistance can increase, especially if you're under stress or you already have a metabolic condition. In PCOS, we have issues with inflammation, insulin being up [00:03:00] and there's, you know, the estimate is roughly 70% of those with PCOS have insulin dysregulation.

So we can certainly see it in that picture. When we're only postpartum, our estrogen goes down and we can have blood sugar issues, especially if we're breastfeeding because that's very calorically demanding. We also have stress. So there's a, there's a whole milieu of things going on that can lead to us having sleep problems postpartum,

but also having hormonal issues postpartum that should resolve themselves, but are still keeping us up in the meantime.

And sometimes we're having blood sugar issues because of the way we eat during the day because of our stress levels, because of the way we structured our dinner. So there can be a lot of things going on, but we're gonna talk specifically about what you can do to start to resolve this. But I would always encourage you if you don't know why, definitely meet with a provider and figure out what is the root cause driving your symptoms. 

So how do you know if this is you? If you're waking up like two to 4:00 AM [00:04:00] racing heart slightly shaky, you're feeling hungry, maybe irritable, that's a sign that your blood sugar may be the cause of your night waking. If you feel better after eating or you can't fall asleep unless you snack. That's another sign.

And if during the day you find that you're crashing, like especially in the afternoon, you're feeling hangry. If you skip meals, maybe you skip a meal and you're getting like really shaky and you don't feel right, like you're having blood sugar issues during the day. If you have them during the day, you're gonna have them at night as well, and that can keep you up at night. Let's talk about some solutions. We need to think about food, and I'm sure that's not a surprise to you. We wanna prioritize balanced meals during the day with every meal, having protein, healthy, fat, and fiber. And that is because that's going to stabilize our blood sugar and keep us filling full longer.[00:05:00] 

We wanna also avoid high carb meals that don't contain any protein, especially at night. So if you're just eating a bowl of pasta with like some marinara sauce, that's not gonna cut it, you're probably gonna see dips in your blood sugar. Typically I'm recommending 20 to 30 grams of fiber during the entire day and 2030 grams of protein at each meal.

And I'll just say that if you need guidance on how to structure your meals, you can go to drBrighten.com/plan, and that is a anti-inflammatory meal plan that is structured so that you get enough protein and you get enough fiber in every meal. And people in the US don't usually have a problem with fat, but when we're thinking about fat, we wanna be thinking about avocado, avocado, oil, cold water, fish, sources of fat.

Uh, also having like nuts and seeds. So there's whole foods that contain fat. And then [00:06:00] there's what you can be cooking with like ghee. Maybe you're using grass fed butter, olive oil. We love olive oil. Uh, if you caught the gut health episode, I talked a lot about polyphenols, so I definitely recommend checking that out.

If you wanna learn more about why do we love olive oil and polyphenols so much.

Now. When it comes to protein, if you are waking up at night, think about your dinner being slow, digesting carbs like sweet potato, quinoa, lentils, and then having at least the size of the palm of your hand of protein, whether you're gonna choose Tempe or you're gonna choose.

Steak, make sure that you're getting quality protein. Now, a lot of times when people are having blood sugar issues, they'll be advised to go low carb, no carb diets for women who are having night waking. That can be problematic. So we still wanna have some carbohydrates at night, and we might wanna also consider a bedtime snack if you're consistently waking up at night.[00:07:00] 

So maybe you'll try a spoon of almond butter, like a spoonful of that. Maybe having a hard boiled egg or two, maybe make chia seed pudding if you read beyond the pill, you know, I have an upgraded Golden Milk recipe in there where it's turmeric, which we love because it helps with inflammation.

Using something like coconut milk, maybe like a whole fat coconut milk. We need fat to absorb it. Put a little pepper in it, add collagen, put a little honey in it. So we're getting amino acids, we're getting some sugar to help us stay asleep through the night. So let me like clarify this a little bit further in case like what I said was maybe a little confusing, especially the first time you're hearing this.

So dinner, we're gonna have our protein, at least the size of the palm of our hand. Protein, then , we're gonna pair that with a slow burning carb. That's gonna be things like sweet potatoes, lentils, maybe a brown rice, and then we're also going to have vegetables on top of that. So [00:08:00] adding in the fiber.

So maybe you wanna do a stir fry. That's really easy way to combine all of these things. Maybe one of baked sweet potato. A steak, and then you wanna have like some sauteed greens on the side. That's how we wanna structure our dinner. Then after dinner about two hours later or maybe an hour before bed, we are gonna have a little snack, hard boiled egg, um, that upgraded golden milk.

