Q: For years, I had the same sleep problem: I’d fall asleep fine and then wake up three hours later. My mind would be racing, and I’d be sweating, stressed and unable to fall back asleep for hours.
I tried everything I could think of: switched to decaf coffee, gave up all alcohol, started meditating and even found a lullaby playlist to condition my body into sleep mode. (My husband hated it!)
Nighttime wakings turned into panic attacks; I was fighting with my husband, cranky with my kid and bad at my job. I tried to drug myself with over-the-counter stuff like Nyquil and Benadryl to sleep, but that was no good.
In the end, the culprit was so mundane I missed it for years: ginger tea. I love the strong flavor and drank at least one cup every night, even on vacation or work trips. Because it’s not caffeinated, I overlooked its potential as a stimulant.
Once I stopped drinking ginger tea, all those problems disappeared, literally overnight. Now I can drink good coffee, have wine with dinner, ditch the lullabies and sleep fantastically. No more anxiety, night sweats, stress, sleep loss or fights. I offer this as a reminder that — for better or worse — herbs have powerful effects!
A: Thank you for sharing your fascinating story. Something as seemingly innocuous as an herbal tea could have unexpected consequences.
We could find no human studies demonstrating that ginger affects sleep. However, scientists studying mice found that ginger extract made the animals take longer to fall asleep and sleep less (Indian Journal of Experimental Biology, October 2016).
Anyone having trouble with insomnia may find our “eGuide to Getting a Good Night’s Sleep” helpful. This online resource can be found under the Health eGuides tab at PeoplesPharmacy.com.
Q: Many years ago, I was badly injured in a motorcycle accident. During the healing process, I found out that my folic acid is super low.
Do you know any way to build it up? Folic acid pills give me pain, as does any pain medicine. It took years to find this out because when I would tell doctors that pain medicine causes me pain, they would not believe me. A doctor finally did a test and discovered practically no folic acid. He said the folic acid processes the medicine that I take and that’s why the pain medication wasn’t working.
A: Folic acid is the supplement form of folate. People have different abilities to metabolize this B vitamin, based on their genes. The variant of MTHFR (methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) that a person carries determines how well they handle folate. In addition, these genes may also have an impact on how well a person responds to some opioids that need demethylation (PLOS One, April 22, 2015).
If folic acid supplements aren’t helpful for you, try increasing the amount of folate you get from food. The richest sources are beef liver, spinach, black-eyed peas, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, avocado and broccoli. Striving to follow a diet with lots of vegetables and fruits (oranges, papayas, bananas, etc.) is probably the best way to get your folate levels back up where they belong.
In addition, if you can find supplements with the 5-MTHF form of folate, your system might handle that better (Xenobiotica, May 2014). You can find this form of folate online.