Understanding MENopause and Testosterone

You can get a sleep test. You can get a sleep apnea test. That comes out fine. You can get your testosterone checked. That comes out fine. But why am I not sleeping? Why am I still irritable? Why do I have brain fog? You know, why? These are real things that can be directly related to your sleep capacity. And that's what we do. Your neurological ability to get to REM sleep. You're so high-performing, you may not realize that all that acetylcholine, all that cortisol is actually diminishing your ability to get into REM sleep. That's where they regulate testosterone. That's where the threat calibrations are reset, all of that. So if testosterone levels are off or your REM sleep is off and it hasn't had the ability to reset and recalibrate, it's just a double-edged sword. And the only time that happens is during REM sleep.

There's a quiet epidemic in high-performing men, and it has a name: menopause. Men sleep the normal 7 to 8 hours. Their sleep study is normal, but they wake up exhausted, foggy, irritable, less motivated, less resilient, and less like themselves. They're told it's stress, it's testosterone, it's aging. But in many cases, menopause is actually a brain restoration problem— REM instability and arousal dysregulation. The brain never fully drops into organized neurorestoration. So Today we're breaking down menopause across the male lifespan and why breathing and sleeping normally does not always mean restoring neurologically. Not sedation, restoration. So if you've ever thought my tests are normal, so why do I feel like this? This episode is for you. I'm excited to talk about this. I know last month we talked about women's health and everyone knows about menopause and we talked a little bit about perimenopause, but we never talk about menopause. This is a subject that doesn't get a lot of attention, so I'm excited to dive into this with you, Nyree. How are you today, by the way?

I'm wonderful. Thank you, Leah, so much. Thank you for, again, like you said, first and foremost, I do want to dedicate this episode to my dad, Albert Harris. He was definitely my favorite dreamer, and he was very unique in the sense of he was actually one of those men who only needed 4 hours of sleep. I think we spoke about this before, and he was fully functional, fully rested and restored. So, I will use him as a reference throughout our podcast today. To kind of get men to understand that just like women have menopause, men have manopause, and specifically due to a reduction in testosterone production and other neurotransmitters and hormones that are affected in the midlife of most men. So again, thank you, Layla, and this is for my dad, Albert Harris.

Of course. Thank you for, for saying that. I'm honored to even do this episode with you. We spoke about your dad a lot and he sounds like an absolutely, um, you know, was amazing man. So, So I'm honored to even be part of this conversation. And I like that you referenced him because I think we all have that one person, like, sounds like your relationship with your dad and like my grandfather as well, could sleep 4 or 5 hours and just function and be on top of it and never felt a lot of these, these symptoms. So it's interesting to see how certain things affect different people in different ways.

Absolutely.

So let's jump into some of the questions about menopause. So what are some of the clearest signs of non-restorative sleep in menopause? And how do those signs often get mislabeled as just menopause or maybe just even stress?

Yeah, so a lot of times, especially with our guys, we, you know, women have their purpose, but men actually do experience the same symptoms that women experience during menopause, right? So we, we like to coin this manopause in the sense that they do become foggy, brain fog. They do become more irritable. They're of course exhausted, but on the flip side of it, they're less motivated. They have lower libido, less resilient. And so it looks like to them it's just something that's happening when they get older. So as guys, oh, it must be my T levels, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so immediately they start going to checking their testosterone levels and that's normal. There's gonna be a normal decline, you know, as men get older. And so naturally they will experience The same neurological symptoms that women experience during menopause. Menopause. So, you know, with that being said, testosterone does play a huge part of this, right? And I do want to tell men, women, children, doctors out there that a lot of times what's happening is naturally men will go get their testosterone levels checked, and one of the the things that I think is, is being told is that your sleep will improve, you know, once we get you your testosterone levels back up to normal or whatever. And that's correct, they may, but what happens to those when it doesn't, right? And so that's what I'd like to explore now. What happens when your testosterone levels, even your sleep tests are normal, but you're still wired and tired?

Absolutely. And we're talking about menopause, but let's define it clinically. So What do you mean by menopause and how is it actually different from simply low testosterone?

