171: Dr. Tyler Panzner, PhD: Cellular Health, Genetics, & Supplement Expert - Genes, Cellular Health, Histaimines, Anxiety, and More! Why Personalized Medicine is KEY for Sleep!

Welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world looks.

sleep. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.

And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

Welcome to sleep is a skilled podcast. How do your genes affect your sleep and how could your genes be impacting the response that you get from some of your choices would say sleep supplements or just supplements that you're taking in general, could they actually be backfiring and potentially negatively impacting your sleep?

And what are the things to actually take for our sleep? If we're in the inquiry of supplements for sleep support, we're going to get into all that and. So much more today with Dr. Tyler Panzer. He is a PhD scientist trained in pharmacology, cancer, neuroscience, and inflammation research, who has had a lifelong passion for understanding how substances affect the body.

While his scientific training spans well over a decade, his passion for genetics and personalized medicine started seven years ago and he's pursued his goal of personalizing vitamins, supplement and lifestyle protocols for each individual based on their unique genetic code. He not only figures out exactly what your unique cells need, but also educates about which vitamins supplements and foods will clash with your unique biology.

Using this approach, he believes that not only daily quality of life improves, but the risk for chronic diseases are greatly reduced. He firmly believes that one's underlying genetic code dictates what the body needs to thrive. He's driven to genetically optimize the human experience of life through his holistic genetic health optimization practice.

I think you're going to really podcast. But first, a few crucial words from our sponsors. Again, our sponsors are what keeps this podcast going. So please check out their offerings, their websites, their social media, anything and everything. It really does help our efforts to both get the word out for them to support this podcast.

So thanks so much for listening.  If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep. And one of the first places that many people begin when they talk to me about sleep is they want to know what's the supplement I can take. Well, I gotta say, I honestly don't take that many supplements nowadays for my sleep.

And I'm very grateful for that. A lot of things you can do for free. However, one of the supplements that I do consistently take and have taken for ages is magnesium, specifically magnesium breakthrough. It's an all natural supplement that helps you reduce fatigue and sleep more peacefully. It even strengthens muscle and improves your heart and brain function.

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So if you want to give it a try, go to bio optimizers. com forward slash sleep is a skill and you can use the code sleep. Sleep is a skill to get gifts with purchase up to two travel sized bottles of magnesium breakthrough. So you want to act fast on this. It's a limited time offer. Again, go to buy optimizers.

com forward slash sleep is a skill. And I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by the results. And welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. I am very excited for today's conversation. Tyler, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I always say sleep is the number one supplement and you really want to dial that in for your cellular health, health overall.

So super grateful, excited to be chatting today. Thanks for having me. Oh, yes. Well, thank you for taking the time, and I think it can make sense for us to start at the beginning. How did you find yourself in this kind of role of being this genetics and cellular expert in many, I mean, you probably have different ways of kind of thinking of how the labeling for yourself, but all of these various ways that you've been able to out of the box approach many aspects of health and well being, including sleep.

So how did this come to be at such a young age? so much. Yeah, you know, the first thing I say is, what box? Yeah, what are you talking about? What box? Yeah, you know, people say, yeah, what box, you know? Um, always been very creative, interested in cells. Um, did my bachelor's in cellular molecular biology. I was just fascinated with these cities inside of each one of our cells.

Millions of proteins interacting together, trillions and trillions of cells somehow communicating across our body and making us function. every day. Um, I did my PhD in pharmacology. So learning how drugs, supplements, things affect cells. So that training was more so focused on, you know, drug development.

I'm the guy in the lab coat working with mice, giving them cancer, dissecting the tumors, analyzing that. Um, I did a lot of research on neuroscience. That's one of my main passions, initial research interests. You know, reality is merely electrochemical messages in our brain. You tweak that a little bit. You know, you can have schizophrenia, you tweak that a little bit, you know, with the psychedelic and you're tripping on something, you tweak a little bit here, you're more anxious, you tweak it here, you're more restless, can't sleep as well.

So that only really, always really fascinated me and I, um, did my thesis work on breast cancer, metastasis, inflammation, and  23andMe became a thing. And, you know, this many years ago, I'm like, I'll give it a shot, just game changing health advice. And I got the report back. And if you had done 23andMe in the beginning, it wasn't what it is today.

And the reports were like, more likely to think cilantro tastes like soap.  More likely to have your pee smell like asparagus if you eat asparagus. And I'm like, how is this really going to change my life? Like, it's cool, I guess. But, so this is why I was in training to be a PhD scientist. And I looked at the raw data.

And I think, so it wasn't in their reports, but they sequenced it. Turns out I have a mutation in a gene called the COMT gene. I have a double mutation. I break down dopamine and adrenaline four times slower than a normal person. So this explains why I've always been very type A, very extroverted, high dopamine, but also very prone to anxiety, as well as insomnia sleep issues, because I have higher adrenaline at all times than a normal person.

Um, I figured out what that gene needs to work better. I gave myself those natural supplements and it changed my life virtually overnight for me. Um, did some couple other things for myself, some histamine issues that we'll definitely talk about histamine a little bit here. Big player for sleep. Yeah. Um, I was able to change my life, and I worked with friends and family for a few years, you know, on the side, not as a business, you know, just helping people out, um, and decided I want to get into personalized medicine.

