1st Step To Overcome Fibromyalgia: Deep Restorative Sleep

Introduction to Fibromyalgia and Sleep 0:00

Hi. Welcome. I'm doctor Roger Murphy, and I'm your host of the freedom from Fibromyalgia Summit. Thanks for joining us today. Look forward to sharing some information to help you in your quest to overcome your fibromyalgia. You know, practicing for 32 years and specializing in fibromyalgia last 22 years. I've learned the hard way. There's one crucial thing that you've got to get right, to really be on the right track of reversing your fibromyalgia symptoms. And that's deep, restorative sleep. It's a common challenge for those with fibromyalgia that they struggle to get consistent, deep, restorative sleep and because of that, they're vulnerable to all sorts of different symptoms that show up from that.

So I'd like to share a few slides with you today and go over some of the things that I've learned, over the last 20 years, 22 years dealing with fibromyalgia. One things that I like to kind of use this analogy that we're all born with a stress coping savings account. And in the stress coping savings account, we have chemicals that allow us to deal with stress.

Stress Coping Chemicals and Deep Sleep 1:12

And all day long we're under different stressors, right? But any time we're under stress, we're making withdrawals from our stress coping savings account to deal with that stress. So traffic jams, pollution, long, long work hours, taxes, teenagers, whatever it is, it's creating stress, real or imagined. Our bodies are releasing chemicals to be able to deal with that stress. So we we have serotonin in these brain chemicals, neurotransmitter serotonin, dopamine, gamma amino butyric acid. We have vitamins and minerals like pantothenic acid, B12, stress coping hormones, including cortisol and DHEA.

But these chemicals allow us to be able to deal with stress. We make deposits into our stress coping savings account when we go into deep delta wave sleep. This is restorative sleep, something that the body desperately needs to be able to repair itself. If it doesn't get it, we start to have symptoms. So when you go into deep restorative sleep, you're making deposits and building up a reserve for the next day's journey. Stressors is one of those chemicals that we're building up is a brain chemical called serotonin.

And serotonin is the happy hormone. But stress really starts to deplete these chemicals. And if you're under chronic stress, like those with fibromyalgia, you see that if you make more withdrawals than you do deposits, you can actually bankrupt your account. Now, serotonin is really important, as a stress coping hormone because the higher your serotonin level, the higher your pain threshold. So when your serotonin levels up, your pain threshold goes up and you have less pain pains, less magnified.

We've talked on the summit a little bit about actually a great deal about, central sensitization syndrome, where pain is more magnified. And we've talked about a condition called algolia, where you have a low pain threshold. One of the ways that you can start to correct that is by building back up your stress coping chemicals, in particular serotonin, which helps to raise your pain threshold. But the higher your serotonin level, the less pain you have. The higher your serotonin level, the happier and or less anxious you are.

Serotonin, Pain Threshold, and Digestive Health 3:34

The higher your serotonin level, the more mental clarity you have. The more serotonin you have, the less likely you are to have irritable bowel syndrome. You have more serotonin receptors in your intestinal tract than you do in your brain. Now that's why you when you get nervous, you get butterflies in your stomach and not in your brain. Serotonin helps control how fast or how slow food moves through your intestinal tract. And when we get depleted, when we get run down and we become deficient in serotonin, not only do we have anxiety and depression tendencies, brain fog does increase more pain, but we also are more likely to have irritable bowel, especially irritable bowel with diarrhea or sleep has been linked to various health problems type two diabetes, weight gain, hypothyroidism, low metabolism, depression, anxiety, fatigue, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, migraines, headaches, restless leg syndrome.

These are all associated with poor sleep, and it really makes sense if you think about it, that if you're not getting deep, restorative sleep, you're going to have a lot of these symptoms. If you're not getting deep restorative sleep, you're not, able to make the serotonin. And part of what happens is that substance P becomes elevated and you have a low pain threshold. Pain becomes magnified. Now sleep medications well, not to scare you, but just to inform you. Studies have shown that taking sleep medications increase your risk of death by five fold across the board.

So 500% again, not to scare you just now that you know that statistic, hopefully you start to look for more natural options. One of those is to boost your serotonin level, which helps you to get a deep restorative sleep. But if we look at Ambien, Lunesta, and in some of the other, sleep medications, including these tricyclic, antidepressants and, a muscle relaxer Ellisville I'm sorry, flexor rail. We see that they have symptoms that may mirror what we have in fibromyalgia.

Risks of Sleep Medications 5:43

Ambien may cause diffuse achy pain, brain fog, ironically, poor sleep, poor memory, weight gain, balance, and in coordination issues, restless leg syndrome. These are all symptoms of fibromyalgia, right. And so sometimes you're taking medications and you don't know is it the medications that are giving you the symptoms or is it the fibromyalgia. If we look at some of the benzodiazepine medications like Xanax restorative and Klonopin, these medications are incredibly addictive that you can become addicted to these medications within two weeks of starting these medications.

They don't put you into deep delta sleep now. They knock you out, cloak. But you're not making these stress coping chemicals. You just wake up every day more exhausted. These medications are associated, ironically, with anxiety and depression, but also fatigue, fibro fog, tardive dyskinesia where you get the shakes and ironically, insomnia you get dependent on. Partly, the insomnia comes from the fact that these medications actually deplete your sleep hormone, melatonin over a period of time. 40% of those taking these medications who are 60 or older will develop this tardive dyskinesia or the shakes.

Again, this is not to scare you. It's just to encourage you to look for more natural options. So serotonin this brain chemical we talk about this in the summit quite a bit on these interviews. The higher your serotonin level, the higher your pain threshold. So the less pain you have, the higher serotonin level, the more likely you are to get into deep restorative sleep. Serotonin helps your circadian rhythm and helps your sleep hormone melatonin to work more effectively.

Natural Sleep Support and Restless Leg Syndrome 7:27

Serotonin regulates your mood. It's just a happy hormone. It helps the mental clarity, it reduces anxiety. And again, it helps to correct, irritable bowel syndrome, especially if you're having loose bowel movements. So we encourage you to really take a listen to these interviews today. And one in particular will really go into a deep dive on sleep or a couple of days where we do a deep diversely what do you want to take notes on this? But after specializing in fibromyalgia for 22 years, I tell my patients all the time, the first thing we got to do, we got to get you going into deep restore to sleep on a consistent basis, or you can fall asleep and you can stay asleep and that you feel rested the next day.

Once we do that, you're going to see that your energy's better. I mean, if you're not sleeping, you're not going to have any energy. You can find that your mental clarity is better. You're pain threshold goes up so you have less pain, your moods improve. You're less likely to have restless leg syndrome, which is kind of the which comes first, the chicken or the egg, right. So many people tell me that they're on prescription medications, whether that's Reequip or some of these other medications to help with the restless leg syndrome.

Ironically, though, once you start going into deep restorative sleep, restless leg syndrome goes away. So people will say, well, I can't sleep because I have restless leg syndrome. Well, again, once you focus on what's the underlying cause of you not being able to get into deep, restorative sleep, which are a deficiency in certain stress coping chemicals that your body's become depleted in serotonin and cortisol and melatonin and DHEA and vitamin D3 and pantothenic acid, magnesium, once those are deficiencies are found and then corrected, you'll see that you start going into deep, restorative sleep.

And once you do, you'll also see that restless leg syndrome will no longer be an issue. So I really look forward to sharing this information with you today. And you're going to want to take notes and really concentrate on some things you're going to hear about sleep hygiene. Putting some of these suggestions into your daily and nightly routine to see if you can start to really get, a better night's sleep on a consistent basis. So enjoy.