ANTHONY WILLIAMS ON INSOMNIA AND SLEEP PROBLEMS IN THYROID DISEASE

If you have problems with restful sleep , the cause is not in the thyroid gland. You've probably heard the exact opposite, because trends indicate that thyroid problems account for much of insomnia. The truth is that this is not the case. If you find yourself waking up and tossing and turning at night, your thyroid isn't to blame.

Sleep itself is still a great mystery to modern medicine, and in particular, the reasons why so many people have sleep problems are even more mysterious to science. This is why certain theories are emerging, such as the idea that impaired thyroid function—another mysterious aspect of health—creates sleep disturbances. Blaming the thyroid in this way is like when the firemen arrive at the scene of a fire and point to the chimney as the cause without doing any expertise. With a proper approach, the investigators would have found that there was not even a fire in the fireplace and the boiler was not working - the chimney could not have been the cause. Yet, because it is at the center of everything, it is considered a problem.

The modern "thyroid as a problem" trend is not based on evidence or understanding. She is mythical. Although, as Anthony William points out often in his books, myths can become law when repeated often enough. No practical fact can connect sleep and the thyroid gland. It just so happens that many people have both sleep and thyroid problems, so medical theorists confuse correlation with causation. In many cases, both thyroid problems and disturbed sleep are caused by the Epstein-Barr virus , which is the real reason they so often occur together.

That's right, EBV is once again the culprit of a common health complaint. However, he is not the only culprit. Many different factors can cause sleep problems, and in some cases several can occur at the same time. For example, EBV neurotoxins may be reducing the neurotransmitters you need to send the proper signals for sleep, and at the same time your liver may be congested, sending it into a subtle spasm in the early morning hours that wakes you up. , after you've finally fallen asleep. Also, you may have had a lot of monosodium glutamate creep into your diet over the years, and the buildup of monosodium glutamate in your brain is burning out the neurons you need to keep your mind calm before bed.

Or maybe you're in a situation where the EBV neurotoxins are causing you pain that makes it hard to fall asleep, plus your adrenal glands are too exhausted to produce enough of the specialized adrenaline mix you need to fuel the sleep signals, plus certain toxic heavy metals that have entered your body over the years block the proper sleep-related neurological activity in your brain.

You will find a more detailed list of these reasons further down in the article. You should know this: in none of these cases is the problem with the thyroid gland itself. Sleep is not regulated by thyroid hormones. Your thyroid also doesn't burn out your brain, clog up your liver, make you feel sick, affect your adrenal glands, or fill your body with toxins. She is innocent. Those who claim otherwise are deluded. The trend that claims the thyroid gland explains sleep is one where two medical mysteries are combined, as if two unknowns make one known. This is a situation where well-intentioned physicians adopt a theory as a belief system and put forth the idea, and the theory can quickly spread and strengthen.

The truth is, sleep is critical to getting rid of EBV and healing your thyroid. As long as you're guided by wrong theories, you'll be hindered from getting to the root of your sleep problem, and without understanding what's wrong with your sleep, it's very difficult to make the problem go away.

Even if you wouldn't list insomnia or sleep disorders as one of your chronic problems, learning how to use sleep to be maximally healing is an important part of your recovery. So far in thyroid disease articles, you've discovered the virus behind the vast majority of thyroid disorders, learned about health mistakes and misconceptions to avoid, read all about the foods and supplements that kill the virus and restore your thyroid, and you've learned some techniques to go even further in your recovery. Now we come to the cornerstone: sleep.

Without adequate sleep, you cannot heal properly. When you really sleep properly and when you know how to quiet your mind when you lie awake, you have one of the most powerful weapons to fight EBV and restore your thyroid.

This is because sleep is essential for the functioning of the immune system – your overall immune system and the individual immune systems of your thyroid and liver. It is the ultimate restorative agent, useful for: (1) strengthening the thyroid gland so that it can maintain the homeostasis of the body, as well as repel and clear viral cells from it; (2) strengthening the liver as it cleanses itself of EBV and its wastes; and (3) allowing neurotransmitter chemicals to recover after being burned by the viral neurotoxins.

