In this comprehensive discussion, Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand explore functional medicine approaches to improving sleep quality, emphasizing personalized strategies grounded in clinical experience. They highlight the crucial role of lifestyle factors such as outdoor exercise, sunlight exposure, and movement in enhancing sleep. Supplements, particularly magnesium blends and calming herbs, are presented as essential tools to counteract widespread nutrient depletion caused by soil degradation and modern agricultural practices. The speakers delve deeply into the biochemical and hormonal underpinnings of sleep disturbances, discussing neurotransmitters like GABA, glutamate, and serotonin, and explaining how imbalances are often linked to stress, inflammation, blood sugar fluctuations, and environmental toxins such as mold.
Female-specific hormonal issues, especially progesterone deficiency caused by chronic stress and inflammation, are examined in detail, with recommendations for adaptogenic herbs and targeted hormone support to restore balance. The podcast also covers the often-overlooked influence of histamine intolerance on sleep and mood, noting how environmental factors can elevate histamine and worsen insomnia and anxiety. For men and women alike, optimizing testosterone and DHEA levels is emphasized as vital for buffering stress and maintaining vitality.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [00:00:00] Hey guys, it's Dr. Justin Marjani. Welcome to the Beyond Wellness Radio podcast. Feel free and head over to justin health.com. We have all of our podcast transcriptions there, as well as video series on different health topics ranging from thyroid to hormones, ketogenic diets, and gluten. While you're there, you can also schedule a consult with myself, Dr.
J, and or our colleagues and staff to help dive into any pressing health issues you really wanna get to the root cause on. Again, if you enjoy the podcast, feel free and share the information with friends or family and enjoy the show. And we are live. It's Dr. Jay in the house with Evan Brand. Today we're gonna be talking about functional medicine, sleep strategies that work.
Again, we've done a lot of podcasts on sleep, so every new one that you hear, it'll be a nuanced take, something new, something different that we see working with our patients clinically, uh, with our sleeves rolled up. So we're excited to dive in. Evan, my friend, how are we doing today? Hey
Evan Brand: man, I'm doing well.
You know, I've been enjoying the aura ring. I'm not paid to promote this. I should have invested years ago. I don't know if you remember this, maybe a decade or [00:01:00] ago or so. Um mm-hmm. It was like an investment letter going around to like health people in the, in the health space. Like, Hey, invest in Aura. And I didn't, but anyway, I'm not paid by them.
But I have been in interested to see what supplements and what herbs and what botanicals mm-hmm. And what lifestyle strategies can affect my sleep. And the biggest, biggest factor for me. Exercise outdoors. If I go in the woods mm-hmm. On my bike and I ride for miles and miles and out, you know, usually an hour to three hour ride in the woods.
My sleep is incredible. I get the best sleep score ever. But if I'm just stuck in the office all day and then I'm dealing with the kids and then I try to go to sleep and I didn't get enough movement, didn't lift enough, walk enough, my sleep's not as good. And so I, I've learned that about myself. Swimming and biking seem to help my sleep the most, and then we can get it to.
Um, supplements and like functional gut strategies and stuff like that. But man, I tell you that's, that's the biggest one for me is just sunshine nature, exercise outdoors.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I find getting movement does help a lot for me. [00:02:00] I try to get 15,000 steps a day. I mean, right now it's hot as, you know, what, uh, where we're at.
Yeah. So it's hard to be out there unless you're in the pool. Unless you're on a boat. Um, just too hot. Right. And so we try to. I got my little indoor treadmill that's huge with a, facing my big bay window here. So that's a big one for me. But 10, 15,000 steps. Uh, really big. And I've been tracking my sleep, using my sleep score with my Fitbit.
And then I give my HRV on that as well, which gives me a readiness score. So I've been using that and I do find when I get to bed. You know, before 11, when I really dial in my sleep nutrients dial in my diet during the day, my readiness score and my sleep scores are the highest. And I definitely feel it the next day.