So with menopause, we often see men describing like tired and wired, they're exhausted, but their brains won't downshift, right? One mechanism, um, is a relationship I, I really wanna pinpoint is between testosterone and GABA. And GABA is the brain's way of like, that's that primary inhibitor, like That brake system that allows us to go to sleep at night and rest. A lot of times I've seen recently that at, at some of the health places, men can take GABA to sleep better. You know, so sometimes low in testosterone and insomnia tend to go together. So they'll be like, oh, well, you know, take some GABA, you know, that'll help you go to sleep because that is the main sleep neurotransmitter. But what happens is testosterone, it can be converted.

Mm-hmm.

into steroid metabolites that help support that GABA. So that's why a lot of doctors say when you increase your testosterone, your sleep will get better. And so it will help with the brain firing, it'll lower the sympathetic tone, and it'll maintain a deeper, more stable sleep. However, when that's low or it's high, you can also have like too much testosterone and you see that sometimes as well. So Menopause, like I said, is different in the sense of with testosterone, you know, a lot of our physicians are suggesting, you know, immediately let me go get my T levels checked if they're not already on some sort of regimen. But for— it's important to understand that it's not testosterone itself that's helping with the sleep. It's a network of things. So it's actually the metabolites. of testosterone that increase sleep architecture and stability. So that's actually what's happening when your doctors say, hey, go get your testosterone levels checked. Hey doctor, I'm having problems sleeping, but hey, let's check that. Let's put you on some testosterone. But neurologically, what's happening is as testosterone declines, sleep is also declining because those metabolites that help with sleep stability, the ability to keep us men asleep throughout the night and prevent the brain REM sleep fragments are also declining. So they'll notice they wake up more, they're more aroused, it's easier to wake up, they're more irritable, but they have their testosterone levels are normal, their sleep tests are normal, but they just still feel exhausted.

And Why do so many men who are in menopause actually sleep 7, 8 hours and get a normal sleep study, but they still wake up so exhausted?

So those men who may have been diagnosed with sleep apnea or not, if you have a sleep partner who says, you know, you're snoring, this would be a great time to call us at ProSomnium Sleep and let us get you a sleep apnea test. That is absolutely something we look at immediately, first and foremost. Because it's often overlooked. If you don't have a sleep partner, you don't know that you snore. Snoring is not all the way a bad thing. That doesn't automatically mean that you have sleep apnea. But just because you go and you get a normal sleep test or your testosterone levels are normal does not mean you have the neurological ability to get into REM restorative sleep. REM sleep. And this also brings me another thing with our wearable devices. You know, a lot of people are saying, oh, you know, my non-REM says this, but my REM says that, right?

Mm-hmm.

It is important for us and men to understand that just because you're sleeping 7 to 8 hours a night does not mean you're getting that quality sleep. And a lot of people say, especially, you know, our healthy men, our functional medicine, our other top health doctors out there, I think Dr. Fred Eck, you know, Dr. Popkin—they're all talking about the importance of testosterone levels for sleep. However, do you have the neurological? Does your body, your brain, have the ability to use testosterone properly to get you quality REM sleep? That's the restorative REM sleep, and it may not be even though your testosterone and your sleep tests are normal. So that's that wired and tired. I went to the gym. I work out. I got energy. Da da da da da da. But why is my brain not turning off? I'm still exhausted. And that's what we help look at. It, because it may not be a testosterone issue, it's simply a quality REM sleep issue. So the sleep devices, and I will say this, if you look at your sleep device and it says that you have less than 30 minutes of REM sleep, that REM sleep is that quality sleep that they're referring to.

Absolutely. And we're talking about how important REM sleep is. It's interesting that it could only be 30 minutes, like you said. What would be like a amount of REM sleep to actually get during the time you're sleeping at night?

Physiologically, you know, even though they said we need 7 to 8 hours of sleep, we sleep in waves, right? Up and down, non-REM, REM, non-REM, REM. We do that all through the night. REM sleep time, the amount of time we're in REM sleep tends to happen later on in the night between the hours of 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM, right? So, during that time, When we're in REM sleep for longer periods of time, that's that quality REM sleep that we actually only need 2 hours of. In that 8-hour period, we only need 2 hours of REM sleep. So, if your watch is saying you only got 20 minutes or 30 minutes, that's still less than half. Even an hour would be good.