Sleep is also an amazing preventative. For example, if you sleep properly when EBV is still in the second phase ( by getting the nutritional support we discussed in the "Powerful Thyroid Healing Foods" article , and eliminating those foods in the "What Not to Eat" article that feed the virus ) , the liver can get the support it needs to fight off the viral infection so it doesn't progress to the thyroid gland.

If you have trouble sleeping, all of this can seem stressful. You might be thinking, "That's enough, I get it. Of course I would sleep if I could." Since the irony is that getting enough sleep helps heal the problems that cause sleep problems in the first place, you may worry that because sleep doesn't come easily to you, you're completely depriving yourself of this valuable resource. it seems like a vicious circle to you.

Put your worries aside. First of all, when you understand what is behind your sleep problem, insomnia will no longer have the power to hang over you like a mysterious ghost. When you can identify what is preventing you from sleeping, which is of great importance to you, you gain an advantage and sleep immediately becomes less of a problem. Second, there are secrets to sleep that you can learn to use to your advantage so that its healing benefits are not out of reach.

When you look into the secrets of sleep, the cycle turns from vicious to virtuous. The better quality sleep you get, the more you can eliminate the problems that make sleep a problem in the first place. As you heal, sleep becomes your primary source of relaxation—one that takes care of you and recharges you so you can face the next day with the vitality you need to pursue your purpose and make the world a better place. -good place.

Identifying sleep problems

Sometimes it's no secret what lies behind a restless night's sleep. If, say, you have a teenager who's been out partying late, then you know exactly why your mind is still restless even though you've already gone to bed. If you've recently gone through a breakup or had a disagreement with your partner, if you're worried about an important exam or meeting the next morning, if you're grieving a loss or an experience that shook your confidence, or even if you're bursting with excitement for the day ahead, already you know what's behind your insomnia.

There are also nights when none of the above is happening, or when it's just enough in the background that you can turn it off when you go to bed. This puts you in the group of mysterious sleep problems. Sometimes the most stressful part of it is the mystery, not knowing what's behind the problem. As the day progresses, a certain anxiety begins to creep in, because you cannot predict what awaits you at night. Is this going to be one of those nights where you get through unscathed, drifting off into a peaceful sleep until it's time to get up? Or will it be a night of torture where you fear that with each passing hour you will be more sleepy and less alert for the next day? If it's not an anxiety disorder that's keeping you awake, the unpredictability of a sleep problem can.

Sleep studies are a commonly used technique in medicine to determine what is happening when someone's sleep is problematic. You visit a sleep lab, they hook you up with diodes, then you try to drift off to sleep, and in the other room there are technicians monitoring your body activity. Your doctor then evaluates the results to see if a sleep disorder is present.

Unfortunately, sleep research rarely answers the question of what is really wrong and how to fix it. In the case of sleep apnea, for example, a condition where breathing is interrupted or too shallow during sleep, a sleep study can be very helpful in diagnosing the apnea and determining its severity. The patient will then receive a prescription for a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine with instructions on the settings to use and that's it. CPAP may make some difference. It may even help significantly. The difference in how the patient feels after a restful sleep with it, for some, can be earth-shattering.

But what about the cause of sleep apnea? What if the patient wants to relieve an underlying condition that causes breathing problems during sleep? Often the best advice the medical community can offer is to try to lose weight. ( More on sleep apnea in a moment. ) So sleep research has its limits.

If you want to tackle a problem, the first step is to identify its characteristics. When it comes to troubled sleep, there isn't just one type, so not all can be explained and solved in the same way. Here are some common sleep problems people face:

