Our bodies are releasing chemicals to be able to deal with that stress. So we have serotonin, these brain chemicals, neurotransmitter, serotonin, dopamine, gamma aminobutyric acid. We have vitamins and minerals like pantothenic acid, B12 stress coping hormones, including cortisol, 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 restore to 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 to 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 allerdale here where we 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 or less anxious you are. The higher 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 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 senses more pain, but we also are more likely to have irritable hour, especially irritable which diarrhea or sleep has been linked to various health problems. Type two Diabetes Weight gain hypothyroidism low metabolism depression. Anxiety fatigue. Fibromyalgia Chronically 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.
Or 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 were 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 some of the other sleep medications, including these tricyclic antidepressants and a muscle relaxer. Elago I’m sorry. Flexigroup We see that they have symptoms that may mirror what we have in fibromyalgia. Ambien may cause diffuse seiki pain, brain fog. Ironically, poor sleep or 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? We look at some of the benzodiazepine medications like Xanax, restoration, Ativan, 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 down to sleep now. They knock you out, 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 depended on. Partly the insomnia comes from the fact that these medications are actually deeply out. Your sleep hormone melatonin.
Over a period of time, 40% of those taking these medications who are six year old or more develop this tardive dyskinesia that 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 in summit quite a bit on these interviews. The higher your serotonin level, the higher your pain threshold. So the less pain here, the higher serotonin level, the more likely you are to get into a deep restorative sleep. Serotonin helps your circadian rhythm and helps your sleep hormone melatonin to work more effectively. Serotonin regulates your moods. It’s the happy hormone. It helps to mental clarity. It reduces anxiety, and again, it helps to correct irritable bowel syndrome, especially if you’re having loose bowel movements. So I would encourage you to really take a listen to these interviews today, and one in particular will really go into a deep dove on sleep or a couple of these really deep down of sleep. What you’re going to want to take notes on these. But after specializing 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 restorative 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 go find your mental clarity better, your 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 that 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 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 in a 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.