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Sleeping through the night for the first time in many years: a trial and error approach to find the ideal tryptophan product

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If you have trouble sleeping through the night (or even have anxiety or panic attacks), finding the nutritional/biochemical root causes and addressing them is going to provide relief but it’s not always straightforward to find your root cause or causes (there are often more than one). Also, what works for you today may not work for you in 2 years time and may not work for your friend who has similar symptoms. You have to be a detective yourself and/or work with a health professional who can put all the puzzle pieces together.

I recently read a Facebook comment where someone was really frustrated about all the trial and error work that may be involved:

I’m just so tired of all this trial and error work trying to figure out why I’m anxious and depressed can’t sleep more than 4 hours a night. It’s been going on way too long I just want answers and a solution to all this. Enough already!

While I feel for this woman, I do acknowledge that it can sometimes be challenging to put all the puzzle pieces together. Other times we are able to figure things out very quickly. I’d like to share some feedback from Lorraine on the tryptophan-PMS-anxiety blog to illustrate how one small change made a big difference for her and it was a matter of trial and error.

Lorraine shares her great results with this Tryptophan Complete tweak for her insomnia:

Trudy, after listening to your talks about Lidtke Tryptophan I decided to give the Tryptophan Complete a try. I’ve taken one capsule each on the last two nights instead of two of the Tryptophan 500mg caps. Both nights I slept straight through all night and had a hard time waking up in the morning. I’ve struggled with insomnia for many, many years. The 500mg Lidtke Tryptophan supplements were helping but I was still waking up during the night. For me to sleep all night is almost miraculous.

I’ve been also taking Progesterone (low on testing), Magnesium, L-Theanine and Melatonin.

I recently added phosphatidylserine, and Holy Basil because saliva testing showed high cortisol at bedtime and off the charts high in the morning. I’m hoping to start eliminating some of those other supplements now that I’m sleeping so well.

I want to thank you for the Anxiety Summits and your book and updates on Facebook and newsletters. I have learned so much from you!

I’ve blogged about which product to use for boosting serotonin: Tryptophan 500mg or Tryptophan Complete (by Lidtke)?. I share this

  • I like to have my clients do a trial of the amino acidsso they can find the ideal dose for their needs and right now I still feel this would still be the best approach to take – using 500mg tryptophan. Once you have figured out you do well with tryptophan-only product and have your dose, then consider reducing it slightly after about 2-3 weeks and adding in additional Tryptophan Complete.
  • The other option is this: if you don’t get the expected results with Tryptophan 500mg, then try the Tryptophan Complete. You may need the other ingredients for it to work well for you.

Lorraine chose to do the latter – switching to Tryptophan Complete – since she didn’t get ideal results with Tryptophan 500mg and it worked for her. I will add that even though she slept straight through all night, I don’t like that she had a hard time waking up in the morning and when that happens, I recommend less tryptophan. It’s very possible that the ideal combination would be 1 x Tryptophan 500mg and 1 x Tryptophan Complete (my first suggestion).

Here is my quick commentary on the other products she’s using for her insomnia:

  • Progesterone and theanine: Testing progesterone levels are important before using progesterone. Both theanine and GABA support GABA production and when GABA is low, we often see low progesterone. With both low GABA and low progesterone, sleep and anxiety can be worse.
  • Magnesium: This mineral is commonly low and is needed to make both serotonin and GABA.
  • Melatonin: This is made in the body when there is sufficient serotonin and may not be needed long-term once she has good levels of serotonin (which the tryptophan product/s are helping her make).
  • Phosphatidylserine and holy basil: High cortisol is a common root cause of both insomnia and anxiety and saliva testing is an excellent way to confirm this. Phosphatidylserine can be used to lower high cortisol although I have found even better results with a phosphorylated serine product called Seriphos. Holy basil or tulsi is an adaptogenic herbal product that provides adrenal support helping with sleep problems and easing anxiety and stress.

In Lorraine’s case, her insomnia was caused by low serotonin (hence the need for tryptophan, melatonin and magnesium), low GABA/low progesterone (hence the need for progesterone, theanine and magnesium) and high cortisol (hence the need for phosphatidylserine and holy basil).

She shares she’s hoping to start eliminating some of these other supplements now that she’s sleeping so well. So, this would be another trial and error approach, stopping and/or reducing one at a time and seeing how she does. Or she may well find she needs to continue with everything for some time.

As you can see, for Lorraine it was a matter of trial and error to find her solution, but it was well worth it to get the “miraculous results” she experienced: sleeping though the night for the first time in many years!