• At first you can't sleep, but after a few hours you finally drift off. When you wake up, you don't feel rested.
• You fall asleep easily and then wake up in the wee hours, unable to get back to sleep before it's time to get up. The frustration of not being able to fall asleep again exacerbates your already stressed brain, and when the sun starts to rise, it causes even more anxiety.
• As above, you fall asleep easily and then wake up during the night, although in this case you eventually manage to fall back asleep in the early hours of the morning.
• Throughout the night, you drift in and out of light sleep, never settling into a solid state of restful sleep. Sometimes this can be accompanied by a frequent need to urinate.
• You don't sleep through the night, but not because you want to. You're not out having fun, falling in love, or studying for an exam—you're in bed suffering through the night with insomnia. When morning comes, you're completely restless and crash at various times throughout the day, even though a nap may seem out of your reach. At night you start all over again.
• You are exhausted all day. You have a hard time keeping up with your tasks and all you can think about is going to bed and closing your eyes. When night falls, you're suddenly "awake" and it's hard to calm down enough to fall asleep in time.
• You manage to fall asleep and stay asleep all night, only to wake up feeling like you need another eight hours. This can go one of two ways: (1) your loved ones tell you that you snore loudly and/or that you stop breathing or breathe very shallowly at night. They may even tell you that you woke up from snoring, even though you immediately went back to sleep and didn't remember. (2) You have ruled out breathing problems, and exhaustion persists. No matter how early you go to bed or how late you wake up, you don't feel refreshed after sleep.
• Just when you're about to drift off to sleep, an involuntary tug on your arm or leg wakes you up again. This can happen several times in a row.
• You are tired and ready for sleep, only some side sensation keeps you awake. It can range from neurological in nature (tinnitus, buzzing, restless legs syndrome) to skin problems, aches and pains, and racing thoughts.

Once you've identified what's causing your sleep problem, you can move on to identifying what's causing it.

Causes of sleep problems

Many factors, sometimes in combination with each other, can contribute to a person not being able to get a good night's rest. We hear a lot about how devices keep us awake with their unnatural light and brain-stimulating content. This is certainly one of the elements to consider and one that you have probably come across if you have trouble sleeping. You know that you should keep computers, phones, tablets, and alarm clocks away from your bed, that your bedroom should be dark and quiet, and that you should start getting ready for bed well in advance.

What if you've tried all of these, but your sleep problem remains a mystery? Not surprisingly, the Unforgiving Four—radiation, toxic heavy metals , viruses, and DDT, as well as some of their auxiliaries and variants—play a role.

Viral activity

Viral problems are one of the main causes of sleep problems. Epstein-Barr virus , herpes zoster , cytomegalovirus, HHV-6 and even some bacteria can poison our body and keep us up at night. This is because viruses such as Epstein-Barr secrete neurotoxins that are disruptive in three main ways: (1) they cause hypersensitivity in the central nervous system that governs sleep; (2) they create body aches that can prevent you from relaxing enough to fall asleep; and (3) they can reduce the activity of neurotransmitters, and since they also allow communication between brain cells, this can interfere with the transmission of the correct sleep messages. Thus, viral neurotoxins can cause problems related to not being able to fall asleep for hours or waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep.

Insomnia caused by viruses is often confused with a thyroid problem because, as we said earlier, insomnia and thyroid problems often occur in parallel. This is not because an underactive or overactive thyroid causes sleep problems, despite what you may hear from other sources. The truth is that thyroid dysfunction and sleep difficulties are symptoms of EBV - that's why they coexist. Often it is the virus in stage four that causes insomnia, which means that the thyroid problem is already underway, whether your doctor detects it or not.

Toxic heavy metals

First on the list of sleep disruptors is the presence of toxic heavy metals in the body. These heavy metals are particularly problematic in the brain, where they don't just stay in one place, but oxidize, creating waves of toxic substances that spread and damage brain tissue along the way. Heavy metals can also interrupt electrical impulses and create problems with electrolytes and neurotransmitter chemicals, causing the neurotransmitters that would otherwise send the right sleep messages throughout the brain to shut down. This dysfunction can lead to a host of sleep problems, including restless sleep, lack of deep sleep, and the inability to fall asleep at all. Especially teenagers can be affected by toxic heavy metals that interfere with sleep.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) Toxicity

A huge number of people in the country are awake because of monosodium glutamate (MSG) toxicity. This common ingredient goes straight to the brain, where it derails electrical activity with toxins and co-toxins that burn brain tissue. Once in the brain, monosodium glutamate stays there ( unless you break it down and remove it using detoxification techniques ), causing long-term problems that can include sleep problems. This is because MSG is the blood enemy of neurons. It sticks to neurons and makes them electrically hypersensitive, so that when an electrical impulse passes through the neuron, it gets hotter, causing a chaotic, disproportionate response. It's like monosodium glutamate turns the neuron into a sparkler. And like a sparkler, the neuron with this MSG fuel-like coating eventually burns out.