Mm-hmm.

You know, but even after an hour, if you're not feeling rested, you're not feeling restored, give us a call. You know, let's figure out what's going on neurologically. Mm-hmm. And maybe you just don't have the ability right now to get into restorative REM sleep. But if your testosterone is fine and your sleep test is fine, you wouldn't naturally be able to identify that.

Okay. Interesting. That makes sense. I was always wondering when you said, for example, 30 minutes of REM, like how much REM do you actually need to feel restored?

2 hours. That's it. You only need 2 hours of REM sleep to feel restored. That does not mean you won't get more or need more, but at a proper sleep level, you only need 120 minutes. Got it.

And why is REM stability non-negotiable for the male performance brain? And why is REM often the hidden casualty in menopause?

Because it's, it's, that's where men regulate. That's where they regulate testosterone. That's where the threat calibrations are reset. That's where our re— their reward responsiveness, that dopamine, all that testosterone helps stabilize all of that. So if testosterone levels are off or your REM sleep is off and it hasn't had the ability to reset and recalibrate, it's just a double-edged sword, you know? And the only time that happens is during REM sleep. So testosterone helps with that, like I said. Naturally, you know, call it what you will, that morning wood or whatever, you know, that's what happens. That testosterone is restored and recalibrated during REM sleep. And so that's why men usually wake up with morning erections, cuz that's when testosterone is at, at its highest.

And how does fragmented REM change male motivation, like confidence, decisiveness? emotional control, really the executive function symptoms that men describe during menopause.

Absolutely. So just like you said, during those executive functions, those are all executive functions that happens in our prefrontal cortex. With men, they have more testosterone receptors here. That's why they do have the ability to be very strong leaders, reduce emotional flexibility, um, and have— but have that protective type of state about them. They do have those higher levels. However, they naturally tend to have higher stress levels. They're more reactive. And all this gets restabilized during REM sleep. And with normal testosterone, it helps stabilize that neuro— those neurotransmitters and reset all of those necessary things for those emotional flexibility and those up upper cognitive levels. But again, remember I said if the cortisol is shaky but your testosterone is okay, cortisol is one of those hyperactive type of things that aren't really spoken about, especially with men. They are very, very stressed out.

Mm-hmm.

And I understand that as a woman, even though again, just like everybody else, they lay their bodies down, their brains do not turn off, especially with our men. You know, they're so hypervigilant, they're under so much stress, and their responsiveness to just recalibrate that is fragmented at night with cortisol, high cortisol, high stress. All that plays a part because you can't get into REM sleep if your cortisol is high.

Mm-hmm.

So it's not just testosterone, it's a network. And cortisol absolutely plays another huge part of that. Cortisol, acetylcholine, Major neurotransmitters, major fight neurotransmitters that men tend to have more of than women, but they still experience the same side effects, fragmented sleep, not being able to stay asleep, not being able to maintain sleep. And so you can see the domino effect because now they aren't able to restore the testosterone stability, emotional cognitive abilities. Bonding abilities. So emotional flexibility, all that's lost with fragmented REM.

Interesting. It's like you would never really think that that would be correlated with all of those, you know, emotions or things that are going on.

Absolutely. You know, they'll feel like, oh, I feel flat. Like my T levels are good. You know, I still go to the gym, but I'm not sleeping. Or, you know, I don't understand. I got a sleep test. They said everything was good. But, you know, I'm still waking up every minute on the minute, you know, what's going on? You know, my T levels are good, but I'm not getting the intensity of erections. You know, that's something else they should consider. You know, they would get an erection like they did 16, 18 is not the same. I get it. But, you know, even now you're like, wait, the quality of your erection is not even the same anymore. Maybe it's your sleep. You know, maybe there's something else going on. Give us a call. You know, they have metabolic dysfunction just like we do. You know, it could be, you know, they gained weight. You know, they're on testosterone. That tends to make men gain weight. That is a steroid. You know, there's a cognitive— there's a domino effect with that as well, right? Your muscles look good, but so that fat don't. You know, so it's important to take all these in consideration. And I promise you, every single one of them Will affect your sleep. Absolutely.

