Ask Dr. Asa: Trouble sleeping

Q: I’m having trouble sleeping. I can go to sleep, but staying asleep is tough and I always wake up tired. Is there anything out there that can help?

Dr. Asa: Sleep is so important to us for many reasons. Our bodies repair while we are sleeping. It allows us to have a renewed sense of well-being the following day. A great nights sleep allows us to have a stronger immune system and fight against many health challenges. Many times, various brain chemicals called neurotransmitters can be the culprits when it comes to lack of sleep. Acetylcholine is a key player in this process. Acetylcholine is our most powerful brain chemical and allows us to get into our deepest stage of sleep called REM sleep. You know that you are in REM when you can dream and remember the dream. Stress, daily life, kids, and other responsibilities keep our acetylcholine levels at an all time low.

Here are some tips to keep acetylcholine levels up and staying in dreamland:

  • Consider choline rich foods: such as whole organic eggs, nuts, plain goat yogurt, grass-fed red meat.
  • Also supplements that have good research behind them are phosphatidylcholine,Vitamin B6, and omega 3 fish oils like cod liver oil.

Keep working at it and you will get great rest. It’s about managing stress and balancing the body from a nutritional perspective.




Carin Lane

4 Responses

  1. molly says:

    I am very surprised (and a bit disappointed) that there was no discussion of exercise in this answer.

  2. You are correct in noting that exercise does play a role in helping one achieve optimal sleep. Here are some links on how exercise can help.

  3. Joe says:

    1. Remove artificial light from your evenings. You’ll start yawning within probably 20 minutes.


    2. Supplement with melatonin, sublingually, 20-30 mins before bed.

    I tend to have an overactive mind, but the melatonin really helps out.

  4. Cindee says:

    I too have a habit of waking up in the middle of the night. But I’ve recently read about how humans likely have had a bimodal sleep pattern in the past–sleeping for several hours, awake for an hour, then going back to sleep. I found this so comforting, to know that waking up isn’t necessarily unnatural, or even necessarily a bad thing. So I might read a bit or get a drink, then practice some meditation until I fall back to sleep–no letting the mind wander and become too active. I think that’s the curse of modern living, we’ve got too much to think about, and we’re so busy that we feel we can’t afford to lose any sleep by being awake in the middle of the night.