The neuron's implacable enmity with MSG can lead to racing thoughts, an itchy feeling, difficulty calming the mind, and the feeling of being obsessed with something you can't get rid of before bed. Many people who have to do a lot of meditation or relaxation techniques before settling down for the night, or who constantly wake up at night, have a higher amount of MSG saturating their brain tissue.

MSG is everywhere, so be careful. As we already know from Anthony William's books , one of the most insidious places it hides is in the natural flavoring ingredient, which can sneak into even the healthiest-looking packaged organic foods and supplements at the health food store. ( For a more complete list of ways MSG is hidden in ingredient lists and in restaurant food, see the "What Not to Eat" chapter of the revised and expanded edition of The Healer's Medium .)

Liver problems

Your liver works hard for you all day long. It repels pathogens and toxins by purifying your blood and creating bile to break down excess fats in food. Just like you, the liver needs time to rest, so when you go to bed at night, your liver goes to sleep too. He shuts down his work for a while and goes on autopilot. Around three or four in the morning ( it's different for everyone ) your liver starts to wake up again. Thanks to the rejuvenating sleep you just got, it starts processing poisons, bacteria, viruses, and waste ( such as dead cells, including dead red blood cells ) again, picking them up like you're taking out the trash on the sidewalk, so when you wake up in the morning and hydrate, flush it all out. This healing and purifying process also prevents the accumulation of bilirubin.

If the liver is sluggish due to a diet high in fat and processed foods, then when it tries to do its job in the wee hours of the morning, it goes into subtle spasm, contracting and twisting. Most of the time, it's not something you can feel. However, the little dance of the liver creates enough disturbances in the body to wake you up. This explains those nights where you fall asleep normally, then suddenly wake up again in the early hours of the morning and after a period of time are able to go back to sleep. It can also explain those painful nights where you drift off all the time and wake up all the time.

Digestive problems

Similarly, digestive problems can interfere with sleep. The nervous system is very sensitive and works in tandem with the digestive tract. Thanks to the north-south (brain-gut) connectors known as the vagus and frenetic nerves, everything that happens in the digestive tract is immediately transmitted to the brain. So if you have indigestion, bloating , cramping, or a sensitive stomach, these symptoms can trigger your nervous system and keep you alert when you're trying to sleep.

Digestive activity can also wake you up, even if you don't feel discomfort. One often has no idea that, say, the ileum ( the part of the small intestine that connects to the large intestine ) is inflamed from excess adrenaline, and so every time food passes through that area, it triggers nerves that connect to the brain. As you blink awake in the dark, you won't be able to detect anything going on in your belly, and you'll feel like you woke up for no reason. In fact, dinner was digested during sleep, and peristalsis simply caused the food in the digestive tract to pass through a sensitive area.

Emotional turmoil

We often get disappointed in our lives. Your best friend turns on you, your soulmate moves in another direction, your parents divorce, your body gets sick with seemingly no explanation, the people around you think you are to blame for your illness. In all these experiences we lose trust. And if the loss of trust is great enough, or if too many breaches of trust build up over time without being balanced, we can experience emotional turmoil. However, they are not only emotional – there is also a physical component. As Anthony William reveals in his book The Healing Medium - Revised and Expanded Edition , traumas big and small can create neural burnout and scar tissue in the brain. The result is sleep deprivation. So many people experience this in their lifetime and never do. it's not fun. For some, it can be devastating to their sense of who they are as individuals and the people around them. As difficult as it is, through these experiences we can gain strength, recharge our souls, and rise from the ashes of emotional turmoil and PTSD.