I think that's the future. The one size fits all model fails so many people. We're all very genetically unique. We should not have X protocols for a depression protocol, an anxiety protocol. It should be a protocol for you, your unique selves. And I joined, I finished my PhD, what, May of 2020. 2020, 2020 or 2021?

Losing track of the time. Um, I think it was May of 2020, joined a clinical genomics company. They were doing sequencing for cancer testing, prenatal testing for more severe genetic abnormalities.  And I couldn't help but think, you know, why are we sequencing our cancer cells to figure out what drugs they need?

Why don't we sequence our healthy cells? What do they need more of? What do they need less of? So they stay healthy, so you're happier and healthier today, so you have a lower chance of disease risk down the road. So I started my company, Holistic Genetic Health Solutions, um,  last, uh, so not past July, the July before, did part of that part time, went all in on this, you know, a little over a year ago, and I call it Holistic Genetic Health Optimization.

You know, really going very deep with the genetics And focusing on educating you. I want to, I want my clients to feel empowered at the end of the call. Most people come to me, they've got five different DNA tests. They're clueless. They're more stressed. They're more confused. There's no proper support. So I really focus on educating people about the language of their body.

It's not just what you need. And we'll discuss later my background in pharmacology lets me understand. Most people I work with are taking supplements that are making them worse because they're general recommendations. You can't just read what's on the label. You know, if you think about it. You wouldn't go to a neurologist for nutrition advice.

Yeah. So all these practitioners that are non pharmacologists,  they don't know supplements. They don't have proper training. So why, to me, I think almost you should be, you should be required to have some sort of training to recommend supplements because they could be very powerful. Powerful good or powerful bad.

Yeah. Depends on your unique biology. Oh, so good. Okay. So with that unique perspective, when you think about this topic of sleep, I love how you kind of led with how it's just so a powerful place to begin, can have huge impacts, of course, on our health and well being. And I think the listeners can agree if they're listening to a podcast called sleep and skill podcast.

So I think we're all on that same page and yet. So many people struggle with the how and get caught up in maybe their results. Maybe they're tracking on or ring, whoop, what have you. They're seeing undesirable results or they just don't feel great. They're waking up. They just are mystified as to how to impact this area.

How do you think differently about this than maybe a lot of people might be? Yeah, you know, as a cell biologist,  all we are are different cellular inputs, cell signaling pathways, people may be familiar like vitamin D signaling, you know, that vitamin D, it has a signaling pathway in your cells, or you think of serotonin, it's a signaling system.

So I look at as simply excitation versus inhibition. So how much signaling do you have that ramps up your cells? And how much do you have that calms them down? And at the end of the day, All that bad health is, poor health is, is disrupted cell signaling, point blank. That's absolutely irrefutable. You know, the thing that depends on the person is what's causing the differences in the cell signaling.

But the most primal root cause thing, that is what disease is. Now, I focus on genetics. So you can have mutations and pathways that hardwire certain steps of certain pathways to always. Function better, function worse. So, you know, I mentioned that one COMT gene, that makes my catecholamine signaling, my dopamine, adrenaline,  noradrenaline, excessively signaling.

It's higher than usual. The people I work with with these mutations, I just had a client call, someone had two of them, I asked them how they feel. I'm like, you sound just like me. I know what it feels like. We perceive reality differently.  I've been told my whole life, you know, very sensitive, used to viewed as a weakness.

Now I think it's a superpower without a doubt.  And people telling me, you know, just calm down, just stop thinking about it. And I would love if you could just shoot up. a little bit of adrenaline so you can see what my daily life is like. It's, it's different. We perceive reality differently. And based on how many mutations you have, do you have two in a gene?

Do you have 10 in a gene? That can really dictate how high the priority is. The other genetic companies, it's, here's a laundry list of individual mutations, but we need to map it out to what's the most pressing. Because. Yeah. I could talk to you for 10 hours about 5, 000 genes, or I could streamline it to the top 40 or so, be covered in an hour.

And I'm still going to change your life based on that hour long call. People don't need to know all the, some people want to nerd out, you know, but most people just want to know what they need to know. And I really like distilling it down. So yeah, sleep to me is a balance of excitation and inhibition.

And so what are some of those key things that you like to hone in? So someone comes your way and one of their primary areas of concern is sleep and what are some of the things you might direct them to? I know you mentioned histamine. Are there certain kind of top down order of priority there? Yeah, you know, I think histamine is definitely pretty much at the top of the list.

Yeah. So histamine, people think of it as just for allergies. Well, histamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. We normally need that to function. Histamine regulates wakefulness.  Histamine makes your body release adrenaline. Adrenaline makes your body release histamine. So they're very tightly regulated and we prescribe anti histamines for anxiety and sleep medications.

So people come to me with sleep issues. They're on an anti histamine for sleep.  Well, clearly the histamine is high. That's why it's working, but rather than taking a medication. that just blocks histamine signaling in the body. Let's figure out why it's high in the first place. Yeah. We can figure out the exact molecular steps.

Do you make more histamine than a normal person? Do your cells sense allergens higher than usual? Do you break down histamine slower in your gut? Do you break down histamine slower in your brain? Are you not able to make the nutrients those enzymes need to function better? I could go, the list goes on and on.

That's just for the histamine pathway. So sure, block the whole system with the medication, but that medication,  your body gets used to it and your body stops breaking down its own histamine as well. So I've seen a lot of people, they come off an antihistamine after years. They have full body head to toe hives or like their skin's peeling off because there's a crazy rebound effect.