And I try to use those gauges of how much stress to, to to deal with. So if I have good sleep scores and good readiness scores, then I'll do more exercise. I'll take on more stress as long as I'm recharging that battery the right way. Yeah, well said.
Evan Brand: Now, supplements that you can try for sleep. Well, we know that 80% of the magnesium has been lost from the soil in the last a hundred years or so.
So we like to talk about blends of magnesium. You've got magnesium three [00:03:00] in eight, which is supposed to help the brain. Some people get wired by three in eight, which is interesting. I don't, but some people do get wired from it. Obviously. Magnesium glycinate. Magnesium malate, those are all gonna be good.
Citrate maybe could be thrown in there. Orate could be thrown in there as well. I find that. Three to 500 milligrams of magnesium at night can be helpful. And what I'll do is I'll mix it. So I'll throw in some lemon balm. How many milligrams?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like three to 500. Oh yeah. A hundred. Yes. That, that, that sounds right.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Three to 500 on that. And then I'll throw in like some California poppy tincture, or I'll throw in some. You could do, um, like a theanine liquid. You and I were chatting about that pre-show, like some theanine spray or theanine liquid. I have a chewable GABA that I'll use. I'll do passion flour and then if you're real racy, okay, so if you have to listen to this podcast two or three times to get it all, that's cool.
But if you feel real racy, what I mean by that is you're nervous system just feels too ramped up. Like you feel kind of, oh, like can't breathe. Your heart's racing. You feel like you've got this kind of cortisol response. I [00:04:00] found Mother Wart to be my favorite. Mm-hmm. And I talk about mother Wart all the time, but it's one of my favorites for headaches, uh, for ladies with PMS, menstrual, cramps, hot flashes.
Mm-hmm. Insomnia, you name it. Mother warts just kind of takes the edge off and allows you to settle to sleep without having any hangover. And obviously alcohol's not the answer for sleep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent. I wanna pull one study up here for you. Take a look at, I just wanted to highlight. Some of the things that we're just chatting about.
So food's really important, but sometimes supplementation is just gonna be essential in certain areas. So not surprisingly, magnesium deficiency is detrimental for the health of plants, right? When we have magnesium deficient soils, that's gonna impact the amount of nutrients that plants produce. Um, and so this, this study here was looking at the fact that there's been a right, uh, I think it's a 20 to 80% reduction in magnesium since the 1950s in soil.
Which is just absolutely crazy right here.
Evan Brand: Yeah. There's a map out there. If you put in like USA magnesium deficiency [00:05:00] map, you'll see the map of the country. The whole country's pretty much has soil depletion now, and the USDA knows this. I mean, there's been efforts to try and regenerate the soil, but with the mono cropp.
Agriculture and things like that, it's just not happening. And so you have to supplement. I know some people think, and we have friends in the health industry who talk about nutrition and do this on social media for a living, and I tell these folks like, look, you can eat all the grass fed steak and berries you want, but when we run organic acid testing, we're still seeing deficiencies in your nutrient levels.
And so I really think there's a place for a professional strength multi that includes some minerals, like magnesium to really optimize your health. I just don't think you're going to eat your way out of this anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct right here, it's ascertained that magnesium content and fruits and veggies has dropped in the last 50 years, and about 80% of that is lost during the food processing.
As a consequence, a large percent of the pot people all over the world do not meet the minimum daily requirements for magnesium. So. We know it's there. So it's, it's important that you just, you can't get around that unless you supplement. So you try to consume [00:06:00] really good foods that are gonna be nutrient dense, but even if it's organic veggies and vegetables and, and fruits, it probably won't be enough.
Yeah. So it as a good go-to, you know, my Magnesium Supreme, I do a blend of malate and glycinate. Anywhere between two to 400 milligrams of fort bed I think is a pretty good whack. Uh, that's very helpful if you have racing mind, if you are. Brain can't turn off. I think doing things like GABA and theanine and NAC can be very helpful to bring the glutamate down on the brain.