So it can be a beverage if you like. You could do a smoothie that's more of a protein and veggie, fiber filled veggie forward. Not a whole lot of fruit, because if you do a ton of sugar before bed, we can see that glucose goes up. Insulin's like, I got you. And then glucose goes down abruptly and now you're waking up.

We want. Stability in our blood sugar at night, but we're gonna go beyond just structuring our food.

 it's also important to think about [00:09:00] supplements. If you're having trouble sleeping and you're having trouble with your blood sugar regulation, supplements aren't gonna solve your problem. They're going to be something that supports your nutrition and lifestyle efforts. So taking something like myelin acetol,

typically around 2000 milligrams. That can support insulin signaling and it can be especially helpful for women with PCOS. There's a lot of research on that for PCOS and my acetol can help you sleep.

If you're familiar with the Dr. Brighten Essentials, Myone, acetol Plus, it also has chromium in it, which is a mineral that will help with your blood sugar as well. You, I will put that in the show notes. Like I always say, you can use my products if you want, but no pressure.

Now the other thing that came up in part one was magnesium. Actually, I ended part one of the sleep video talking about magnesium glycinate, how helpful it is for helping you get sleep. So typically with my Magnesium Plus supplement, [00:10:00] I take 300 milligrams every day, five days before my period. I take 300 milligrams twice a day.

Um, that's because I have endometriosis. And yes, I had excision surgery, but I still have adenomyosis and I don't wanna have period pain if I can help it. But with magnesium, it also is going to help with insulin sensitization. So we didn't talk about that in the last video. So yes, it's going to help with our neurotransmitters that help us get good sleep.

It helps support the nervous system. It helps support so many things, but it also. Though can be our ally in helping with our blood sugar, and I always love when things are like a two for one because it's really easy to incorporate those when you know, like my Acetol magnesium, they can support my blood sugar, they can support my stress response and they're gonna support my sleep.

Like that's a win. Now if you're having blood sugar issues, we always have to ask like, what is your exercise routine looking like these days? So think back to what your exercises looked like in the last [00:11:00] 30 days, and you can just take a moment to be thinking about that. Well, I tell you that balancing your blood sugar.

Isn't just about your weight or your metabolism, it's important for your sleep. And when we talk about exercise, that's also not just about your weight and your metabolism, it's also essential for your sleep and for study energy, which we love. So if you haven't been walking regularly. I would encourage you to take a 10 minute walk after your meals to improve your blood sugar.

Uh, if you watch, and again, I'll link in the show notes, the insulin video. I give you some other exercises very specific to dropping your blood sugar. Well, not only dropping it, but like helping you stabilize your blood sugar quick. So if you thought back to your 30 days of exercise and you're like, Hmm, haven't really been getting in walks, great.

If that's something that we can work on when you walk matters, so we wanna walk 10 [00:12:00] minutes for just 10 minutes after we eat. That can help our blood sugar.

As you're thinking back the last 30 days, how many days a week are you strength training? If it's not at least two to three days per week, then that's the goal to work towards. And if you just start with two, fantastic. But we need to be strength training at every age Especially as we enter perimenopause and beyond, we need to be strength training at least two to three days a week. And that is to help build and maintain muscle. Muscle will help you stay sensitive to your insulin. It's gonna support better , blood sugar,

and if we are having sleep problems, the intense exercise. That happens earlier in the day before 2:00 PM Ideally with gentler exercise happening at end of the day, I like to weight lift in the morning, and then in the evening I'll actually do stretching or mobility exercises, usually while my family's winding [00:13:00] down or maybe we're watching a TV show, so we're all just hanging out.

I can, I can move my body and increase my flexibility, increase my mobility, and I would encourage you to think about how you can in, you can structure your exercise routine in your day so that an intense exercise happens at the top of the day. And that if you're gonna move your body, I mean, you can do a 10 minute, you can do a 30 minute walk after you eat dinner.

That's perfectly fine. If you wanna do stretching, you wanna do yoga, as long as it's gentle and it's not pushing you into that sympathetic, that, uh, fight or flight that we talked about in part one, that can drive your cortisol kind of crazy.

I mean, maybe I shouldn't be saying drive your cortisol crazy 'cause cortisol's doing exactly what it should be doing if you're doing intense exercise. But, um, at night, that's like not the time that we want cortisol to be up. 

So if you identified yourself with the blood sugar dysregulation, I wanna encourage [00:14:00] you to employ some of these tips to help you start getting your sleep back on track. Now I wanna talk about the second in this episode, the five of the total problems with sleep, uh, that we've been talking about in this entire SE series, and that is histamine surges and hidden inflammation.

