Hi, today we're gonna talk about sleep. We know sleep's really important, we're always being told sleep's really important. So we're gonna dive into some of why is important and how it can really help us with our ADHD as well.You might have heard of melatonin. It's a natural hormone that controls our sleep cycles in our body. Our body senses when it's starting to get dark, and then slowly increases the melatonin to help us get to sleep. Melatonin also is reacting into our circadian rhythm and helps control our circadian rhythm, that natural rhythm through the day and night cycles. But also, it's a really, really powerful antioxidant. So we've been talking about oxidative stress all the way back last week. So it's a really helpful antioxidant to support with this oxidative stress level, so, we know how important that is for ADHD symptoms. But similarly, it does some immune regulation as well. The science is still not really clear on how it does this yet. There's lots of research going on. But we do know that it has some function on immune regulation to help help the immune system, which, again from last week, we were talking about the underlying mechanisms with with ADHD, that can be really supportive as well. So while we're sleeping, melatonin is really cleaning house, throwing out the rubbish, sorting things out being an antioxidant and immune regulator, and kind of getting us ready for the next day, which is why sleep is so important. So how do we make melatonin? It's created via the end of the serotonin pathway, a serotonin pathways very similar to the dopamine pathway that we've been talking about a lot. So we start our initial building blocks, we're starting with protein again, again, similar to dopamine, and then it goes through various stages with cofactors, again, to create serotonin, and then from the serotonin then we create the melatonin. So serotonin is known for mood and feeling calm, and it's really great for kind of that feeling of focus. And then low levels of serotonin often identified with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and insomnia too, which makes sense the insomnia for serotonin is feeding in for melatonin that if serotonin levels are low, then the melatonin levels are probably likely to be low as well. So what kind of nutrients do we need to support those pathways? Well, luckily, they're the same nutrients that we need as the dopamine pathway, so the vitamin D, some of the iron, the zinc and the magnesium we were talking about last week, and the B6, these are all similar cofactors to the dopamine pathway. So while we're eating for the dopamine pathway, we're also eating to support this support this serotonin pathway as well.So both of these pathways, the serotonin and the dopamine pathways, share a cofactor could BH four, there's a pool of this BH four that is needed by both of the pathways. So what I want you to kind of picture is that it's a pool, we've got a pool of BH four, and both of our rivers for our serotonin and our dopamine are kind of passing through this BH four, and then out to the other side to then go into the, to the dopamine and serotonin. Now there's only so much BH four in this pool. So we were talking about stress yesterday, and this kind of turning on the tap at the end off this river of dopamine and pulling this adrenaline and pulling through this dopamine, we're going to be draining and pulling at this pool of the BH four. But then that BH four is also needed to make the serotonin. So you can kind of see how stress can really affect the serotonin pathway and this melatonin generation as well, and how it's just very interconnected between it all.So what can we do to support our sleep? Well, we've already talked a little bit about the building blocks and the cofactors. So again, we've always got to make sure that we're, we're ingesting these because we can't get them from anywhere else our body needs them. So we're looking at our proteins again, and all the similar nutrients, the vitamin D, the zinc, magnesium, and B6, and all those foods we were talking about last week, so, again, that's really crucial for this. But then we want to look at reducing stress that we talked about in the last episode. So exercise, massage, meditations and breathing and all these things to kind of reduce our stress. And also thinking about reducing stressors such as maybe stimulant caffeines, and looking at infections and other things that might be stressing the body as well would have a similar similar effect. Light exposure during the day, you have natural light, to get outside is really helpful for kind of helping that circadian rhythm and kind of really understanding whether the daytime or nighttime for the body, which then helps feed into this making of the melatonin. So in the winter, in the dark months, maybe sad lamps are things that they kind of emit the light, the wavelengths of light that we need can be really, really helpful in in the dark month.So sleep hygiene is very important for sleep. So thinking about the wavelengths that we need during the daytime, we don't need those light wavelengths in the evening. So the blue light that we get from screens, they really don't help us with our melatonin production. So generally, we want to be looking at no screens in the bedroom and looking for kind of no screens for about an hour before bed. You can get glasses that block the light kind of blue blocking glasses that can help, but maybe just thinking about your bedtime routine. Maybe swapping to changing to read a book, so you're kind of having that calm this showing the body that we're slowing down thinking about sleep can be really helpful. Really get into a sleep routine, especially for children can really help. So thinking about relaxing baths, lavender, and something called Epsom salts are really really helpful in baths, they have magnesium in them as well, which can help all these pathways that we've been talking about and can lead to really, really helpful sleeping. And then you can also look at things like blackout blinds for in the summer. So we want the daylight in the daytime. But then at nighttime we need to make sure that we're having a cool dark room for sleeping in. And then lovely sleep teas there's some great things on the market that can be enjoyed as part of this slowing down evening ready for bed routine that have got some some great herbs and support in them. And then lastly, if you're really struggling then something that can be really useful to break the cycle is to experiment with something called 5HTP. It's the precursor to the serotonin we've been talking about, it's a natural product you can get in supplement shops, or even speaking to the GP about taking melatonin directly. Particularly if if you've got a child maybe that you're looking kind of to break the cycle of we need to get some sleep. So you can start the repairing and then you could think about the foods may be so sometimes it could be a really useful area to start at.