Learn recently discovered links between common sleep disorders and specific deficiency states that provide new options for mental health treatment.



Overview of Modules 1 & 2

Module 1: The Neurochemistry of Sleep

Psychiatric disorders and sleep disorders are tightly intertwined. If we imagine that the sleep disorder preceded, and actually contributed to the development of the psychiatric disorder, we can treat both the psychiatric manifestations and the sleep disorder, and have better success with our patients.

Part I of Sleep Primer reviews the neurochemistry of the brainstem sleep switches and how we transition between sleep phases and become paralyzed in deep sleep. “Sleep” and “Wake” are two separate states that are engineered such that we can be in one state or the other but never both. Malfunctioning sleep switches cannot maintain this normal separation. Understanding these design features allows us to recognize patients who are manifesting disorders linked to failing sleep switches.

Vitamin D deficiency has become epidemic over the last 40 years with our move indoors. Healthy, outdoor levels of vitamin D are needed for normal sleep, so disordered sleep is the “new normal”. Lack of normal repair during deep sleep is contributing to the rise in psychiatric disorders. Recognizing this deficiency state provides new, successful treatments for sleep disorders.


Module 2: The Microbiome & Vitamin D

The second factor contributing to the pandemic of sleep disorders is the loss of the normal intestinal microbiome. It is now clear that “outdoor” vitamin D blood levels are needed to maintain the healthy human microbiome. Part II covers the important role this loss of the normal microbiome is playing in psychiatric and sleep disorders.

Important new discoveries:

  • The loss of the normal microbiome results in specific B vitamin deficiencies.
  • The bacteria are, in fact, the primary source of the 8, B vitamins.
  • Normal supplies of D and pantothenic acid (B5) are necessary to generate Acetylcholine.
  • The combination of deficient D and B5 has resulted in an epidemic of Acetylcholine Deficiency states such as ADD, autism, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, anxiety, and sleep disorders.

Learning that there are deficiency states behind the current epidemic of abnormal sleep gives us new paths for treatment. Normal, restorative sleep allows the brain to heal itself over time and helps us have better success with our patients.


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Instructor

Stasha Gominak, MD

Dr. Gominak attended college in California and medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, receiving her MD degree in 1983. She completed a Neurology residency in 1989 at the Harvard affiliated, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 1991-2004 she practiced as general neurologist in the San Francisco Bay area. n 2004 Dr. Gominak moved with her husband to Tyler, Texas and began to concentrate on treating neurological illness by improving sleep. She published a pivotal article in 2012 proposing that the global struggle with worsening sleep was linked to reduced sun exposure. In 2016 she followed with a second article linking the change in the intestinal microbiome to the epidemic of poor sleep, and described a simple process for normalizing sleep and the intestinal bacterial population, called RightSleep®. In 2016 she retired from office practice to have more time to teach. She currently divides her time between teaching individuals, through virtual coaching sessions and teaching clinicians from a wide variety of medical and dental fields. Her popular courses and lectures help clinicians improve their patients’ health and wellbeing by improving their sleep. To learn more about her work, courses and coaching, click here.

Course curriculum

    1. Module 1: The Neurochemistry of Sleep

    1. Module 2: The Microbiome & Vitamin D

    1. The World Epidemic of Sleep Disorders Linked to Vitamin D Deficiency

    2. Vitamin D Deficiency Changes the Intestinal Microbiome Reducing B Vitamin Production in the Gut

    3. The Commensal Relationship of the Normal Human Colonic Microbiome

    4. Vitamin D Supplementation results in Secondary Pantothenic acid Deficiency producing Sleep Disruption, Pain and Neuropathy.

    5. Sleep, Vitamin D & the Microbiome

    6. Oral Health: The Next Step in Sleep Dentistry: Is There Anything We Can Do For The Ones Who Don’t Have Apnea?

About this course

  • $170.00
  • 8 lessons
  • 2.5 hours of video content