Think you’ve heard of every sleep remedy?
Wrong.
Don’t feel too badly. I did too, up until this morning – at 3 A.M., to be exact. Now, you might be thinking that’s a setup to talk about how I’d been up all night due to insomnia and that this article’s gonna tell you how to fix that. Spoiler alert: you’re wrong again. Rather, that’s my new wake up time. I get up at 3 A.M. every day for the next two months to go order a bunch of marines around. (My final PTA clinical affiliation is on a military base.) But waking up isn’t the hard part. The hard part is getting myself to sleep before the sun does, because I don’t function so well on fewer than seven hours. So, you can bet that I’ve been breaking out all the stuff I’ve been writing about. I’ve got my magnesium citrate. I’ve got my zinc. I’ve got my thermostat down. I’m even pretty tired by that point in the early evening. But, because it’s just so much earlier than I’m used to snoozing, I can’t seem to zonk out.
Last night, as I lay there, I tried to zero in on what was making me feel so awake.
I’d stopped the coffee early, so that wasn’t it. Was it stress? Was it the daylight peaking through my blinds? Was it when I’d eaten my final meal of the day? As I threw the covers from my body, I realized the real problem here. I was hot. Even with the temperature set at my usual low level for rest time, my body was still warm. Why? Because I’m so active during the day, there’s no time for it to cool down before I sleep. I tossed and turned until the sandman came for me, determined to find the answer the next day. And, when the next day came, so did the answer. See, apparently, the internet doesn’t just spy in on your conversations and text messages anymore. Evidently, it can actually read into your brain. Because, this morning, guess what was up on my “recommended video” list for YouTube? None other than a video on a sleep supplement that helps cool your body so that you can fall asleep. Deciding not to look an Orwellian gift horse in the mouth, I clicked and learned about how something your body naturally manufactures (that can also be manufactured by companies for profit and sold to you) can help you snooze… by cooling you:
Glycine.
This stuff seems to get decent reviews.
(Especially if you couple it with Magnesium like this stuff does…)
And how’s it work?
Well, we’ve all learned how magnesium can help you nod off. But the way Glycine works is by increasing the flow of blood to your limbs. When that happens, your core temp goes down. We’ve seen before how your body has to cool down in order for you to get quality sleep. And, because your body’s temperature fluctuates, this can affect your sleep-wake cycles, diminishing the ability to nod off. By facilitating that cooling action, it’s easier to achieve those Z’s. Indeed, studies recently performed showed glycine in supplement form to induce a drop in body temp – which correlated with earlier onset of sleep and more time in REM as well as deep sleep.
And, while this would be enough to say I’m sold, there’s more. In addition to reducing your core warmth, glycine also boosts serotonin. You’ve probably heard of serotonin before – the “mood booster”. However, what you may or may not know is how it’s required to make the slumber hormone, melatonin. So, by upping glycine via supplement, serotonin can increase, which resultingly boosts melatonin. In fact studies done on the oral glycine supplement specifically correlate with elevated serotonin, diminished insomnia, and better rest. So, if you’ve tried everything else, give supplemental glycine a go so you can rest better.
(Preferably in a tinfoil hat, so the ad-bots can’t read your thoughts…)