And we touched on this a little. When men say, I'm exhausted, but my brain won't shut off, what's happening neurologically, especially in menopause?

Um, in menopause, there's a few things that can be happening, right? And so that's what we do at ProSomni Sleep. We look at it from a neurological perspective. Do you have the ability? Where are your receptors? Your testosterone, like I said, it supports REM sleep stability. Specifically with GABA, right? That's a neurotransmitter that keeps you asleep, that puts you to sleep, that kind of, that's the parasympathetic neurotransmitter that keeps you asleep. All right. Testosterone affects that. But if your testosterone is not, you don't have, you have too many neurotransmitters, you have too few, your cortisol levels are high, there's a dysregulation because it's a feedback loop, right? Use it or lose it. What wires together fires together. If you're always at fight, fight, fight, fight, fight mode, you know, high cortisol, high stress, high, you know, blue light, that also diminishes melatonin, which is another key neurotransmitter. So now you have low GABA, low melatonin, and you don't understand why you can't rest at night. And high cortisol. Cortisol's through the roof because you're so stressed out and you haven't adapted the proper mechanisms. Use it or lose it. What wires together fires together. If your body's like, hey, you guys aren't going into REM sleep, so we don't need these other receptors down here. So it's going to take more and more and more just for you to have the ability to get into REM sleep. It is not just about, you know, I can't sleep. It's what is your body doing? Our bodies are very, very efficient at saving and preserving energy. So if you don't use it, you're going to lose it.

Mm-hmm.

So at ProSomnia Sleep, that's what we do. Do you have the restorative ability neurologically to get into REM sleep? That's great that your sleep test was— that only measured if you're breathing at night. Those sleep tests that they do, like at a hospital or, you know, at another facility, the polysomnographies, they only measure if you stop breathing at night or if you move, if you have restless leg syndrome, if you talk in your sleep, I don't know, whatever you have. Okay. But it still doesn't measure what's happening neurologically. So it doesn't matter how much testosterone you have, how many sleep tests you get, if you do not have the neurological ability to do that, then you need to come talk to us and let us help you reestablish that neurological network to allow you to get into REM sleep again. And you can get all the benefits of REM sleep, which includes more testosterone.

There you go. And why do men in menopause, for example, commonly wake up between when you said is really when REM usually happens, but between, you know, 2 and 4:00 AM with a racing mind. And what does that tell you about stress phys— like physiology?

So like I said, you know, everybody's different. You know, just like my dad, Albert Harris, he only needed 4. But like I said, in those 4 hours, he was still able to get an, a good amount of quality REM sleep, right? However, those people who may need 6, 7, 8, again, give us a call. A lot of people don't even know how much sleep they need. Your body has the ability to know when it's safe to go into REM sleep, but you have to give it that ability. If you're not staying asleep throughout the night because you have low testosterone or high cortisol, you know, you're getting fragmented REM. So like I said, REM sleep usually happens a little bit later, like in a 7 to 8 hour period of time, but that's very circadian related, right? And so that whole cortisol, if your cortisol's high, your circadian's off, your melatonin is off, and your testosterone is off, your sleep architecture is done.

Mm-hmm.

See, your sleep architecture is just not stable. So you're gonna wake up throughout the night. Everything's all over the place. And everything counters. It's fight or flight. You have 5 fight neurotransmitters and 5 parasympathetic flight, and they all, it's a network, right? And they work together. So if cortisol is high, you're stressed out, testosterone is low, melatonin is low, you don't know how to get off your phone, your physiology and your sleep architecture is going to be affected. Another reason why—

Mm-hmm.