Now, if you're someone who wakes up, you're itchy. Maybe you're anxious, maybe you're feeling congested, maybe you're having flu-like symptoms, or you're hot, but you're not sick, there's a good chance that histamine could be the culprit. So this happens because when estrogen is up, it'll slow histamine breakdown and encourage histamine to be released, and then histamine's like, let's do some more estrogen.

Progesterone does oppose this whole histamine estrogen cycle, but in perimenopause, it's dropping in early postpartum, it's non-existent. And if [00:15:00] you identified with the cortisol issues or everything we talked about with low progesterone in part one. Then you might be having histamine problems. And the result of an imbalance of estrogen and progesterone during the luteal phase is that histamine can build up and especially at night when clearance can, um, slow.

And then we're finding ourselves waking up. Histamine is not just about allergies, by the way. Histamine also acts as a neurotransmitter, and it's a vasodilator, which means that. It can wake you up, raise your heart rate, and give you vivid dreams or make you feel restless. So if you're like, that's another sign, like, right, like I'm having restless uh, sleep and I'm having really vivid dreams.

So that's one sign. Another like. You feel itchy or flushed at night? If you wake up congested, but you're feeling fine during the day, definitely get an air purifier for your room if that's the [00:16:00] case. And that can be related to histamine if his, if you find that antihistamines actually help you sleep in some people, they actually make sleep worse.

But if you're having histamine issues and it's helping you sleep, that could be another sign . If you find that you are reactive to red wine, leftovers, fermented foods, you got histamine issues, like that's definitely a sign of histamine issues. I'll link to the episode I did with Jen Hugo, all about histamine and diet.

Because I don't want anyone to be like, I have to just do this like extreme antihistamine diet because that's the only way I am gonna know if this is my problem and this is the only way I am gonna sleep, that's not usually our best bet. And in that episode we talk about the nuance around that. So drBrighten.com will have it in the show notes for you. Now the other tricky thing about histamine is that when we're having histamine issues, we may actually feel more tired during the day and have trouble sleeping at night. But if you have trouble sleeping at night, you're gonna feel more tired during the day. So I mean, that that one [00:17:00] is not, I would say that's a symptom that fits into the full symptom picture.

It's not enough on its own. I will also say. That if you are neurodivergent, A DHD, autism is where we have the best research, but certainly any neurodivergent condition may be at risk of histamine issues or if you have endometriosis or adenomyosis, we know that histamine can be an issue with those as well.

So if you have those conditions, you, you may also have a histamine problem. And this is the tricky thing, is I talk about all these six causes for why we're not sleeping. Odds are you have more than one. It's usually not just one. I wish it was. I should have said that in part one, but here we are.

I should also mention that if you have PMDD, histamine can be a driver of PMDD symptoms and that can include trouble sleeping. So that's just another condition to be aware of with this. So how about we talk about some solutions now? I don't necessarily want you to get wild with like changing your diet and going to like a antihistamine diet, [00:18:00] but I would recommend you track it. Is it wine? Is it vinegar? Is it aged cheese? Is it kombucha? Is it leftovers? Is there something that you feel like is making you feel worse? And if you can identify what that is.

Avoid eating those at night. That's when it's especially important, because if you're waking up with symptoms, then that might be what's going on. I would definitely encourage you to meet with a registered dietician, certified nutrition specialist, someone who is an expert in nutrition to help you navigate this diet aspect and make sure resolving underlying issues, which usually comes down to the gut, which is why we we gotta do that gut hormone.

Um. Episode in the show notes for you. Uh, but I just wanna say you should be able to eat a variety of food that is a normal state of being, and if you can't do that, then we definitely want. To get you there. Like we don't want you living a life where you're super restricted. histamine gets cleared by the DAO [00:19:00] enzyme and your gut plays a big role.

I mentioned this, so if you think you have gut dysbiosis that can be making. Tomine issues worse. What's gut dysbiosis and imbalance in gut flora. And actually you can't tell this just based off symptoms. Usually we have to test things. I also want you to understand what I talked about in the gut hormone episode is that estrogen won't get cleared as effectively, so estrogen and histamine won't get cleared as effectively if you have an imbalance of your gut flora.

 you could probably see where we're going with that, right? If we can't clear estrogen and histamine and estrogen perpetuates histamine, and a histamine perpetuates estrogen, but we're gonna have an estrogen and a histamine problem that's driving our sleep. Again, it's not usually just one thing.