So glutamate, it can go up with inflammation, it can kind of create OCD and racing thoughts, and so you can do things like theanine to convert that glutamate to gaba. You can do things like NAC that lower glutamate. And then you can also do things like magnesium that are very anti-inflammatory in the brain.
Now, if your glutamate is high because you're eating gluten and eating inflammatory foods are causing this blood sugar rollercoaster because you're skipping meals going too low calorie, eating too much process, or too much carbohydrate in relation to protein and fat that can create this blood sugar rollercoaster swing.
And each high and low on that [00:07:00] swing can create an insulin surge on the, on the front end and a cortisol adrenaline surge to pick your blood sugar back up on the back end. And so most people have that rollercoaster ride all day, and they're surging insulin, then surging insulin, uh, then surging cortisol and adrenaline on the low end.
And that could be a problem.
Evan Brand: And then you brought up gaba. And then also there's a histamine connection with gaba. I was looking into this the other day trying to get a little geeky on it, but histamine and GABA can help to oppose each other, and so GABA can help to regulate histamine. And the problem is a lot of people have histamine intolerance now because of walking around with viral spike protein in them.
Uh, or injection protein. In them, they have maso activation syndrome. If you have mold exposure, if you have Lyme, if you have Bartonella, these issues are gonna ramp up your histamine. I remember when, uh, I was outta my house, we were in a hotel for like six weeks and there was mold in the hotel as well. I couldn't sleep at all, and if I would take some herbal antihistamines, I could [00:08:00] sleep a little bit.
And so if your histamine levels are too high because you have mold in your home, you have mold in your body, histamine is a big problem for sleep, and that'll certainly make you more anxious, more irritable, more overwhelmed, more short tempered, short fuse, like when I say histamine, most people just think allergies.
But it definitely has an impact on your mood and your excitability and your ability to. To sleep at night. So you could try like some herbal antihistamine stuff like PERA leaf, you could look at Quercetin. Uh, you mentioned NAC earlier, which may help too. But I think histamine is a piece of the puzzle. So I'll put it in the show notes.
I've got a low histamine food guide that's free. Just try to eat low histamine for a month. If you're struggling with sleep, I think it may help.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and if you're a female and you have low progesterone because you're chronically stressed, progesterone's a natural antihistamine. And so with low progesterone, it's also a GABA chloride channel opener, and so it allows GABA to come into the brain and bathe it.
And GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that just means gas pedal brake pedal, right? A stimulatory neurotransmitter [00:09:00] like dopamine is, is the, the gas and the break is gonna be gaba. And so think of putting the break on your brain, your thoughts, your rumination. That's what GABA does. And again, sometimes you can't just take GABA directly.
It may not cross the blood brain barrier. It's kind of controversial. But thine can convert glutamate in, in the brain to gaba. So worst case, you do thine and gaba together. Try that. And if you're a female. Low progesterone is a big deal. And saying, not saying you just supplement it. You wanna get tested, you wanna make sure you know what your levels are.
'cause if you have progesterone on board and someone stressed and inflamed. That progesterone can go downstream to cortisol and so you can actually just cause more cortisol production if you're not fixing the inflammation. But like you mentioned with the mold, mold can easily, uh, increase glutamate activity in the brain via the microglial cells via inflammation.
So you wanna get your environment cleaned up if there's high humidity or mold SSPORs, you want to get that remedi.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it's a huge piece of the puzzle. How common would you say progesterone deficiency is in a female, say 35 and up?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I would [00:10:00] say 80% of women that I see that come in with any issue have very low progesterone.
That's 50% below levels, and so the typical level I'm looking at is like luteal phase. We want 15 to 20 on a blood test. I'm pretty sure the range is pg per ml. I could be off on that, but PG per ml, 15 to 20. Most women I see are somewhere between six and eight. And what is that? Just natural age, just loss of progesterone production due to age?
Or what is it you think? Um, it's just chronic stress and inflammation. Okay. 'cause progesterone will go downstream to cortisol and the more chronically inflamed and stress someone becomes, you just get HPA access dysregulation. So the FSH and the lh. From the pituitary. So you have GnRH produced from the hypothalamus that's gonadotropic releasing hormone that goes to the pituitary to make F, s, H and lh.
