The Best Ways To Fall Asleep & Stay Asleep Naturally! Dr. Payam Hakimi / Ron and Lisa / Healthy Home

Serotonin is a deactivating molecule. Its job is to help us sleep. It's that fuzzy feeling that we get as we sleep. That's all.

Our guest today, Dr. Payam Hakimi, is here to shed light on this very topic. Dr. Hakimi is a board certified family physician. He has quite a diverse medical training and he has merged his specialized alternative medical modalities to create a comprehensive practice. And he serves as the medical director of Body of Harmony in Beverly Hills, California and Miami, Florida. Dr. Hakimi practices integrative and functional medicine, IV nutrition, stem cell therapy, anti aging medicine, osteopathic manipulation and cranial osteopathy and clinical homeopathy.

While finishing his residency, he was elected chief resident and assistant clinical professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine. He is a key instructor for teaching medical students, professionals, the public, the art of science of integrative medicine.

Do that. However, the napping actually regenerates a lot of the brain physiology because we go through certain phases like alpha waves. And that alpha wave sort of brings back the natural physiology and sort of recenters the brain a little bit. So napping, most important thing, wasn't Albert.

Einstein napped every day? I mean, if that doesn't tell us something, I don't know, I'm sure I need to nap more. I need to channel my inner Albert. I don't nap at all. I can't. I actually feel worse where Brian can nap for five minutes and he's like, wow, I feel like a million bucks. And I'm like, what? I wake up feeling worse, so I don't nap well.

I mean, look at, look at Einstein's hair. It's always bushy. It seemed like he was always getting bedhead.

Right, right.

Well, that's a good point. I'm curious too. So with melatonin, our body naturally produces that. Does it stop producing as much when you're supplementing it with a synthetic? Is it like for example, is it a crutch making you even like weaker off later from producing your melatonin?

I don't think there is a specific research that shows us if melatonin stops producing itself. But your point is very valid. Valid because we know when we give someone thyroid, we give them sort of thyroid medications or we give them testosterone. A lot of our worries with thyroid and testosterone treatment is basically we're getting the gland, the physiological organ that makes and produces these hormones that says if I'm getting it from outside, why should I produce it myself? So it stops functioning. We have not seen that with melatonin, there's no studies that shows people who use melatonin supplements actually stop making their own melatonin. But we don't know because melatonin is not a, does not have blood chemistry values. So it's nothing that we can actually check directly in blood and say, oh, your levels are low. Let us give you more. There are certain esoteric tests that might test for it, but again, they're not specific values. And so it's really hard to figure out if someone's melatonin is low or in response to taking melatonin, their melatonin has decreased.

Oh, excellent. Well, Dr. Akimi, what, what are the, you know, switching gears here. What are the main advantages of homeopathy for sleep disruption?

Ron I've been practicing homeopathy since 2005, and I teach doctors to practice homeopathy as well. The use of homeopathy, because of the fact that these are ingredients that are found in nature and we're using them in very diluted amounts. Comparing to, let's say melatonin, which we say 3 milligrams or we say 6 milligrams, homeopathic medications are so diluted that you're not going to find any milligrams of them in the homeopathic medication. So in essence, most of the ingredient is, is diluted. And homeopathic medications are used to stimulate the body to do something. So they're not with, let's say again, we're going to stay with this example and say melatonin, we know that creates an effect of sleeping on the brain. And the more melatonin you use, obviously the higher this effect is going to get. So based on the milligram dosages that you're going to use, this effect is going to get more. But in homeopathic medication, there's very minimal amounts of any ingredients. So you're basically not pushing the body to do anything. You're stimulating the body, you're giving it its small ingredients that it needs. You're basically sending messages to the body and telling the body, this is what you need to be doing right now, which is sleeping. And I have to explain that homeopathy is so diluted that you're not going to have any milligram dosages. So that's the advantage of homeopathy, that it's only going to stimulate the body to do something, but it's not going to overcorrect it. Meaning with melatonin you're going to get the effect which is sleeping. But if it gets overcorrected, then you get groggy during the day. With homeopathic medication, you're not going to have that effect. You're only going to get the sleep effect and not the grogginess because there's no. There's not a lot of ingredients in there.

Wow, that's interesting. I. And also that there's no danger of dependence on homeopathy medications and that they really don't have side effects. Right. That you would see with over the counter and other kind of sleep aids and other medications. So, Dr. Hakimi, can you leave us with some tips? Like parents who are struggling with this back to school, besides the homeopathic remedies, what other things can they do? Like maybe to create a dark room or electronics, things like that, like some natural tips that they could implement, like.

Today to help with electronics that you said, I think is the major thing because kids are on iPhones and all these electronic gadgets. And the blue light obviously is going to change the way the brain functions, the brain physiology, as well as the fact that we know. And in my house with Shiva, my wife, the rule is as we turn lights off, they don't turn back on. So you create this effect as if, you know, it's becoming night and things are dimming out and they're not coming back on anymore, which basically creates the natural melatonin. So why should we give it to kids when we can actually create it ourselves? Right? So as you turn lights off or you dim, we have a lot of dim airs in the house. As you dim things down, don't dim it back up, don't turn it back on. That way you're actually going to get this effect as if, you know, things are winding down, your brain will understand it. It will get the messages that it needs to shut up at a certain point. So that would be sort of the number one. The other thing is, as you said, right now we're stressed out. There's so much information out there. There's so many stressors out there nowadays. And it's very important. Important that within the two, three hours before sleep, we cut all out. I even tell my adult patients, don't watch the news at night because, you know, we'll rev you up and guess what you're producing. You're releasing hormones in your body that are not going to let you sleep. So cut that out so that there is nothing. If you want to see anything or watch anything, it can be, you know, with kids, we can do little puzzles to an organization, stories that they want. With adults, it's mostly watching, you know, that are funny because we know production of serotonin when we laugh. Production of serotonin. Serotonin is a deactivating molecule. Its job is to help us sleep. It's that fuzzy feeling that we get as we sleep. That's all serotonin. So you can rev up your serotonin at night by watching something funny but by, you know, having something. The other thing is Everybody Loves Raymond.

Go back and watch those reruns.

No, no. Shiva and I, my wife and I are now hooked on Taxi. Right? We're going back to watching and Latke has become our favorite person.

I love it. I know all those good comedies. I just.

Thank you, Dr. Hakimi. And to learn more about Dr. Hakimi's work and service, visit bodyofharmony.com See you then.

Bye.

Bye everyone. Take care.

Bye. Thank you.

Bye, Dr. Hakimi.

Thank you, Dr. Hakimi.

Appreciate it.