You know, men might wake up through the— throughout the night. There's a couple of reasons, but 2 things I really wanna touch on heavily is medication. At PersonaMuse, we do a medication management plan because something as simple as changing when you take your Flomax or changing when you take your Lasix or Glucophage or Lunesta or Ambien, those are sleep medications, but your other medications that that people unknowingly don't realize affect their nighttime rest. If we could just change the timing. The thing with GABA supplements, I definitely want to point out with men, is that GABA is a neurotransmitter that does help with sleep. You will see it at a lot of the health stores. Take some GABA, it helps with your sleep. But essentially it's completely irrelevant and it does not work. GABA is too large of a molecule to cross the blood-brain barrier, right?

Mm-hmm.

GABA is only made in the brain, so you taking it exogenously is not going to get to your brain and offer the same benefits as endogenous GABA. So I highly recommend that we stabilize testosterone levels to help stabilize the sleep. And at ProSomnia, we work with your healthcare practitioner to help do that. People who snore and are overweight, specifically, who cannot take your pointy finger and your thumb and put it around your neck— I'm sorry, your middle finger and your thumb and put it around your neck, and you snore, 9 times out of 10, you have sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea due to obesity. Right. And so, when you're waking up in the middle of the night, it is important to get a sleep apnea test, which we do provide at ProSomnia Sleep Health and Wellness, to find out if you're waking up because that's your body's signal that you stop breathing at night. So, that's obstructive sleep apnea, and that's to detriment. So, if you're waking up, you know, 2, 4, 3, commonly more than 3 to 4 times a night, It may be time to see if you have obstructive sleep apnea.

Mm-hmm.

And that is another reason. And the physiological effects of obstructive sleep apnea is hypoxia. There are many men who've died in the middle of the night because they stopped breathing due to obstructive sleep apnea. It is time to get help. It is very, very serious. It looks like a heart attack, but a heart attack is after The heart has gone without oxygen for 3 to 5 minutes, and 9 times outta 10, it's due to obstructive sleep apnea. It's time to get help and call ProSomni Sleep Health and Wellness.

No, that is, that is so important cuz so many people don't know that. I feel like especially men too, especially like you said, if there's no sleep partner, they won't even particularly know that this is what's going on.

Right.

So it is, it is very real. It is scary too to, to not even know that this is something you're facing. And then we touched on this a little bit earlier, but, and we've talked about this with women as well, but with aging, I think it's so easy to brush things off sometimes and think, oh, well this is normal because I'm getting older and this is part of aging. But for you, how do you distinguish true aging from treatable menopause, meaning, you know, reversible, uh, restoration and stability?

You don't know, right? Fortunately or unfortunately, we are here for Insomnia Sleep Health and Wellness because this is all we do. You know, we look at your sleep stability, your ability to stay asleep and get quality sleep throughout the night, and that will then reset and recalibrate and make you a much better man to be around, right? But the difference is, is You know, you don't know. It's not you. Like I said, you can get a sleep sleep test. You can get a sleep apnea test. That comes out fine. You can get your testosterone checked. That comes out fine. But you just still don't have. You know, you're like, okay, I'm getting older. I know my T levels are going down. Da da da. But why am I not sleeping? Why am I still irritable? Why do I have brain fog? You know why? Even though you know I'm on testosterone, my erections aren't as firm as they used to be. These are real things that that can be directly related to your sleep capacity, and that's what we do. Your neurological ability to get into REM sleep because if you know through time due to whatever you're getting older, your T levels are are down. Okay, that's a possibility when doctors say you know like I said we have a lot of great people on our top health media platform you know that talk about that. Doug Dorsey, he's a fitness guy, especially the biohackers. Those are prime examples. High-performing, you know, athletes don't have sleep apnea, T levels are on point, but they're still wired and tired. They're at the gym 10 o'clock at night, 2 times a day. They watch their meal, all that, love it. What's going on up here? Mm-hmm. And that's what we do at Pranayama. Do you have the ability because you're so high-performing You may not realize that all that acetylcholine, all that cortisol is actually diminishing your ability to get into REM sleep, right?

Absolutely.