Your histamine issues are not an antihistamine deficiency. Just how your depression issues are not an SSRI deficiency. Yeah, so  And regarding histamine, you know, I had a lot, that's one of the other things I figured out with myself, high histamine, and, um, you know, there are allergies, of course, um, I got allergy tested, I was not feeling good during my PhD, I thought that I was being poisoned in my lab by chemical fumes, I'd feel great all day, I'd go to lab, brain fog, anxiety, I wouldn't sleep well, and, After doing some reading, I thought it might be histamine issues, allergies.

I had to go to five different allergists. None of them would test me. You don't have allergies. You're not sneezing. You don't have swollen eyes. None of that. I finally got tested. I was severely allergic to peas and almonds. I ate them every day for lunch at lab. And I was severely allergic to mice. I worked with them almost every day at lab.

So  I would go in, I go to the gym in the morning, feeling great. I'd go into lab. Right away I go into the mouse room, which is a huge corridor hallways, which is all mouse fumes. Boom. Inhaling that allergy, histamine. I go upstairs. I eat my lunch. Histamine in my brain.  Thank God that one allergist finally tested me.

It blows my mind that these allergists are that narrow sided. It is  tragic. It is a,  it is blasphemy. It is beyond ridiculous that these allergists can't even identify signs of histamine issues. So, I removed those things and it changed my life overnight. Um, so there's food aspects as well. There's foods that are high in histamine.

Um, another thing a lot of people aren't aware of is sulfur. So, sulfur, We need it to live. It's good for, good to make glutathione in the body. A lot of people say you need more sulfur. Well,  I and many people I work with have mutations. Their body pumps out more sulfur than usual all the time.  And their body breaks it down slower.

When sulfur gets high.  It makes your body release histamine.  So, they're one in the same here. Now, what supplements are high in sulfur? Some of the most commonly used ones in the holistic space. N acetylcysteine, glutathione, sulforaphane, alpha lipoic acid, MSM, a lot of different joint health supplements. So, I've had people that come to work with me, a big factor for their sleep is that they're taking a glutathione supplement later in the day.

And they're sensitive to it. They're getting histamine symptoms. It's exciting the brain. That also goes for foods. You know, I love Mediterranean food. I love tzatziki sauce. Very high in garlic and onions. Two very high sulfur foods. Now, people say eat more of those because they're high in sulfur. A lot of people already have more than enough sulfur.

They don't need that. So, I've literally, if I have the garlic or onions, if I have a lot of it  I'll get a brain fog. I'll feel how I felt with the mice because it's the same. You see what I'm saying? It's the same net effect at the bottom. First,  don't just blast an antihistamine. What is the cause? Is it a sulfur too high of sulfur or are you truly allergic to it?

If I have a little bit  my mind can start to race a little bit and you know,  I'll be kind of wired at night I won't be anxious per se if I have a little bit  I'll be like, why am I not tired? Like I usually am, you know, I've always been a night owl. You don't have to work to calm my body down.  I've literally, how many people have their sleep disrupted because they're eating a whole bunch of garlic, onions, broccoli, Brussels sprouts.

These are all high sulfur foods. And now, of course, I'm not saying these are bad, unhealthy foods. Right. This is an example why I call what I do hyper personalized, not just personalized. We need to go deeper. So. I've seen people again, how many people are put on sleeping meds because they're having, you know, tomato sauce, which is high in histamine, garlic, onions, all these things.

And to me, and I'm not going to say guys that that's the magic bullet for everybody. It depends on the person, of course, but, um,  yeah, I mean, histamine, sulfur, those are two of the big ones right there. Oh, so good. And I so appreciate you breaking down this concern around supplementation because we do see, I mean, that's one of the things that people will come our way on struggling with sleep.

Just what supplements stack to take. And it is so the wrong approach. I'm sure you hear that all the time. And then you're so beautifully breaking down how problematic that can be. And even if something can be such a beautiful, amazing stack for one person can be a big, big problem for others. I've been dealing with iron overload.

And so with iron overload and what appears, I'm actually about to be doing more genetic testing on if it might be hemochromatosis. My wife actually has that the hereditary hemochromatosis. Okay. Well, we'll have to talk because, um, My, I know my mom's a carrier and I'm some underscoring finding out some of that, but it just points to so much of the conversation could be, Oh, get your iron needs met and what have you.

And then it's just a perfect illustration of how it can be so damning if we don't know at its core what we're dealing with. And so you've been able to kind of break down these things and for people who are listening, And now they're saying, well, what do I do? Do I go to a particular provider? Are there people that you, are there companies that you suggest?

Or do you outsource it in a unique way to get this testing? And then of course guide people as you're sharing, like with this hyper individualized approach. But are there companies that you would suggest people begin with? Or what do you see there? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think going through my company, you know, I've, I've seen all, I've been in this space for years now, you don't have a formal business around it.

I've seen different genetic reports for all the big companies, different reports from different coaches.  It's not, it's not up to par. It's not going deep enough. And that's exactly why, you know, 12 week holistic genetic health mastery program to train other practitioners on how to utilize and harness the genetic Um, so yeah, I mean, it's just a cheek swab, you know, and people that have genetic data from 23andMe or Ancestry, I can utilize that data, but I tell people, this is how much I care about doing my best work, but the 23andMe data is more than two years old.