So typically whenever we're talking about taking care of your gut, we are talking about fermented foods coming into the mix. But if you have a histamine [00:20:00] problem, I just said fermented foods can be a problem. So instead, we might wanna think about a quality probiotic because that's going to support histamine clearance and it's gonna support the estrobolome, which is how we clear our estrogen through the gut.

And when it comes to probiotics. Uh, you know, it's important to have prebiotics as well, but prebiotics that are not gonna aggravate you. In our women's probiotic from Dr. Brighten Essentials, we use War Gum. That one, we selected that because it doesn't aggravate SIBO in other ways that prebiotics do. And so we wanna be really mindful that we're not doing anything to aggravate the gut and we're really just supporting the gut in that clearance.

No other things that can be helpful. Vitamin C, magnesium, B six, those support that. DAO enzyme that helps with histamine metabolism. So I feel like that's like how many we, you know, we should play a game of like taking like a [00:21:00] turmeric ginger shot every time I say magnesium in an episode. Um. Although we might get the Tommy troubles from that 'cause I do say it a lot.

Now. Even if it's a histamine problem, we still have to support our circadian rhythm and histamine. Like I said before, it acts as a neurotransmitter as well, and that can be influenced by sleep disruptions. So poor circadian rhythm hygiene of like not exposing yourself to light at the right time of day and having too much light at the wrong time of day.

Go back to part one of this. Sleep series if you need a reminder on how to tend to your circadian rhythm.

But if you've been doing all the right things for sleep and you still feel like I'm wired and itchy, congested, I'm having like flu-like symptoms, or I have the period flu, or I have PMDD symptoms, then it's not just your hormones we need to look at. It's also histamine. So take inventory and [00:22:00] see where you can start today to start optimizing those histamine levels. Now the last part I wanna talk about, so our last issue with sleep is that if you have A DHD changes everything when it comes to sleep, and for many women, perimenopause is the first time that they realize they might be neurodivergent.

And it's not just because of the sleep disruptions, it's not because those become so extreme, but it's because changing hormones are influencing neurotransmitters and influencing specifically dopamine acetylcholine. Serotonin. And so that's a really common time. 

The other time that we see A DHD symptoms become rampant is postpartum another time when we're low hormones. So I set perimenopause, but I also wanna like pull in menopause into that because as we start the estrogen decline. And then we have subsequently no estrogen being produced from the ovaries anymore.

In menopause, we can [00:23:00] have worsening A DHD symptoms. Now if you're someone who's like under 35, you're nowhere near perimenopause, and you notice you have worsening A DHD symptoms that are just before your period. I want you to know that that is the number one time in a woman's cycle that she sees worsening A DHD symptoms.

And number two is the first few days of your period. So, um, the, the thing about a DHD symptoms is like if you have a DHD with concomitant PMDD, that might, that PMDD gets better when your period starts, but until your estrogen rises to a substantial level. That is usually gonna happen by day three of your cycle, where you're gonna be like, oh, my brain's starting to come back online.

That's what we test estrogen actually on days two, three, or four of your cycle to see how is that follicular phase going With that, know that symptoms can [00:24:00] start to get better a few days into your period, but if you are having worsening A DHD symptoms and worsening sleep issues, that points to an estrogen issue.

Now, why is A DHD even being included in our six reasons you might not be Sleeping series? Well. A DHD brains have delayed melatonin release. And so an A DHD brain's like natural state for, for most people, it's not true for everyone. So ask if it's true for you, is that they're not gonna feel tired until way later than other people.

So e, even if they're exhausted, even if their body is exhausted, their melatonin might not be rising. So with A DHD, melatonin might not rise until like 10. 10:00 PM to like 12:00 AM and the neurotypical brain is more like eight to 10:00 PM So there's, there's a shift there. And then, you know, as we were talking about perimenopause, if you add that in the [00:25:00] mix, then you're dealing with dopamine dysregulation.

You're dealing with less GABA stimulation from progesterone, and, uh, being more emotionally reactive is usually layered on top of the circadian chaos, as I, I would like to call it right now, because that's what it can feel like, like your whole sleep system is thrown off. I also wanna note that many A DHD women also experience demand avoidance around bedtime.

Um, what some people call revenge bedtime procrastination. Uh, if you heard in the last episode, I talked about us being toddlers, um. A DHD people are just, uh, their next level toddlers of like, are you telling me I have to go to bed? If I know I have to go to bed, then I'm not gonna go to bed. Um, and it's silly and we get that like, oh, that's not the best thing for me.