LH is FSH. The cau, uh, sorry, FSH is follicle stimulating hormone that that causes the follicle to grow. As the follicle grows, it produces estradiol. That estradiol triggers LH production. LH then triggers, um, the luteal phase where [00:11:00] progesterone is made. So it chronic stress disregulates that whole feedback loop.
So we'll use different herbs to bring that feedback loop back on track. We'll use things like chase tree and Vitex, but sometimes using low dose progesterone at the right part of the cycle can also be helpful with that. Yeah, it seems
Evan Brand: impossible in this modern world to not lean on adaptogenic herbs to help regulate the HPA access because we're just constantly being bombarded.
Whether that's people on social media, whether that's reading the news. Everything is designed to throw you off balance and throw you out of a peaceful, balanced state. So I just want people to recognize the, the pace of the modern world is completely incongruent with what we're designed for. And so that's why you and I lean on and we've personally used adaptogenic herbs for decades to help keep us running and keep us grinding and keep us on our, on our feet because without it, I mean, God, the, the world is much harder.
And these herbs that we're referencing. They don't get rid of your stress, but they just help you to deal with it. So you could have a full plate of stress in front of you and it just [00:12:00] doesn't feel as overwhelming. Like I, I see so many women, especially at my kid's school, they'll ask for my help. A lot of them are just completely overwhelmed and frazzled and I'm like, God, if we just got you on some adaptogens for a month, like your stress load and the way you perceive your stress is gonna be way different.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And you know, if you just look at like. Right. How women and men deal with stress. It's just different, right? And part of it's that hypothalamic pituitary axis, right? Um, men have a slight advantage 'cause testosterone buffers the cortisol in that whole feedback loop. And so, as women age, that testosterone can drop from age 20 to 30 into perimenopause by 50%.
And so as a woman ages, if that DHEA is dropping from their adrenals, that DHEA is a precursor for testosterone in four. Um, estrogen, if that drops, that stress response from the hypo hypothalamus pituitary to the gona to the ovaries is gonna make you more susceptible, right? To stress and to inflammation.
Uh, and so you have to really look at that. And the other thing [00:13:00] is, we talked about the feedback loop, right? GnRH, gonadotropic release hormone from the, from the hypothalamus two. FSH, lh from the pituitary, and then to the gonads down below that feedback loop, that first domino is GnRH. That's dopamine. So you need good dopamine to have that healthy feedback loop, right?
Well, dopamine's made from protein, it's made from phenylalanine, tryptophan, and then you have the, the big co-factors to make that work and convert are gonna be things that are low in the soil. Magnesium a co-factor. Zinc is an important co-factor, right? Iron. If you're anemic as a female or a male vegan, vegetarian, or.
You have low stomach acid, iron's gonna be low B six, very important, right? That's gonna be lower in certain organic foods that are just the soil depletion. So B six is real. And then of course, tryptophan is gonna be an issue too, because that's gonna be a precursor to serotonin. Serotonin melatonin. So for females, stress is a big deal, and that [00:14:00] low testosterone from the low DHEA can really impact that.
And also guys too are still at. Still gonna have issues because we're bathing an estrogen and from microplastics, from pesticides, mold, toxins, they're all estrogenic. That screws up the LH feedback loop to the brain, and that can lower testosterone that way too.
Evan Brand: Oh, speaking of testosterone, I ran my blood about a month ago, and since my last blood work, I was able to increase my testosterone by about 350 points, and I would attribute that to more sunshine.
More, more swimming, more like outdoor biking, outdoor swimming. And then also I've put together a, a blend, some different herbs that I've been messing with. So I think this is a huge piece of the puzzle for both men and women. And so, ladies, if your sex drive sucks or you have a non-existent sex drive, it, it, it's, it might not, it might not be just the emotional issue with your husband because you're mad he didn't take the trash out.
