You probably already know that supplementing with magnesium can help you sleep, especially if you’re deficient in magnesium. And, if you’re a little more advanced, you already know that getting enough glycine (one of the amino acids found in bone broth and collagen) can also help you get those Z’s.
But in this article I want to talk about a few lesser known micronutrients that could be the key to unlocking better sleep for you. The body is a complex mechanism by the way, and sometimes it requires going beyond the, for lack of a better word, obvious nutrients that you’ve probably already tried.
Before I get started, I do want to point out that I am not a nutrition expert. I spend a lot of time learning about it, but I’m far from the most knowledgable. I’ve written this post mostly for my own reference. Of course I hope that other people it find it helpful as well.
***Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional of any kind, and this is not medical or health advice. Talk to a qualified health care professional before trying any supplements or making any dietary changes. This articles is for information purpose only and should only serve to give you ideas and options to explore.***
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is mostly known as an anti-oxidant, but it does much more than protect cells from oxidation. One of the things it does is team up with copper to help form certain neurotransmitters, one of which stops you from peeing so much, especially at night while sleeping.
So, while vitamin C probably isn’t going to improve your sleep quality directly, it may improve your sleep by helping you avoid those middle of the night tinkles.
Copper
As I mentioned above, copper works with Vitamin C to make certain signals that help keep us from peeing too much, like when we are sleeping.
One thing to note here is that the balance between zinc and copper is essential to maintain. Too much of either one is no bueno, so be careful with supplementation.
Molybdenum
One of the main jobs of molybdenum is to convert sulfite to sulfate. Sulfite and sulfate are two types of sulfur. One is good and useful (sulfate) and one you don’t want to have stick around too long (sulfite). So, molybdenum plays an essential role in turning that nasty sulfite into sulfate.
This may be important for sleep because too much sulfite can lead to high glutamate (among other things). Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is believed to accelerate activity in the bladder, causing you to wake up to pee.
Additionally, high sulfite leads to sulfite sensitivity and destroys thiamin, vitamin B6, and BH4. That hinders our ability to make certain neurotransmitters like GABA, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Since GABA is important for sleep, it’s not a far stretch to believe low molybdenum status could lead to insomnia or poor sleep quality by leading to high sulfite levels.
Some of the things that create sulfites are eating animal protein, onions, garlic, cruciferous veggies, some supplements, and certain medications, and from pregnancy or certain gut bacteria.
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
One of the jobs of this vitamin is to turn serotonin into melatonin. Melatonin is very well known to be essential for both falling asleep and staying asleep.
B5 is found in high amounts in foods like nutritional yeast, liver, and roasted sunflower seeds. It can also be found in smaller amounts in muscle meats, shiitake mushrooms, beef pancreas and kidney, eggs, fresh salmon, peanuts, and several other foods.
But one thing to note is that heavily cooked food is mostly devoid of B5. So, if you aren’t eating lots of foods from the list above, or if you’re cooking your meats thoroughly (like in a crockpot), then you could have suboptimal B5 status, and that could hurt your melatonin production.
While the jury is still out, it seems the best form to supplement with is Pantethine. Pantethine is more expensive and less shelf-stable (degrades with heat) than the more common Pantothenic Acid, but it has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides at 600-900mg/day. Pantethine has also demonstrated a benefit for fatty liver disease, but that is only in one study that has yet to be replicated.
Vitamin B6
B6 does a LOT. Specifically related to sleep, it converts amino acids into neurotransmitters. It also converts amino acids into other amino acids. So if you have too much of one amino acid and not enough of another, it converts it into the one you need. When you aren’t getting enough vitamin B6, you can become more irritable, depressed, confused, anxious, or develop insomnia.
Good sources include Liver, fish, chicken and turkey breast, and then fresh meat. You can get B6 from lots of other foods as well, these are just the ones that I listed because they are the ones that I eat. Less good sources are bananas, white rice, or Mung beans (but you’d have to eat like two pounds of those foods to get 2mg per day). Cooking foods, sulfites, high protein intake, and low riboflavin (vitamin B2) status may increase your need for B6.
Too much can be toxic, though. According to Chris Masterjohn, avoid supplements over 100mg/d, and go with Pyridoxal 5-phosphate (P5P) as the supplement type. Start with 10mg/d and work up slowly.
Additionally, if you are deficient in B6, it can lead to more oxalate production, which can lead to all kinds of nasty side effects like kidney stones, joint pain, and being injured easily.
Magnesium
This one you’ve probably already heard about, so I’m not going to go into details. Magnesium is essential to pretty much every process that goes on in your body, one of which is relaxing and going to sleep. Deficiency is far from uncommon, so supplementing is often recommended by health care professionals and can have a big improvement on sleep quality.
A few more things…
#1 – If you want to go more in depth on optimizing your nutrition, I highly recommend checking out Chris Masterjohn’s Vitamins and Minerals 101 course. That is where I got most of this information in the first place, and he does an amazing job of giving an overview of what each micro-nutrient does, what foods contain each micro-nutrient, how to know if you are deficient, and the best ways to supplement if you suspect a deficiency. There’s no substitute for going through this yourself, since most dr.’s simply don’t have the mental capacity, or even knowledge, to apply this much detail to your unique situation. Additionally, there is lots more in there that I didn’t mention here.
#2 – The body is a very complex machine that nobody fully understands. That’s why I believe it’s essential to not only seek information and knowledge, but to listen to your body and think for yourself. Find what works for you, and even if you don’t know why it works, there’s probably something to it that science just hasn’t caught up to yet. Don’t be an idiot and start eating only one food because it makes you feel good, but don’t forget to listen to your body either.
#3 – Every vitamin and mineral we know about probably has an effect on your sleep either directly or indirectly. That’s why it’s important to get an understanding of whether or not your diet is giving you what you need. Most people think as long as they are eating a whole food diet that they are good to go, but I no longer believe that to be the case. I would highly recommend going through Chris Masterjohn’s course above to anybody who is interested in optimizing their nutrition – especially if you are on a restricted diet like paleo, carnivore, or vegan or if you have certain foods you can’t tolerate.
#3 – If you have any recommendations to add to this article, please let me know. I’ll be updating it as I learn more.