But it's just the way our brains work. So number one, if you're listening to this and you are living with someone with a [00:26:00] DHD, don't tell them what to do. Don't tell them like, oh, we should go to bed. It's time to go to bed, they will possibly lash out. Um, or, because what happens, let me just say, for people who don't know, that triggers the sympathetic nervous system.

So now the sympathetic nervous system is like, okay, we're under threat. Cortisol is up. They're not gonna go to sleep, because now their hormones just shifted. And also they might be combative because their nervous system feels under threat.

Now odds are when we look at the diagnosis rates of A DHD that most women walking around with A DHD don't actually know that they have it. So how do you know if maybe A DHD is at the root of what's going on with your sleep problems? So. You are wide awake at bedtime, even when you're tired and it's not related to your menstrual cycle.

If you avoid going to bed, even though you know it's gonna hurt tomorrow, even though you know is the [00:27:00] best thing and the thing that you need, but you're just like, I can't do it. It could be related to A DHD if you've always identified as being a night owl and now it's getting worse. Mm, that could be that delayed phase sleep syndrome of A DHD.

If you're falling asleep only with the TV on a podcast playing, um, you cannot sleep in silence. That's pointing to a distracted mind, but just because you have these sleep issues doesn't mean it's just a DHD. So let's talk a little bit more about A DHD itself. So firstly, there is no late onset A DHD.

That is not a thing. You either had a DHD your whole life and you were ignored and that sucks and it's lame and I'm sorry for that or something else is going on. To get the diagnosis of A DHD symptoms must have been present in childhood. So if you're [00:28:00] only now noticing that like. Oh, everything. You know, everything's changing.

It's different. This often happens in perimenopause, like I'm having a lot more brain fog, and that's on the only problem. That's probably not a DHD. You also, you have to work with a clinician one-on-one to know for sure. But what I often say with my patients is we go through like, what are the symptoms of A DHD and what are the things that are happening for you now?

So. As we get older, we know how to behave in public better. As women, we're really well conditioned for that. It's called camouflaging or masking more commonly. And so with a DHD, we go through like, what is it looking like now? So we tend to be more impulsive, um, like right following ovulation. And often when people think impulsive, they think risk taking.

And the thing I like to ask is, so if we identify like, okay, like that's [00:29:00] what's going on, we go back to childhood. Did you interrupt people like all the time? Like you, you chatted nonstop and you never filtered. The first thing that came to your mind, you popped it out. You said that you interrupted people all the time, especially because you thought if you didn't get a chance to speak, you would forget what you were talking about altogether and never, ever recover it again.

Things like that. Were you told that you talk too much, you doodle too much, you space out too much? If that was you as a kid, those are signs of A DHD. Uh, did you spend a lot of time in your head, like thinking of all kinds of things? Well, somebody was talking to you 'cause they were just so boring and you couldn't listen to their whole story.

And then they were like, where'd you go? You spaced out. You had hyperactivity happening in your brain. So we wanna go through the symptoms of A DHD. So if somebody comes to me and they're like, Hey, I think I have a DHD. I don't diagnose A DHD. I send them out to a psychologist, a [00:30:00] psychiatrist, a social worker, somebody who is trained in mental health to do the diagnosis and to support them in that.

My role is around hormones, nutrition, lifestyle, like supporting 'em in that capacity. But I wanna screen them to know, do I, should I refer them to this individual? So I just wanna make that really clear as I'm asking these things as a clinician. I'm asking to screen them to see should I make this referral, but I'm not asking to diagnose them.

And why I'm sharing this with you is because especially as we get older clinicians, actually at any phase of our life, clinicians love to diagnose and treat the co-occurring conditions of A DHD and not actually treat. The A DH ADHD itself, or even diagnosis, uh, itself, there's still clinicians practicing, lots of clinicians practicing who believe women don't get a DH adhd, which is wild to me.

Anyhow, so why I wanna share all this with you is [00:31:00] that if you are having symptoms that you're like, I feel like I have a DHD, think back through your childhood. So I will put some resources from drBrighten.com that go through. The different types of A DHD. There's the hyperactive, the inattentive, and the combined A DHD.

I will put those resources and then we wanna go back and we wanna ask like, was this me as a child? Like did I have struggles? Did you feel like, why does everyone else seem to always have it together? They're always on time. They always are organized and like I am constantly struggling. No matter or how much effort I put in, I just can't get it together.