It could be something underlying. [00:15:00] With the hormones and you can use specific herbs to help boost testosterone. Women need testosterone. Uh, I mean, just as much in my opinion, because as you mentioned, it's a good buffer for the stress and so it's, I, I've got my wife taking some herbs to help testosterone, and it's a huge difference the way she can handle the kids, the way she can manage, the way she can hustle and get through the day.
So I, I think it's a huge piece of the puzzle. So just to kind of give people the full picture you brought up Yeah. Uh, amino acids, you brought up, uh, neurotransmitters.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So B six important cofactor, that's a rate limiting cofactor. You can have all the protein in the world, not in the B six. We can't convert and activate.
That's a rate limiting cofactor. Yeah. So, so the whole
Evan Brand: picture is looking at your gut for infections affecting you. Looking at mold that's affecting sleep and hormones. You see how this is all connected folks? Yeah. We wanna make the, make this picture for you. You've got the brain chemistry side that we have to address with the amino acids.
We've got nutrient deficiencies that play in, we've got hormonal and adrenal dysfunction, potential thyroid issues here. So it's, that's the whole puzzle. And what we'd like to do is just get a workup on you. We can get just a few labs. It's not a crazy amount of labs, it's not [00:16:00] a crazy amount of money. But with these labs we can get a baseline and we can see where.
Argue struggling and why? Okay. It's not just about get the sleep med. It's not just about do CBD before bed or do melatonin and some gummies. No, it's let's figure out what's actually under the hood and with the amount of time and suffering that you spend researching and listening to podcast and scrolling on Instagram, uh, your favorite health influencer to get the next secret hack.
If you just go into your in equals one, you get your. Bioindividuality data on paper that's gonna allow us to actually fix these problems. And so don't look for this girl did this. I need to do what she did. It. It's just not, not the best way. The best way is to see what's going on with you because there could be 10 people with sleep issues and there could be 10 different reasons why.
One guy, it's mercury fillings, this lady hits low progesterone. This guy, it's super high adrenal stress, and so. Don't just follow someone blindly. Get your data
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: correct. And also too, when we have, well, so first off too, [00:17:00] with your testosterone, that's really cool. So you had a big bump. I know we talked about adding in some natural DHT blockers like six months ago.
Do you think that helped? Kind of, I don't, about testosterone. I, I don't know.
Evan Brand: I, I think it was probably there. There's one called a hoo. That's my favorite, uh, code makes it, I'll send you a link, uh, in, in the chat,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: but it's, but you, you, you're still taking the natural DHC blocks I told you to take, right?
Uhhuh? Yep. Yeah, so that, that, I've seen studies 15 to 20% increase because if you have t testosterone it, it can go downstream to D hc. And if you can naturally dam it up, then, then the testosterone actually accumulates. As long as you're not aromatizing, then you know you're gonna be in good shape. So I've seen that be.
Really helpful. I know for me it was a, a big game changer.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Check out what I sent you. It's a, a Hooga. Turkistan. It's insane. I mean, in like a week you feel just like you're 18.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. Does it work for women too? I, I would say it'd be totally fine for females. Yeah. Interesting. So, big things I wanted to highlight here out of the gate.
Right. So. First thing is mood has a major connection with sleep [00:18:00] because if we have mood issues, the same neurotransmitters that impact mood, they impact sleep. Serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, they have major impacts. Like if you look at, there's studies on violent crime, for instance, where most violent crime I is impacted with drops in blood sugar.
Oh yeah, with hypoglycemic drops. So, you know, lab study that show that self-control tasks deplete circulating, um, glucose and that increase in violence happens once your blood sugar dips below, you know, 70 or so, right? Because you get this fight or flight response or, or you have these big reactive.
Hypoglycemic responses.
Evan Brand: There was his viral video. You might not have saw it, but there was this viral video that this, uh, comedian did. And, uh, his wife comes in the house and she immediately just starts yapping at him. Why are you late? Da da da, da da. She starts like, you know, yelling at him and he shoves like a Chipotle burrito in her face, and she starts eating.