Some of these products may work for you but it’s going to be a matter of trial and error to find your root cause/s and solution.

In case they are relevant for you, these products mentioned in this blog can all be found in my online Fullscript store:

I’d love to hear how you’ve used a trial and error approach either on your own or with the help of your practitioner to find the nutritional solution for your insomnia and/or anxiety?

If you’re a practitioner, please do share an example of how you’ve used this approach with a client or patient.

If you’ve had frustrations with this trial and error approach, please share them too.

Feel free to post your questions here too.

Additional Anxiety Resources
Click on each image to learn more

The Anxiety Summit – Tryptophan for anxiety, depression and insomnia: why quality is key and the critical co-factors

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Ron Sturtz_Anxiety4

Ron Sturtz, Owner/President, Lidtke Technologies, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Tryptophan for anxiety, depression and insomnia: why quality is key and the critical co-factors

  • The benefits of tryptophan for anxiety/mood/insomnia and why Trudy only recommends Lidtke
  • Tryptophan history and why safety and quality is key
  • Concerns about neurotoxic quinolinic acid
  • Tryptophan 500mg, kids chewable, Tryptophan Complete, and tryptophan for pets
  • Why use lysine, vitamin B3, B6/P5P, folate and curcumin with tryptophan
  • Other serotonin co-factors and 5-HTP
  • Client feedback and how to use these amino acids

In part 1 we start by discussing the history, the controversy in 1990 over contaminated L-tryptophan,  the impurities that lead to the EMS outbreak and why Lidtke has “been fanatical about purity and safety” since then:

the main [impurity] was EBT  [1,1′-ethylidene-bis-L-tryptophan] and that was the one that they suspected was the most heavily implicated.  They never could identify exactly which ones were toxic or in combination.  It could be like numbers one, two and five in combination were deadly or two and six in combination more deadly or maybe just six alone was deadly.  They never were able to determine that because they never found an animal model to use in research because when they would feed the rats or any other kind of animal, lab animal they had samples of this known toxic tryptophan, none of them responded the way humans do.  They have a very different gut flora and metabolism and they never responded the same so they weren’t about to use humans in any of these clinical trials so they never really could tell which of those six were the worst, but they strongly suspected that EBT was the worst

Ron covers how glyphosate/Roundup is contributing to low serotonin levels:

…the food crops  absorb the chemical, they still soak it up and then they’re sent to market and you buy them and you cook them and you eat then and then you soak it up.  Well, you don’t produce tryptophan or phenylalanine, but your gut bacteria to do.  And preferentially the beneficial gut bacteria tend to be killed by the glyphosates.  So when that happens the pathogenic bacteria tend to dominate.  And then when that happens when they grow kind of out of control then even more tryptophan is used up by the macrophages, which then attack the pathogens.

If you’d like to read more about this we covered this is much more detail in these interviews:

In part 2 Ron reviews the serotonin biochemistry:

lidtke image serotonin biochemistry
Serotonin Biochemistry – Ron Sturtz from Lidtke Technologies

And we discuss the Tryptophan Complete product, the ingredients and rationale for including P5P, lysine, curcumin, folic acid and niacinamide. This is my feedback on the product:

the Tryptophan Complete is one that I’m not as familiar with as the 500 milligram Tryptophan.  I’ve been using the 500 milligram with my clients for over ten years.  The Tryptophan Complete is just a new one that’s sort of come on my radar and I started looking into it and I actually posted something on Facebook a few months ago and then did a blog post to get feedback from people [see below]. And I’ve had some promising feedback.  I’ve had one person say “I’ve used the Tryptophan Complete and liked it a lot better than the 500 milligrams.  It gave me a much deeper state of relaxation and a way more solid sleep.”  She used that, got benefits then tried the 500 and now has decided to go back to the Complete.  So she feels that the addition of the other ingredients really helped for her body chemistry.  I did have someone else say that she can’t do P5P at all.  It makes her agitated.  So for people who have individual reactions to any of the ingredients then you would go with the 500 milligrams.

Here is my blog: Tryptophan 500mg or Tryptophan Complete (by Lidtke)?

And my supplements blog that lists Lidtke tryptophan products (500mg tryptophan, Tryptophan Complete and Tryptophan 100mg chewable), other amino acid products and pyroluria products I recommend: The Antianxiety Food Solution Amino Acid and Pyroluria Supplements

You can also find the amino acid questionnaire (which lists the low serotonin symptoms) and amino acid precautions on the above blog.

Here is some of the research:

Lidtke is kindly offering 15% off all Lidtke products through the end of June  – use coupon code anxietysummit

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.