That's a good sign that possibly A DHD was there. So I say all of this because right now as we're starting to expand and understand more about A DHD, and we're seeing this explosion in women being diagnosed over 40, oftentimes people are using the label of that is just late [00:32:00] onset, A DHD. It's late diagnosed, A DHD, and I don't like the term late onset.

Because it's not true, it's not factual, it doesn't represent your struggle, but it's also really disempowering and it neglects the fact that you were neglected by providers and school teachers and you know, mind you, these people might not have known, but they still neglect you just the same. Okay, let's get back to the sleep tactics though.

If you do have a DHD or you suspect you have a DHD. . You have to create a sensory friendly bedtime transition that works for you. Your brain isn't gonna wanna be told what to do. It doesn't want you to say go to bed brain. Okay? So we have to create a bedtime routine that works with your brain that might look like. Listening to Calming podcast.

Shameless plug right here. Uh, watching something soothing while doing a skincare routine, maybe, uh, brushing your teeth and [00:33:00] reading. I know they say the experts say we shouldn't multitask, but this actually works well for the A DHD brain. Using, uh, I like to use red light therapy myself personally. Um, and I like to get under a weighted blanket.

Those are two things I really enjoy. And then I read that maybe you're somebody who needs soft music for that. So just having things that are sensory, soothing and make it so that. Bedtime routine is a little more enjoyable, and sometimes we also have to use like dopamine friendly incentives. So making your bedtime routine something that you look forward to.

Instead of being like, oh, I'm dreading this, so maybe make yourself a warm magnesium drink and you get your favorite book and then you have your skincare ritual. Like do something that you're like, ah, that brings pleasure, that makes me happy. And maybe you also need to build some novelty in. So [00:34:00] not always doing the skincare routine every single night.

Not always. Um, with getting in the weighted blanket, like mixing it up. Maybe you do a puzzle one night, like making some novelty around. It can make you excited to go to bed without overstimulating. You, you also have to regulate your melatonin. So we've talked about this before, but you've gotta get light sunlight first 30 minutes of your day, and then we gotta figure out the screens.

Are we going to not have any screens an hour before bed? Are we gonna wear blue light blocking glasses? Are we gonna put on filters? Whatever it is. I know I can't say no screens to an A DHD person at night. 'cause sometimes it's necessary to doom scroll yourself to sleep. I mean, hopefully with these tips, that's not the case.

But you know, make sure that you're blocking that blue light the best you can. I'd also recommend that you consider magnesium glycinate, something like the adrenal calm formula I have from [00:35:00] Dr. Brighten Essential. So with passion flour, phosphatidylserine, L-theanine, these things that are gonna help just calm your nervous system and start chilling you out.

If you consider melatonin, as I said previously, um, 0.3 to one milligram can be helpful with sleep. A DHD brains can be sensitive to sleep aids, so maybe 0.3 works for you or maybe you actually need three milligrams. It This is where we have to get into a bit of a trial and error for each person.

 And the thing about A DHD brains is that they don't need to be just told like, do more sleep hygiene, do more, do more, do more. They need to be given strategies that actually work with their brain, that are structured, that have some novelty, that have some pleasure in them.

And so while everyone's gonna tell you like sleep in a dark, cool room, and like that should be your, your magic golden ticket to better sleep, you might have to structure things [00:36:00] differently and that's okay. So to everyone listening, what I wanna say right now is that if your sleep fills broken and nothing is helping you, you definitely wanna look deeper and try to figure out like what is the root cause of that. For some people it's gonna be estrogen and progesterone out of balance in the luteal phase. For some, it's not that it's blood sugar or it's histamine or, um, it's that you're neurodivergent.

So I just wanna say that like these are not always so obvious to everyone. These are things you may need to bring up with your provider and start investigating yourself. And as we close this out, if this episode has given you any clarity.

I ask that you share it with a friend, especially any that might be struggling with sleep. And definitely make sure you check out the previous episode because that covers the estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol issues, and it's perfect information to pair with what we talked about today and. Don't forget.

If you want to start supporting your [00:37:00] hormones with food, you can grab my free anti-inflammatory meal plan at drBrighten.com/plan. You'll find recipes to stabilize your blood sugar, support your gut, and help reduce inflammation, which are also key as you have learned in getting better sleep.

As always, thank you so much for being here, and if you could take just a few minutes to leave a review, I would appreciate it so much. I will see you next time.

Thank you so much for joining the conversation. If you could like, subscribe or leave a review, it helps me so much in getting this information out to everyone who needs it. If you enjoyed this conversation, then I definitely want you to check out this.