And then within like 30 seconds, she like, calms down. Yes, I see that. And then he puts a blanket on her and rubs her head or something, and she's chill. [00:19:00] And, and so that's real. Like when we joke about being hangry. Yeah, this is, this is a huge deal here. Oh,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: it's huge. Uh, and here's one study here. So this is reactive.
So this is reactive hypoglycemia tendencies among habitually violent offenders. It doesn't show the abstract. I was able to get it somewhere else, but the study essentially showed here that, lemme pull up a study. So they looked at how many people they look at. Lemme pull it up here real quick. Okay, so glucose tolerance test was done on 68 habitually violent offenders, 53% showed reactive hypoglycemia versus 15% of the controls.
So that's like what? That's like a. A five x increase. Oh yeah. So blood sugar fluctuations up and down impact mood. And guess what? Those same things are gonna impact your serotonin, which is then gonna convert to melatonin. So the first thing is get your neurotransmitters [00:20:00] right. Get your blood sugar right?
Get your hormones right, you will be the best version of you, and you will be able to deal with stress with your spouse and your kids when you have healthy neurotransmitters and healthy blood sugar. And then of course, make sure the nutrient density is there, right? Eat real whole foods, healthy fats, healthy proteins.
Make sure you can break those foods down. Right. Supplements can be helpful 'cause we can add in additional freeform aminos. We can add in additional magnesium and B six that may be low in the soil. If you're a female or a male that's low in iron or vegan, vegetarian, you're gonna need acid and enzymes.
You're gonna need extra iron. As well. Heme based iron, no plant-based iron will not cut it for ferritin levels. And so all those things are gonna play a big role. And also we have the progesterone component. Progesterone is that GABA chloride channel opener that bays the neurotransmitters, that bays the whole HPA access in gaba, which relaxes that whole feedback loop.
Evan Brand: So reach out. We gotta run and jump on these calls, but we want you to get the data. You're gonna be [00:21:00] fine. This is a fixable issue. Do not settle for miserable sleep. Miserable energy. Miserable mood. You know, it's crazy. We still get people that reach out and they'll say, Hey, I've listened to you guys for 6, 7, 8 years.
I'm just now reaching out. I'm like, God, we could have fixed you by now. So, exactly. Exactly. So if you're suboptimal, let us help you get a workup done. It's not extreme in cost, and the logistics are quite simple. We have international distribution, so justin health.com. You can reach out to Dr. J or myself, Evan brand, evan brand.com.
Let us know what's going on. We'll see if we can help.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if you're overwhelmed listening to this. We talked about a lot of different things, and one thing may not be the magic bullet for you, where that one thing may be the magic bullet for someone else, right? And this is where it gets a little bit hard.
In functional medicine world, you may have eight things and there may be a 15% improvement when each of these things is addressed. Or it could all be in one or two things you don't know. And it's really easy to try one thing or two and then get discouraged and be like, oh, it doesn't work, right? But what are the options?
You're gonna go on? Luta, [00:22:00] ra, Ambien. These medications, they may knock you out, but they're not gonna allow deeper restorative sleep to happen. And so they may be okay acutely, right. I'm not anti-medicine, I'm just pro root cause, right. I'm pro root cause. And if you're using medicine to ignore the root cause, that's where medicine can be a downfall.
If it's, if it's a, if it's a bridge to get you to the root cause and buy you time, then I'm very supportive of medicine. Just make sure it's, you're using that pro root cause mindset and so we're not just in this as like. Thought leaders just talking about stuff. We're in the trenches, we're doing these things, we're applying it.
We're using it. So we have first line experience. So if you guys wanna dive in, evan brand.com, you can reach out to Evan, he sees patients worldwide. Welcome myself, dr. Jay justin health.com. We're here to help. But just take some of the information I gave you, start applying it, and then you can reach out down the road if you need more support.
Let's do it. All right, we'll see you guys again soon. Have a good one, y'all. Take care. Take care. Bye now.
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