We want to get it redone because even though the DNA mutations don't change, they don't check every area. So I would hate, if it's older than that, certain genes that are very important that I check, there's no data there. So, and the DNA kit's 150. Okay. The kit itself. Right, yeah. But, um,  Yeah, you know, I'm looking, you know, as I scale this right now, I require hour long calls with every one of my clients because we need to really discuss, I need to hear about how your day is, you know, are you more low mood?

Are you more anxious? That depends what things we're gonna implement for you. Um, but, you know, in the near future, I'm looking to scale all for this to other providers as well, because yeah.  I said this before, so many people I've worked with, they paid so much money, 200 here for 300 here for all these different tests and stuff.

They're not going deep enough. They may say, okay, you have this mutation, take this supplement.  Okay, well, I'll give you an example. So, um, you know, you, you have, you have inflammation,  take, uh, take turmeric or curcumin or, um, you know, you have, you have, uh, I'll show you another example. Oh, you have, some inflammation, take some methylene blue.

Sure, they can help with these things, but both of those supplements and many other supplements and herbs, that COMT gene I mentioned, it blocks that, so it raises neurotransmitters,  including adrenaline. Let me tell you, Out of the people I work with that are already on supplements, I'd say at least two thirds are on something that's making them worse.

I've seen people come to me with severe sleep issues. They've seen functional medicine, doctors and naturopaths. They put them on two, three, four, five different natural supplements. that they do have good data for inflammation or antioxidant support. So it makes sense surface level. Yeah. But they have no idea that all four of these things also block that COMT gene.

So it's raising that. You see what I'm saying? If yours is already slower, you're going to be, no wonder why you can't sleep. If I touch any of those, even low doses. Yeah. If I don't feel anxious that day, nothing triggers me. I'm not going to be ready for sleep on time. There's no way. I'm going to feel just normal, awake, like it's noon, but it's 10, 11 o'clock at night.

There's no proper training on these things. It doesn't say it on the bottle. I bet the people that make it don't even know this. And this is why I'm so loud and proud about my mission. You can change someone's life just by getting them off of the wrong supplements for them, but you need to have a supreme understanding.

And that's why, you know, conventional medicine has its flaws. We can all agree on that, but I never regret getting that PhD because all those lessons, all that deep science, I could never do what I do in the holistic space now without that background. And that's what enables me to connect  95 percent of health is knowing the patterns of your body in order to know the patterns.

You have to connect the dots in order to connect the dots. You have to know where the dots are. And something that I do really, really well is identifying dots that everyone else misses and educate you. So you could start connecting the dots. And then you reach out to me a month or so later, highly. I've been doing so much better.

I went out to eat. I couldn't sleep all night. I remember what you said, and that food was super high in sulfur that I'm sensitive to. So I figured it out, and now I know what supplement I could take with that food to help you break down sulfur, or I know not to have that at nighttime. But it's all about the pattern recognition and education.

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So again, go to YouBlockout, spelled the letter U, block out. and use code sleep as a skill for a discount.  Oh, so interesting. And it also makes me think about, I know you're on this conversation of pharmacology. And when we go into drugs and common drugs that could absolutely impact sleep. I mean, I think that's one of the gifts of wearables that we're seeing is just how clearly, I mean, the obvious things, but you really see it with the numbers with alcohol, THC, maybe caffeine, et cetera.

showing up and impacting our sleep results. I'm wondering if you can share kind of unique ways of thinking about some of these through this genetic lens. Yeah. You know, that COMT gene, that'll absolutely affect how you respond to caffeine because  you can genetically break down the caffeine slower. So the molecule lingers longer in your body  and or The adrenaline, the caffeine makes you release can linger for longer.

See, are there two separate things here or that adenosine receptor, the caffeine blocks  that can be mutated. That's linked to being more anxious from caffeine.  So these are all there's so many different little tricks and levers and stuff like this. It's not just how do I respond to caffeine? There's a lot of stuff involved here.

Um, you know.  And when I work with people, most of the time they lower their caffeine dosage a lot, because if you're overly relying on caffeine, like I utilize maybe 200 milligrams of caffeine first thing in the morning before the gym, I'm good all day, you know, I don't think there's anything too wrong with that, but if you're needing caffeine throughout the day, you're missing micronutrients, you have inflammation, your body is not making the cellular energy, I understand a quick pick me up, get going in the morning, but When I work with people, I tell them, watch your caffeine starting out.

They'll tell me, Oh my God, I'm tweaking out today. First day, first day on the supplements. I'm like, well, did you have your full caffeine? They're like, yeah, I told you to sip on it because now you have the actual materials to make all this cellular ATP, to make all this energy. Your neurotransmitter production is back online.

So you have more of these things. You don't need to rely on the caffeine as much. I used to have got so much caffeine before I figured this out, and I'm glad I don't need it as much. Um,  um, something, what was one of the other ones that you mentioned? Yes, and then alcohol, THC, and these other callouts. Yeah, I mean, alcohol, yeah.

I mean, they're both shown to affect the sleep architecture, you know. I'm very vocal, personally. I'm an advocate for cannabis. It works very well with my biology, personally. And here's the thing, too.  Once you really understand how molecules work in the body,  it's not, is this good or bad for me? It's do the pros, that way the cons.

I can take any supplement.  Give me 10 minutes. I can make a real making it look like it is God's gift to earth for everybody, or I can make everyone scared shitless. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I would use data. That's a lot of people do nowadays. And I don't buy into that. So, you know, does it affect sleep architecture?