And so that's what we do with that. And because it's, you know, you have to keep a balance, you know? So even as you get older, you experience menopause, that's okay too. Just like I say with menopause, with women, it is okay. It's not, you know, this gloom and doom. It's like, you know, that's the first thing they're like, My T levels are good. All my patients' T levels are great. We do neurotransmitter and hormone testing. Great. We monitor that. We facilitate that. We support that 1,000%. That is absolutely part of it, but it's a network. Now we have to work on what's going on up here. Do you have the ability to test testo— for testosterone and support? Your REM sleep stability? Okay, let's figure that out. So it's definitely a personalized sleep therapy that we offer because everybody's so different. I mean, every man is different.

Yeah.

You know, do you have a high— are you a high-functioning man with a high-functioning job? Are you a night worker? A lot of our men are night workers, right? Working second jobs to support his family, right? That's the reality. So they definitely have insomnia. So they got to work at night, work in the day, and find some time to sleep regularly.

Mm-hmm.

Right? No, that's— give us a call. Let us help figure this out. It doesn't— you're not— it may not be an issue of getting older. It just may be a lifestyle or medication issue and a restoration issue. And that's really the point. It's menopause. Is it hormonal? Is it a restorative ability or inability?

Mm-hmm. I never even thought about night workers cuz I know we've talked about in previous episodes how to get a good sleep and sleep hygiene, and a lot of it is your circadian rhythm and, you know, seeing the sun when you first wake up and things like that. So it's, I never really thought about how that could affect night workers. Yeah. You have to. Completely like off balance. It's a different, completely different experience, especially if you're working 2 jobs.

Oh, for sure. All of our, like, you know, we don't, uh, you know, everybody's their own, you know, but like I said, men are, they carry the weight, they carry the load, they carry the stress. How many times are they like, oh, I don't want to tell my family. I don't want to tell my wife about this. I don't want to tell the kids about it. They carry so much internally.

Mm-hmm.

And they bring that to bed with them. It's on their mind constantly. Like, we've got to really look at our— how are our men resting at night? And that's our response. If we are their bed partners, how is he resting? Is he snoring? Is he tossing and turning? Is he moving? Is he talking in his sleep? How are his erections? What are they? I mean, is it like he used to be? I mean, are they a little low? Does— is he even interested? It may not be You. It may not be us. They're carrying a lot and then they're getting older. Then they, like I said, the cortisol, the metabolic instability. Are they— what is— he's not getting REM sleep. So now the secondary effects, his hormones are going to be off. His cortisol is going to be off. His dopamine, he's not happy. He's not excited. He's not motivated. You know, and it just becomes a very vicious cycle. We got to figure out how to get quality rest and let our brains rest and repair and do what it's supposed to do and restore our minds and our body.

Absolutely. And how does menopause sleep instability affect growth hormone signaling or training recovery, body composition changes, and metabolic resilience as well?

Oh, absolutely. And this is what I was saying about our, our high performers. You know, it's when you're always go, go, go, competing, fighting, you know, your mind is just doing what it's supposed to do, right? It's just, we're always go, go, go. That cortisol, that norepinephrine, that dopamine, you know, dopamine's a good thing, but you can go into dopamine depletion, right? And so, it's like constant, constant, constant go, go, go. So, just because, all right, our training schedule says that we need to To get some sleep between the hours of ten and seven. I need eight hours. I need six hours. All right, I'm in bed and I'm wide a freaking awake. I'm wired and tired. You know, a lot of guys work out at night, right? That there's they're on a constant level of overdrive, hypervigilance, hyperarousal, fight, fight, fight. You know, grind, grind, grind. No sleep. Da da da da. When did you want to schedule rest? Just saying, you just need 120 minutes. Where in that did you? No. Oh, you didn't. Oh, oh, okay. And so it's, it's then it's why am I so high performing? Why am I always doing everything I'm supposed to do? Da da da da. But I'm just my mind. I'm just so tired. I'm just so tired. And I just, I, you know, and it becomes the vicious cycle of your drive diminishes, your moods change, you know, the aggression levels are off and on, you know, testosterone is a hormone, you know, your resilience declines, you can't stay at the gym as long as you can't do as many reps, you know. So just because you're high performing and you're moving does not mean you're maximizing the benefits. Of all the training and this lifestyle that you've got to sit down and stop and rest.