Sleep apnea

As we said earlier, sleep apnea is one of the sleep-related conditions that medical research has begun to piece together. Over the past ten years, more and more people have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, and even TV shows are now making jokes about middle-aged characters and their CPAP machines. Scientists have discovered that chronic snoring is not harmless. It's often indicative of breathing problems that prevent someone from getting into a truly restful sleep cycle, so doctors are starting to prescribe these CPAP machines to push air through patients' airways while they sleep.

This is a great approach for people with obstructive sleep apnea, which can be the result of a number of physical obstructions. Some common causes of obstructive sleep apnea include excess mucus, as in postnasal drip; inflamed and enlarged mucous membranes in the throat; inflammation of the bronchi, tonsils or adenoids; septum problems; chronic sinusitis; lymphatic obstruction; general swelling; edema and excess weight that puts pressure on the throat and chest. As with all the other sleep problems we've covered here, obstructive sleep apnea isn't a life sentence—it's all about anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory foods to bring you relief.

There is also non-obstructive sleep apnea, which Anthony William calls neurological sleep apnea. This is the form of the condition where CPAP doesn't offer as much relief because it's not just about the need to push the air out, it's about the central nervous system and supporting nerves. Neurological sleep apnea overlaps with the sleep disorder modern medicine calls central sleep apnea, which remains largely a medical mystery. While research has identified central sleep apnea as different, it's still light years away from understanding what underlies it.

Here's what's really going on when obstructions aren't to blame for breathing difficulties during sleep: on the one hand, seizure-like activity in the brain ( caused by pollutants ). These are not actual seizures. Rather, surges of electrical energy occur in the brain at a truly minute level. This is enough to cause a pause in breathing. This type of neurological sleep apnea can occur as a result of monosodium glutamate (MSG) toxicity, high levels of a combination of toxic heavy metals such as mercury and aluminum, or exposure to pesticides such as DDT and/or herbicides. All of these factors tend to create a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes these energy spikes. A common scenario is for someone to develop sleep apnea after moving and have no idea that it is due to the pesticides sprayed on the premises by the former occupants of their new home. Viral activity can also cause neurological sleep apnea because viral neurotoxins can inflame the vagus nerve , which passes through the chest and affects breathing.

Adrenal fatigue

People who have never experienced adrenal fatigue probably hear the word fatigue and think that for people who suffer from this condition, sleep is the least of their worries. After all, doesn't being tired just mean that you are extremely tired and could fall asleep anytime? Anyone who has dealt with constant fatigue can tell you that this is not the case. In fact, adrenal fatigue can cause you trouble sleeping. The condition is characterized by adrenal glands that fluctuate between producing too much adrenaline and too little.

A common scenario is that the adrenal glands are underactive during the day because they are holding back in case of a crisis, and so you feel tired or constantly need to unwind during the day. When night falls and no emergency has occurred, the adrenal glands release the adrenaline they have been holding, which is the cause of the "sudden awakening" feeling when the sun goes down. It's also possible that when the adrenal glands are overactive, they push out surges of corrosive excess adrenaline that burn and reduce neurotransmitters, interfering with sleep.

Even underactive adrenal glands at night can make sleep problematic because it means they may not be producing enough of the specific mix of hormones you need to fall asleep. (That's right—you need certain types of adrenaline to help you fall asleep, enter REM sleep, and dream.)

Anxiety

Were you one of those kids who put off going to bed because they were afraid of being alone in the dark? Or have you ever had trouble sleeping because something unpleasant is planned for the next day, and you don't want it to come too soon? We've all experienced this sleep-related anxiety, even if only from time to time. For some people, this condition is a regular occurrence, and it's usually no secret that worry and anxiety are behind their insomnia.

The question is, what is behind the unexplained restlessness during sleep? In some cases, it is a fear of nightmares. In other cases, it is post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) . Any of the other factors in this section have caused you enough trouble sleeping that your bed doesn't feel safe and you can't fully relax. In these types of situations, the underlying health problem must first be addressed to remove any ongoing trauma or trigger.