There's data on that. You know, my mind's always going. So for me, a little bit of that in the evenings, you know, It affects my, it affects my productivity. Never, you know, during the day this or that. You know, I like CBD oil, a little bit of THC for me personally. I sleep really well, I wake up feeling energized.

Um, so that works for me. But some people, again, the mutations, how you sense THC, how your cells respond to it, how you break it down. These are all factors that come into play. Um, you know, even melatonin. I'm a huge advocate for melatonin supplementation. I think that it's one of the most wrongly demonized supplements.

Now,  you can have mutations, of course. You may not be able to synthesize melatonin as well.  You could have mutations in the clock gene, among many other genes. This is how your cells tell the time of day, regulate circadian rhythm.  If that's mutated, we have data it's linked to insomnia, obesity, depression, or blood sugar regulation.

All of the side effects of poor quality sleep.  I don't think if I had a good night's sleep, I think if I had optimal melatonin signaling, because  sleep is not healing. The melatonin released during sleep is what tells your body to make more antioxidants like glutathione, to make more NAD. So all these things that biohackers, longevity experts want us to supplement with, you take some melatonin and that can help you.

So again, How much you release at night. My cells can't tell what time of day it is as well. That's why I've been a night owl. Then you also have how well your cells sense it. The melatonin receptors can be mutated. A good way to tell if those are mutated for you is if you're very sensitive to light when you sleep.

We have a lot of those melatonin receptors in our eyes. They sense light. It's funny. I used to make fun of my mom growing up. She had, you know, the eye mask. the earplugs, the fan going, the blackout curtains, all these things. Here I am doing the same thing because that's how I sleep my best. Um, the blue blocker glasses really changed my life as well.

Um, so you see all these different steps here for the melatonin. And, you know, regardless of the genetics, which virtually every client has at least some sort of that, just the life we live nowadays, the world we're in, the light pollution, the stress, all these things affect. our melatonin production.  My opinion is, regardless of genetics, I think pretty much no one is generating optimal levels of melatonin in today's modern world.

Totally. And how I approach this is, I take maybe half a milligram each night, sublingual under the tongue. Any more than that, so my body needs more melatonin, but I break it down slow.  My wife can take three to five times the melatonin dose as me. She bounces out of bed fine, she breaks it down quicker. So I need a little bit.

It makes all the difference for me, and I think a no brainer across the board, I think everyone should experiment with half a milligram of sublingual melatonin under the tongue each night and see how you feel. If you're groggy, lower the dose. We also know melatonin decreases as we age. So, We know the link for Alzheimer's in sleep.

We know glutathione decreases as we age. Well, melatonin tells you to make glutathione. So why are we supplementing with glutathione as we age? We should be supplementing with the most upstream thing because that's what, that's what's the most physiologically relevant, the most root cause holistic approach.

Yeah, and I love how you also pointed to the behavioral interventions in alignment with that too, because one of the things that we'll also see people coming through and they're just taking crazy stacks of supplements, but without neglecting those behavioral interventions as well. And so when we can bring these things in tandem, whole other set of results.

So good. Well, I love that too, real quick. I love that too, you know, because I'm never the first doctor people see. Um, usually if you're looking out, if you're looking for a PhD scientist for holistic genetics, like you've been through the ringer. So the vast majority of my clients, they're already getting, they're already doing the human protocol for sonic exposure.

They're already doing, so at least my, most of my clients are already doing those things. And that's why If nothing else is working, what else is going on? It's likely you have a more significant genetic issue going on. Because again, it's not a question if you have mutations. Every single person listening here, if I look at your genetics, I would be very, I would struggle  fit all the important things into an hour long call.

That's how common these mutations are that I focus on. But again, it depends where you're at. Depends where you want to be. But yeah, those behavioral interventions, most of the time, that's already, you don't even need to cover that with people I work with because they're already doing all that. But I totally agree.

You know,  there's really cool data for high dose melatonin for a lot of different issues. I've utilized 50, 100 milligrams of melatonin daily for long COVID, antioxidant effects. But taking a 10 milligram gummy for melatonin and being like, what the heck? I didn't sleep great. Like. A lot of other issues.

Again, the adrenaline, the histamine, all these other things on top of the lifestyle factors. Oh, so good. And I love that you're kind of going through some of these very common blanket ideas of the impacts of certain really well known drugs. Like on the caffeine piece, I had done QEG  brain mapping with peak brain.

And when looking at my brain of you know, kind of normal day to day. And then a caffeinated version. I got readouts that I have this paradoxical effect and go almost ADHD when having caffeine. And so I share that just as another angle at exactly what you're pointing to that. We might just be like living in a reality, a constructed reality where we think that, well, this is the effect you're going to get with this type of really well known drug that you might be interacting with every single day in some way, shape, or form, and it might be yielding some undesirable results.

But having that language that you're sharing and this kind of. blueprint for us to go through can help demystify a lot of this. So really, really good. And I'm wondering too, well, before we get into how you're managing your own sleep, is there anything else that we want to make sure we underscore when we're thinking about sleep from this unique lens that you bring in?

Yeah, you know, I do think that again, high sulfur foods are a big factor for that. The main ones I see give people issues, garlic, onions, eggs, cruciferous vegetables. So a lot of healthy things. They have literally had clients that don't sleep well, they wake up with brain fog.  They have, you know, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and I don't know, arugula, all high sulfur for dinner each night.

