Episode summary
This Doctor Quit To Warn You: If You Wake Up At 3AM, You NEED To Know This!
The Diary of a CEO
· · 2 hr · Hosts: Steven Bartlett · Guests: Stasha Gominak
Summary
Stasha Gominak argues that many sleep problems are not behavioral at all but a chemistry problem tied to vitamin D, the B vitamins, and the gut microbiome. She says her neurology patients, especially women with daily headaches and waking around 3:00 a.m., often had abnormal sleep studies showing little or no REM sleep or deep sleep, and that standard advice like blackout curtains or fixed bedtimes did not help them. In her view, sleep is driven by the brain stem’s repair chemistry, and when that chemistry is off, the brain “forgets” how to sleep.
She says vitamin D is not really a vitamin but a hormone made in skin through sun exposure, and that giving D by itself can expose a secondary deficiency in B vitamins. Gominak describes seeing patients improve on vitamin D and then later develop burning hands and feet, fatigue, or agitation, which she links to depletion of B5 and other B vitamins. She says those B vitamins are produced by gut bacteria, and that the microbiome plays a central role in supplying the body’s sleep-related chemistry.
Her broader claim is that indoor living, sunscreen culture, and modern habits have shifted humans away from the biology we evolved for. She argues that vitamin supplementation is a form of biohacking: potentially useful, but risky if doses are not individualized and tracked with blood levels and symptoms.
Key takeaways
- Gominak says insomnia is often a deficiency state, not a behavior problem, and she links it to abnormal REM and deep sleep patterns on sleep studies.
- She argues vitamin D is a hormone made in skin, not a simple vitamin from food, and that sunlight matters more than pills or salmon.
- She says giving vitamin D can increase the body’s need for B vitamins, especially B5, and that overdosing can worsen agitation, burning, or insomnia.
- Gominak claims the gut microbiome helps produce the B vitamins that support sleep chemistry, so digestive health and sleep are closely connected.
- She says many modern conditions, including headaches, depression, ADHD, fatty liver, and diabetes, rose alongside more indoor living and less sun exposure.
Notable quotes
“The vitamin world is giving the wrong advice. For instance, if you do not know what you're doing with them, they're just as dangerous as any drug you could put in your mouth”
“when we're deficient in this vitamin, our brain actually forgets how to sleep”
“vitamin D is a hormone. There was a mistake made in calling it a vitamin”
“our brain actually forgets how to sleep. That's the easiest way to describe it”
How the episode opens
The vitamin world is giving the wrong advice. For instance, if you do not know what you're doing with them, they're just as dangerous as any drug you could put in your mouth. The next thing is supplementing with vitamin D is not the same as being outdoors because we absorb it through our skin.
But what we've been told is don't ever let the sun touch your skin. And another example is when we're deficient in this vitamin, our brain actually forgets how to sleep. And I know that because I'm a neurologist and I wanted to tell the world about what my patients and I had and discovered together about making sleep better.
And billions around the world have a sleep problem, but no one's treating it. And the usual sleep treatment is behavioral like blackout curtains, go to bed at the same time. But that is not something that's helped the people who wind up with me.
They've tried all that already. And I've taken care of 28-year-olds who just had a stroke.
28, sorry,
28-year-olds. We associate stroke with being old and having diabetes and hypertension and heart disease. No.
So then I did a whole bunch of sleep studies because we found some exciting things by accident that turn out to have to do with vitamin deficiencies and deficiencies that have developed from being indoors too much. And we're starting to feel the effects of that like obesity. But there there are no obese squirrels in my backyard.
The only obese animals are cats and dogs that we keep inside. And then we found out most of the sleep disorders are really linked to the gut the microbiome and we could go into that but one of the interesting thing I learned was vitamin D is a hormone.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- vitamin d supplementation
- sleep maintenance insomnia
- b vitamins and gut microbiome
- indoor living and circadian health
- supplements and biohacking risks
Companies and tickers mentioned
- RightSleep
Watch the episode
Watch “This Doctor Quit To Warn You: If You Wake Up At 3AM, You NEED To Know This!” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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