And you know, we're just talking a little bit about sleep apnea, but why do some men treat apnea, use CPAP, and still feel, you know, like they're in menopause? Like what is that missing restoration layer?

Okay. I'm trying to figure out how deep I wanna go into this conversation because You know, just like every other industry, you know, the sleep industry isn't perfect. We are definitely making our way. I think there's a lot more awareness into the neurorestorative necessity to have quality sleep. 9 times out of 10, like I said, there's 2 sleeps. There's body sleep, there's mind sleep. There's brain sleep, there's body sleep. And with that being said, a lot of times in the sleep industry, CPAP machines, CPAP and sleep apnea are seemingly the only consideration for the reason why people are not sleeping at night, right? And usually they're left with one of two options, medication or CPAP machine based on a sleep apnea test. Right, which is something we also do. So we do do sleep apnea tests at ProSomni Sleep Health and Wellness, and we identify, like I said, do you stop breathing at night? If you stop breathing at night, what happens to your oxygen levels in your blood? Do they go down, and how far do they go down? Because remember, if you're losing oxygen in your blood, the ability for all your organs to be oxygenated is being lost, right? And so that includes the penis. Mm-hmm. So a lot of times people will mistake erectile dysfunction and not consider obstructive sleep apnea, and they stop breathing at night. And so that's the purpose of, um, a sleep apnea test or polysomnography, which is, are those tests that same thing. You go to the hospital, they put this thing on your head, they identify if you stop breathing, what your brainwaves look like, and if you move, restless leg syndrome, you know, those type of things, talking, bruxism, if you move your jaw at night, those type of things. It still doesn't determine or identify what's going on in your brain. However, if they determine that you do have sleep apnea, they will put you on a CPAP machine. A positive airway device. What that does is, say like you stop breathing, the machine has the ability to, through your nose or your mouth, inject air into your airway to make sure it opens it up so you can start breathing again. Again, with those type of tests is, do you stop breathing due to airway collapse?

Mm-hmm.

So, those are physical identifiers. That's why obesity is such an indicator of sleep apnea, right? And another thing that I want to make sure everyone is, is clear on, some information out there says that Ozempic and these GLP-1s and 2s are helping people sleep and are preventing sleep apnea. That is not what's happening. They are helping people lose weight, which then prevents so much weight in the airway, which then allows people to not stop breathing at night. So, it's not the Ozempic or the GLP-1s and 2s, it's the loss of weight. Okay. Just so, I just want people, but again, even if you lose the weight and you no longer have sleep apnea, Mm-hmm. Remember, you've, you've been overweight for 20, 10, 5 years. Your brain knows how to function with an apneic brain. So now that you have a CPAP machine and your airway is being opened up, that's fantastic. That is actually a very positive thing. However, are you still sleeping at night? Are you still getting quality sleep? 120 minutes of rest, and they'll say, "Are you getting sleep? Are you sleeping better?" Yeah, I'm getting. I'm not waking up one or two times at night. However, I'm still not getting quality rest with my CPAP machine, and so that's when you may need to come visit ProSomnia Sleep, and we can identify if you have the neurorestorative. ability to get into REM sleep. And we will work in tandem with your CPAP machine and your neurorestorative capabilities to reestablish that. I know that was a really limited answer to it.

No, it's so informative. Mentioning GLPs is so important because who's not hearing about GLPs a few times a day?

Absolutely. Yeah, my guys, they're on them. Of course, men are on GLPs. You know, everybody say, oh, the women want— no, the guys want to lose weight too.

We all do.

Baby, I want you to lose weight. Okay? You hear me? I want to see you at the gym working out. How is your rest? How is— are the GLP working? Are you, you know, increase your cardio? Are you getting, you know, that airway weight down? How is your— has your sleep changed since you lost 5 or 10? If you have a sleep partner, I highly, highly advise you talk to them. Hey baby, do you notice me snoring more? Do I snore more? We have a response. Do they snore more? Do they snore less? Do they snore at all? You know, give us a call. We do the sleep apnea test, you know, because ideally it will improve. And ideally, they— you will get better quality REM sleep. Quality.