They end up switching to like, I don't know, pumpkin or bell peppers or, um. Or like eggplant, they switch those for lower sulfur things and they sleep noticeably better. They wake up feeling better. Um, there's also, so the sulfur foods will make you release histamine.  Then there's also foods that are just high in histamine themselves.

So tomatoes make your body release histamine. Um, coffee is actually high in histamine. Um, like you ever see that meme? Um, when you have coffee,  It raises your heart rate, but doesn't wake you up. Yes, totally. There's like a meme of like a skeleton sitting there and it's like when your heart's beating. I read that and the caffeine is working.

But it's masked the cognitive benefits because you're spiking your brain with histamine. I have never ever felt good on coffee. I didn't get it. Once I figured out the histamine connection, it makes perfect sense. Totally. Because I'm very sensitive to that histamine bomb. Um, vinegar is very high in histamine.

I was doing apple cider vinegar, you know, gut health, blood sugar regulation with my smoothies in the morning.  I was barely taking any of it. And I would have brain fog at the gym and I looked into it and I stopped taking it. I felt so much better. Um, you know, I gotta be careful if I have like pasta salad with some vinegar in it for dinner,  the same, remember think sulfur to histamine, same pathway, whether we're coming on on step one or step two, it revs me up.

It's excitatory. It may not make me anxious per se, but once you're in tune with your body, you realize, okay, I should not feel 100 percent alert and awake. right now. I already took my evening supplement. It's not adding up. So I think looking into those types of foods, fermented foods also are very high in glutamate.

That's an excitatory neurotransmitter, MSG, monosodium glutamate, from a lot of different takeout foods, Asian cuisines, um, that can really rev up people's brains. I've actually had clients, epileptic clients,  that were seizure free for years. They would go, they went and got Asian cuisine. They asked if there's any MSG in there.

They were told no. Turns out they were lied to and they broke down in a seizure right there after eating food. Now, of course, I'm not saying that that's going to happen if you don't have epilepsy, but again,  these things matter. So if that gave someone with epilepsy an epileptic seizure, I don't think it's a far stretch to say that it'll make someone that's sensitive to glutamate, which we can tell through genetic testing, if that could rev up their brain so they're restless that night.

Right, right, exactly. It's all about patterns. It's all about patterns. And these are all things you guys can try. On your own, you know, molybdenum is a supplement that helps your body break down sulfur. People could try that in the evening. You can get things called DAO enzymes that help your gut break down histamine.

I tell people to experiment with these. Some people feel better taking that before bed. If I go out to eat, my wife always has the DAO enzymes and the molybdenum because if I'm stuck eating high histamine, high sulfur, I'm going to be brain fog, lethargic out of it, and it's not worth it. So these are all things you guys can try even without genetic testing and try limiting some of these foods and figure out, Oh, I have a lot of high sulfur foods for dinner.

That's the worst time to be having that. So let me try removing it from dinner first. You don't need to have genetic testing to try these things out, these practical tools. The genetic testing just lets you get crystal clear right away on, oh wow, definitely big sulfur issue here for you. Okay, maybe more minor, maybe be more mindful of that.

So good. I mean, it's so speaks to why one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this topic of sleeping a skill because it can be so frustrating when the mainline approach might be Oh, well, CBT I which the lots of application not to discount that. But if we're not We're stepping over some of these physiological components.

It's almost patronizing to the individual that's really, really struggling. So I so appreciate this nuance. So I'm curious to see what we might learn from you. Now, I know, of course, as you pointed out so well, this is hyper individualized. You tailored your style. sleep routines to your particular genetics and and what you've discovered.

So we're getting that kind of window, but be curious what we might find there. So we ask every person that comes on for questions. The first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now? Yeah, so I do, so I'd say maybe hour, hour and a half before bed. Um, you know, I'm doing, um, magnesium L3 and eight really good type for the brain.

Um, I love glycine really good for the GABA system. Um, some CBD oil. Um, and then if I am taking lithium orotate, one of my favorite supplements, um, that's a really interesting one because it helps you break down adrenaline quicker. Yeah. All these other supplements all the other calming stuff people are used to it's just kind of  You don't lower the excitation, you just put up more inhibition.

So this actually helps bring down the excitation directly, which is very, very unique. Um, and all those things there, I had a higher need for glycine genetically. My endocannabinoid system needs some more support, so I use the CBD for that. Um, magnesium, I just think is a no brainer pretty much across the board for people there.

Um, and then I put on my blue blocker glasses. So I put those things on. I think you got to really focus on unwinding it because if you're someone like me, that's always go, go, go nonstop. I cannot just stop working and go to bed. It'll never happen. Um, so I take those things to try and unwind, calm down, not really be doing much work there.

Um, and then usually, um, I'd say probably.  maybe 20 or so minutes of floor bed. I do that half milligram of sublingual melatonin. Um,  and then, um, yeah, so that's the nightly routine. I don't know if there was more after that. I didn't want to do the whole thing if that's part two. Oh, perfect. Yeah, exactly. So if we get a snapshot of your nightly routine and then we also look at your morning routine on the flip side of that with the argument that how you start your day can impact your sleep.

Yeah, yeah. So I guess I'll back up a second. Also, like I told you, just like my mom, I do the eye covers. I'm very sensitive to light, even with the blackout curtains and something that really helped me a lot was I started using good earplugs, like the waxy ones. You could really like get in there. Not like the cheap.

