Without Deep REM Sleep, No Production of Serotonin…..

Charlie had a basketball game Monday night. He didn’t get home until 8:30 that evening. He had packed enough food for dinner prior his game but when he got home he was still hungry. He fixed a huge plate of pasta, chicken, and then ate a huge chicken wrap afterwards. I wanted to stop him and say, “Charlie you can not eat a big meal before bed because it’s not going to properly digest.” But I decided against this because it would have only made him want to eat even more. The next day when I picked Charlie up from his bus stop, he was sooo fricking cranky. We fought all the way home. At one point I thought I was going to stop my car and throw him out. When we got home we separated and didn’t talk for about 30 mins, then Charlie comes into the kitchen and apologized for being a butt head. He says, “Mom, I don’t know what’s with me today. I’ve been falling asleep in two of my classes and everyone is getting on my nerves. I thought I slept pretty good last night but I feel drained and also I’m in a bad mood.” I asked Charlie, “But did you hit your deep REM sleep last night?” He looked at me funny and said, “No…(sign)… I didn’t….as a matter of fact, I toss and turned all night. I woke up and my sheets were all messy so I know I was tossing all night in my bed. Plus it was really hard to get up this morning too.” I said, ”Charlie had you not had such a large meal 30 mins before bed last night you might have slept better. Because you went to bed on a full stomach your food wasn’t able to fully digest. Your body couldn’t relax and slow down your metabolism to reach deep REM sleep because it was too busy trying to break down your meal. And what neurotransmitter is produced during your deep REM?” You could see the light bulb go off in his head as he realized why he was so cranky today. He goes, “Ohhh….That’s when serotonin is produced, your mood neurotransmitter.” I went to our cabinet and gave him 2 NeuBe Calm capsules which have 5HTP (makes serotonin). Charlie learned a great lesson today. I’m actually glad I let him eat that big meal before bed last night. In the past this was just information that he blocked out while I was preaching to him about his ADHD. He knew the importance of deep REM sleep but now he actually understands why he must reach deep REM sleep every night.

FYI: Taking melatonin liquid supplement before bed will also help you reach deep REM sleep.

Enthusiastically yours,

This entry was posted on 17. December 2008 at 17:41 and is filed under Charlie's Personal Experiences, ADD/ADHD Brain Chemistry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.