In other cases, however, anxiety is amorphous and unnameable and cannot be traced to a specific experience that triggers it. This type of anxiety, similar to the one we discussed in the article Thyroid Diseases - Your Symptoms Explained (Part 3) , is related to the Merciless Four causing physiological ( often neurological ) disturbances. In one type of anxiety, the nerves become "allergic" to viral neurotoxins, which sensitizes the nerves and creates an extreme feeling of anxiety. In another case, toxic heavy metals that oxidize in the brain interrupt electrical impulses, causing a backlash, causing you to experience panic, irrational thoughts, anxiety, or the feeling that you can't think straight because the brain's messages aren't reaching their destination.

Anxiety can also occur as a result of DDT in the brain. This pesticide, which we thought was long gone, is so persistent that we still encounter it today, and it is a blood enemy of neurons that causes these nerve cells to self-destruct, resulting in sudden feelings of anxiety. Radiation can also contribute to sleep-disrupting anxiety because radiation increases histamine responses and inflammation in the body—inflammation that is not detected by classic blood tests for inflammation, such as C-reactive protein and antinuclear antibody tests. People with radiation-induced inflammation may feel hot or swollen, or their skin may burn slightly, all of which can lead to an anxious, restless state of mind that prevents sleep from coming easily.

Sometimes anxiety is heightened because of something going on in the gut. As we discussed in " Digestive Problems " above, neural connections mean that the sensitivity of the digestive system signals the brain. This is a common reason for a person to wake up anxious in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Depending on the extent of the intestinal irritation, this person may be able to go back to sleep after it passes or stay awake the entire time after waking up.

Additional neurological problems

For those who struggle to sleep for even a moment throughout the night, the cause is often severe neurotransmitter and neuronal dysfunction combined with overactive or underactive adrenal glands. This can lead to unwanted nights where, despite going to bed at a reasonable hour, you are still awake to see the sun rise. Severe magnesium deficiency is often observed. Usually, this type of sleep disturbance is at the root of PTSD. This is not the insomnia-induced PTSD we talked about a moment ago. Rather, it stems from a traumatic experience in some other area of ​​life, whether in the distant or recent past, that has resulted in neurological problems. In this case, instead of being too hot, as in monosodium glutamate toxicity, the electrical impulses are too cold and become insufficiently active. Without enough electricity to move through neurons, neurotransmitter chemicals, which are already depleted in such circumstances, don't get enough of a "boost" to send sleep messages to brain cells.

Another neurological problem is repetitive, involuntary twitching. This often means that the brain tissue is saturated with toxins such as toxic heavy metals , aspartame, MSG, DDT and other pesticides, herbicides, toxic nanomaterials and/or other synthetic chemicals. Information should pass through the brain smoothly and smoothly, continuously. However, saturation means that the brain tissue cannot receive the information from the neurotransmitters quickly enough, and so the neurotransmitter chemicals are held back and collected in small depots until enough information has accumulated to release it in an unexpected burst that shakes the body. ( During the day, the same process occurs in people who suffer from this condition, although they are not relaxed enough to feel it because they are running on adrenaline. However, if they take a nap in the afternoon, they will probably experience the same awakening. )

No part of this article is intended to alarm you. All the problems we just listed can be cured. It's scary and discouraging when you don't know what's going on and you feel like it's out of your control. This is no longer the case. Now you have answers, and as we've always said, that's the first step to healing. Let's explore how you can finally move on.

Other Thyroid Articles:

"The truth about the thyroid gland" ;
"Thyroid diseases - how it all begins" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 1)" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 2)" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 3)" ;
"Thyroid cancer" ;
"[Video] Do you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis? - Anthony William talks" ;
""Guessing tests" for the thyroid gland" ;
"Anthony William on thyroid medication" ;
"Anthony William on Life Without a Thyroid Gland" ;
"Anthony William reveals the truth about iodine" ;
"Anthony William reveals the truth about zinc" ;
"Powerful healing foods for the thyroid gland" ;
"Which foods to avoid in thyroid diseases" ;
"Medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements for the thyroid gland" ;
"How celery stem juice helps with thyroid diseases" ;
"Tea for the treatment of the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal broth for the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal juice for the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal Thyroid Smoothie" .