I mean, well, these are also extremely cheap, but they're like a waxy substance. You could mold to your ears and go in. Um, I got them initially, yeah.  I've been taking them for several, I took them for some reason  and then I just kept using them and that honestly really transformed my sleep over the past several months.

I kind of just left them in each evening and like even that I can still hear some noises outside that wake me up. But that was really a big game changer for me as well, limiting the sound because being a high histamine person, high adrenaline person, I'm going to be a light sleeper.  Um, when I'm out, I can usually stay asleep, but little disturbances can do that.

Um, and regarding the morning routine, um, you know, I wake up, I get out of bed. Um, usually I'm going, cause I work out in the mornings and I got a lot going on. So usually I'm going in the morning right away. And right now in New York, it's super, super cold, really snowy right now. Um, but usually when it's nicer out, um, I go look at the, like eyes closed, like looking at the sun or looking, away from the sun with eyes open, and then I'll close my eyes and look directly at the sun, you know, do that for a few minutes.

Um, first thing I do, um, you know, then I'm getting my smoothie ready, multivitamins, supplements, those things, and my caffeine source, a lot of people ask me, you're so sensitive to caffeine, what do you have? I actually have this Nespresso, instant Nespresso, that I dilute in a lot of cold water. You see, coffee's high in histamine, the roasting process.

is what releases histamine. So, cold brew is technically better, as long as, you know, you're equating caffeine amount there. So, even decaf is high in histamine. So, the caffeine isn't the high histamine part. So, I don't really love the taste of coffee. I just put two little scoops in there. I diluted a lot in cold water, so it's a very low histamine thing for me.

I used to make all crazy pre workouts that would stim you out like crazy. This or that, and that would affect my sleep now between my morning supplements, multivitamin, and then some of that instant espresso. Again, it's diluted in cold water to keep that histamine low. That's what I need to get through the day.

I love that. And so thoughtful and that you've kind of had that trial and error found what works for you and through the understanding of these pathways and kind of the response that you're likely to get. And I love that you're also prioritizing your morning sunlight and Mm-Hmm the movement and all of these things that can be supportive down the road of sleep.

Well 'cause also too, you know, exercise.  releases histamine. Yeah. So when I work with people that have a lot of histamine issues, mental activation syndrome, most of them are like, I can't exercise or I'm going to blackout. So I'm a high histamine person.  I should not be exercising in the evenings because that histamine will be released and wake me up.

Yeah. That's also why, I mean, I just like I like having the exercise done in the morning so I have the whole day. I don't stress about going to the gym. I love exercising. Um, but yeah, that histamine, a lot of supplements that help lower histamine improve exercise performance because it's giving more wiggle room for the histamine in the body.

And how about your thoughts on heat exposure with the histamine consideration? Any call outs there? Yeah. So a lot of like a like sweat rash, like heat stroke. A lot of that can stem from histamine as well. Heat absolutely can cause a histamine release. People with histamine issues tend to be less tolerable of the heat.

You know, they're outside and it's like, Oh, this is unbearable. I'm sure it's kind of hot outside, you know, but other people may be like, like, they're not really getting that, you know, they're not really noticing that, uh, quite as impactfully. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Because, um, you know, one of the things that will often be discussed as another kind of blanket recommendation is heat exposure before bed.

So, you know, hot bath, sauna, warm shower, all those things. And just further adding that level of awareness that if we are dealing with some certain histamine flares or what have you, maybe We could just play with some of the timing of these things or just be aware of possible responses. If I'm hearing you correctly, would you agree with that?

Yep, exactly. You know, I, I have an infrared sauna. I notice that can kind of, if I do that in the morning, anything but the mornings, that can kind of impact my sleep a little bit too. Cause it is a shock.  Infrared sauna, especially so more than just a regular shower. You know what I mean? Um, so that's something I've noticed personally.

Yeah, so good. Okay, and then also visually in your environment, what might we see on your nightstand or proverbial nightstand if you're traveling or on the go? Yeah, I mean, the blue blockers, blue blockers, eye mask, ear plugs, um, kind of a lot of those supplements, you know, definitely the, uh, definitely the melatonin, you know, I, all those things I take, I bring with me everywhere, you know, and a lot of people.

May think it's neurotic or how do you stay disciplined, whatever. But the problem is most people. They get supplement recommendations, whether it's from a guy on Instagram or this or that. It's not actually data driven.  They make these sacrifices with foods, this or that. They change their supplements. They invest in this.

They don't actually feel noticeably better. So why would you stick doing that? It's easy to fall off. But once you get the right things for you, I feel so amazing. Consistently when I'm on this regimen for myself, and it's not like if I skip my supplements for a day, like all the wheels fall off the bus, but at the same point, it's so easy for me.

It's a no brainer for me to take the time to make sure I pack stuff and travel with it because poor sleep completely ruins me. I need at least I need eight hours. I would say at least seven and a half, seven. I can get by. I'm never getting less than seven. If you, if, if you know me personally, I'm always backtracked.

And my wife will ask, you know, what time should I set my alarm? Eight hours from when we're going to bed. That's how it always is. I don't work any other way. And then I have to reverse engineer what time that would be. That's how I work everything because sleep is that. I'm honestly a bitch on wheels if I don't get my sleep and I'm full, full diva mode.