Wow.

Use that device. I know how y'all are out here checking. And it was so crazy. I talked to so many people. They're like, yeah, my watch says this. I'm What, what does your watch say about your sleep? I don't know if people know this, but you really have to connect it. You have to connect your sleep habits to your health app, whatever you use, identify your sleep. And if not, start keeping track because it just may be your sleep and you are or are not getting quality REM sleep.

Absolutely. And a lot of what we talked about And this episode is about men and more so with aging and things like that. But why is it that teenage boys, for example, sleep so much? What's changing in their brain and hormones and how does that actually set the stage for later life vulnerability to menopause patterns?

So, you know, I think we, we spoke about this before. Yeah. And, you know, also in light of the fact that a lot of adolescents, are starting to experience insomnia, right? The ability to—

Right.

The adolescent brain is still growing, growing, growing, especially boy brains, right? I said they have a lot of testosterone receptors and it's just not in one place, right? So they're still trying to calibrate that. But the most important thing is testosterone specifically allows the growing male brain to have synaptic stability, right? It's very, very important in stability. When I say stability, That means the ability to go to sleep and stay asleep and get restorative sleep, right? Because again, restorative sleep is where all those growth hormones are synthesized. That's where testosterone increases. That's when the endocrine shifts are changing. So with testosterone, adolescent boys, it's very, very circadian dependent and it shifts, right? That's why sometimes they can be up in the middle of the night all night long. and then sleep all throughout the day. They're still establishing that circadian. And that's why actually scheduling, scheduled sleep time is very, very important for teenagers as in addition to girls as well.

Yeah.

You know, because like I said, it's establishing the circadian circuitry, that body, your mind, when it can release all those great hormonal benefits. So when they're sleeping also with boys, They're going through huge growth spurts and all those growth hormones are elicited during REM sleep. So it is not uncommon for them to be asleep 8, 10, 12 hours. They're still building, you know, they're still in the process of remolding, rebuilding, resynthesizing. They really, really, and actually their brains don't stop growing until they're 23, 24 years old. So I mean, it's like, They're still going through the transition and, and testosterone establishes that circuitry, that neuroplasticity, and that balance and stability that's so important for their growing brains.

It's interesting that that can set the stage even for something years later. Absolutely. And I think this was such a good conversation. I think that we talk so much about women's health and of course that's important, but it is nice to shed a light on menopause and on men's health as well. And I think that if, you know, anyone knows a man who thinks he's just getting older, or if you know someone who thinks they're getting older, make sure you send him this cuz it's a lot more than that. And if you've ever been told your T levels are normal, but your sleep doesn't feel no normal, say that again. If you've been told your T levels are normal, but your sleep doesn't feel normal, trust your brain. Men experience real shifts across their lifespan. But menopause isn't always just about testosterone. Often it's about sleep instability, and instability is measurable. And restoration is not about knocking you out, as we've talked about a few times throughout the, the last few episodes. It's really about stabilizing the brain sleep architecture so your REM and deep sleep become organized and restorative again. And it's not sedation, it's restoration. And yes, menopause can be reversed.

Mm-hmm.

And yes, menopause can be reversed when we treat the real problem. So this is such an important episode and thank you so much, Nyree, and thank you for dedicating this episode to your dad as well. It's so meaningful.

Thank you. Yeah. So, and again, like I said, give us a call, you know, Presomnia Sleep Health and Wellness. All we do is sleep. You know, we look at, we look at neurotransmitters, we look at the hormones, and we look at how all that is so interconnected. Mm-hmm. Take our neurorestorative assessment. Let us help you figure out where your real problem is. You know, it's not sedation. You don't just— it's not about just going to sleep. It's about restoring. So give us a call. All the information's in the bottom of the show notes. And again, it's not restoration. I mean, it's not sedation. Again, it's not sedation, it's restoration. And stay rested, my friends.

Absolutely. Stay rested, our friends. It's nice speaking to you as always, and I will see you next time.