Is Your Insomnia Caused By A Mineral Deficiency?
Here's some more interesting research under the Watch What You Eat post.
According to a study done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are several mineral deficiencies which MAY contribute to insomnia and sleeping problems.
Copper Deficiency Contributes To Sleep Problems – in some pre-menopausal women. Generally, those women who had a low copper intake took longer to fall asleep and felt less rested in the morning. Copper? Really? Geez, that's one of the LAST nutrients/minerals I would be thinking about.
So, what do you eat to get more copper? I found this list of Dietary Sources of Copper. Lobster and oysters seem to be high on the list (as evidenced by the little + symbols after them). I wonder how well that would fly next time I'm eating out and insist I have to eat more lobster in order to sleep well.
Of course, if you want a cheaper source of copper, you could go the supplement route. I would check with a doctor first to see if you're actually deficient first. Here's the supplement: Copper Supplement
Iron Deficiency- is another culprit for poor sleeping patterns. There's plenty of women that seem to have a problem in this area. Although I've read that combining iron with your multivitamin is NOT a good thing, here some food sources of iron: Dietary Sources of Iron
Too Much Aluminum – typically not a problem for most people, but if you take quite antacids in the liquid form, you may be getting too much aluminum. Try switching to the tablet kind.
Low Magnesium Levels – can contribute to shallow sleep and waking up more during the night. This can happen if you are on a calorie restricted diet or taking diuretics. Here's some dietary sources of magnesium: Food Sources of Magnesium .
You should definitely check with a doctor before taking magnesium supplements, especially if you have heart or kidney problems.
Here's a supplement source if you have a Magnesium Deficiency: Magnesium Supplement
GiGi
Tagged with: copper deficiency • Insomnia • magnesium supplements • mineral deficiencies
Filed under: Insomnia
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
The sleeping routine is so automatic and taken for granted until it is disrupted. I am kinda horrified of the notion of sleeping pills, but it makes all kinds of sense that dietary changes (missing vitamins) could go a long way to help with this… Here is a big long list of mineral, vitamin, and general lifestyle alterations which may help put one back to bed and back awake the next day… Thank goodness the internet is open all night:)
I have found that drinking 2 ounces of Goji Juice about an hour before bedtime helps promote better sleep
Well thanks for this post. I will talk with my doc about mineral deficiency.
Great info. Good to know that there are dietary ways of fighting sleep disorders.
Iron deficiency definitely contributed to my insomnia. I couldn’t sleep due to restless leg syndrome, but as soon as I started to take an iron supplement this stopped completely.
My friend on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came to your blog.
I have insomnia and never considered this. I will talk to my doctor about it and see if we can consider this as a cause for my insomnia. Thanks for the article
Thanks for the tips.
Cocoa powder is really high is copper, so I guess this is just another reason to break out the chocolate!
I’ve never been diagnosed with RLS, but whenever I play sports I can’t stop fidgeting and sometimes can’t sleep until hours later. When I worked nights I used to take melatonin to help me sleep better during the day. That might be an option for some people. I’m going to look into taking more iron.