I'll fully admit that, um, it really messes me up. And we only have so many days on our earth in this body. I want to make sure each day is as optimized as it can be. Of course, there'll be bad weeks. There'll be bad months. It's part of life.  Stack the cards in your favor as much as you can and give yourselves, your body, the best fighting chance so you can thrive in life.

Preach. Love it. Couldn't agree more. So good. And given that you've thought deeply, clearly about an optimized life and really value sleep, so far, what would you say has made the biggest change to your sleep game or the management of that, or maybe said another way, biggest aha moment in managing your sleep?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of them have been kind of like incremental things that help, but adding in the glycine really helped me a lot. That's probably been the past  Probably even in the last, less than a year or so, I implemented that. And that was like, okay, like this makes a lot of sense for me. And then the earplugs being like another big, like step up, like the CBD stuff.

I haven't taken that for,  I haven't taken that lately. I haven't like needed that necessarily all the time. The glycine, I really noticed that. And I really liked the glycine because studies on glycine show, not only does it improve sleep, but people actually wake up feeling more rested. After sleep. How many people say they sleep all night, they wake up feeling tired.

So that to me was like, okay, I want to try that. My cells don't absorb that as well. Um, let me add that in. So I would say those two. And then honestly, the blue blocker glasses as well. I know it's not ideal, but yeah. The last thing I usually see is the TV at night. I'm literally sitting there with the blue blockers on and my eyes about to close.

I'm about to pass out because I'm ready for bed. And I have the, the eye mask right on top. And I'm literally like eyes closed, glasses off, eye mask down, ear plugs in, and then off to sleep. So those are the three ones I would say, but it was blue blockers, then the glycine, then the earplugs, kind of order of operations over the past few years.

Quick question on since you've looked so deeply at these different supplements, any brands that you recommend or is that too big of a topic? Yeah, for glycine and amino acid supplements, I like BulkSupplements. com. Okay. Now, it's just really affordable and  when you're talking about, there's a big difference.

Let me put it this way. I think brands matter a lot less for things like synthetically made amino acid supplements. When you're getting herbal extracts that got to be grown in certain types of soil, certain areas of the world, they're getting concentrated. We know plants concentrate heavy metals, you know, so  when I'm using like for the glycine, you know, like the creatine I get.

Uh, if I'll get theanine or taurine, those types of things. I just get the big kilogram bag from bulk supplements. And glycine tastes like sugar, actually, believe it or not. It literally tastes like sugar. So I just, I just scooped that. It tastes amazing. Um, yeah, I mean, I really do like the Pure Encapsulations brand, Seeking Health brand.

Um, and then I'm trying to think.  Yeah, those are big ones I use for some of the more common supplements. Um, yeah, I think that's third party tested and I do like manufacturing the U. S. if possible. Okay, great, great, great. And given our conversation and some, we, we're not even out of the box, we don't even know where the box is.

Given this conversation, How can people work with you because I'm sure now they're hearing certain things that they're not commonly hearing and then they want to potentially get that hyper personalized set of eyes on their genetics and really go in deep with them. How can they follow you and work with you?

Yeah. So at Dr. Tyler pans, they're P a N Z N E R. So there's two ends on each side of the Z there. Um, Instagram is my biggest platform right now. Most active on there, but I'm also on Facebook started the YouTube channel. That's going to be coming in the near future. Oh, great. I'm on Tik TOK as well. But again, I'm going to be doing a big push to kind of really start broadcasting across multiple platforms here.

Sure. And my website, www. drtylerpanzer. com. Um, and yeah, right now I'm doing, uh, You know, one on one, uh, deep dive analysis for people. I mentioned that 12 week course, if you're someone that's a biohacker, you're a real big science enthusiast, or you're, you know, we have PAs in there, we have chemists in there, we have functional medicine practitioners in there.

So anyone that wants to really learn how to do what I do, I lay it all out. That's 12 weeks, that's like the most, that's the Hail Mary thing. Yeah.  And I have a free email list on my website, but you know, working on building more smaller type things, workshops, this or that, just to get this information out there, you know, I love doing what I do in a one on one fashion, but you don't necessarily, you don't need to have the full entire deep dive in order to feel somewhat better, you know, to figure it all out, have it all done for you.

That's the way to go. Um, But again, even the information we shared here will, without a doubt, help improve the sleep of some people because a lot of people eat a lot of a lot of these foods in the evenings, and a lot of people have these mutations, so it could be a factor for them. So good. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your wisdom and knowledge.

You can feel the passion, maybe all the adrenaline and all the fun things that you got. Keep bringing this because this is so important, and I so appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. And real quick too, I know we discussed, so we have a discount code for anyone listening for a hundred dollars off one of the deep dive genetic analyses with me.

So sleep is a skill. So at checkout, sleep is a skill, one word. That'll be a hundred dollars off for any of you guys. Um, so, uh, yeah, thank you so much for having me really hope you guys listening to learn something new. This really is, you know, an entirely new lens. I'm never going to claim genetics are the only way for everything.

Yeah. Just a really good way to get right to the nitty gritty.  Don't waste time and money on, you know, most people I work with have the supplement graveyard. They have 10 grand of supplements in their closet. They don't know what's doing what. They're listening to this influencer, that influencer, eat this, don't eat this, take this, don't take that.

How do you know?  genetics can demystify a great deal of that. So thank you so much for having me. Oh, thank you. And thank you for the work that you're doing. So important.  You've been listening to the sleep as a skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level.

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