When I was asked to be a guest on The Redefining Health Podcast with Victoria Yates, I immediately said yes. 

Victoria is an intuitive eating & body image coach for women, specializing in helping women to stop dieting & love their bodies through learning how to eat intuitively.

On our podcast episode together, we talked about sleep deprivation, cortisol, and hunger, as well as how to stop eating foods you’re sensitive to in an intuitive way, without feeling restricted. 

In this blog post, you’ll get a summary version of our podcast episode together. We’ll start with why you need sleep in the first place!

Why you need sleep


Sleep is essential for survival. It’s as simple as that. But also, sleep is essential for lifting your mood, giving you energy and motivation, and allowing you to live the life you really want. 

When you sleep, your body is performing vital activities that your body needs to be done for basic and optimal health, including:
  • Repairing of every system in your body
  • Memory sorting and filtering, and transfer to long-term storage
  • Detoxification of many systems in your body, like the liver 
  • Regulation of systems, like blood sugar and glucose 

It’s important for all of the systems in your body to be in balance, as often as possible. 

The connection between sleep deprivation and cravings for processed food


When you don’t sleep well, your blood sugar and glucose levels cannot regulate themselves. And in addition to feeling tired during the day, you will feel the desire for quick energy foods (refined sugar and flour and sweetened drinks) to boost your blood sugar levels. 

This happens because when you sleep poorly, it puts stress on your body. Which causes your body to release cortisol and put energy into your cells. This causes your blood sugar levels to spike really high. 

To counteract the blood sugar spike, your body releases insulin to try to lower your blood sugar. This forces your blood sugar levels to be really low and crave the quick energy it gets from refined, processed foods.

Studies have shown that sleep deprivation affects our hunger hormones. It makes us feel hungrier and eat up to 300 calories more per day than we normally would. 

The specific hunger hormones that sleep deprivation effects are:
  1. Ghrelin, which tells you when you’re hungry.
  2. Leptin, which tells you when you’re full. 

If your blood sugar and cortisol levels are up and down a lot throughout the day, they may also be up and down during the night - which will keep you awake at night. 

Getting a good night’s rest will help you with all of this, including getting less fast food cravings throughout your day, and balancing your blood sugar and cortisol levels.

Hidden imbalances in the body that cause sleep issues


There are many things that cause sleep issues. Here are the most common hidden imbalances in the body:

  • Blood sugar imbalances
  • Gut health
  • Hormone imbalances
  • Liver detox issues
  • Mineral imbalances
  • Heavy metals and other toxins
  • Mold toxicity
  • Neurotransmitter imbalances
  • And many more!

I run 4 different functional lab tests on my clients inside The Complete Sleep Solution program, so I can find everything that’s causing their sleep issues. Most people have several imbalances happening inside their bodies at one time. 

How gut health directly affects your overall health and sleep


When your gut isn’t healthy, you are likely to experience sleep issues. One common reason for gut issues are pathogens and parasites. 

Pathogens and parasites are nocturnal creatures. When they are awake inside of you at night, it causes inflammation in your body. And because cortisol is anti-inflammatory, it will be released in the middle of the night to fight inflammation. Cortisol then wakes you up! 

If you are experiencing leaky gut or a damaged gut wall, it will also cause inflammation, and release cortisol in the middle of the night waking you up. 

But not all bacteria in your gut is bad. You need good bacteria in your gut to make neurotransmitters, including serotonin and GABA, which help you feel calm, relaxed and able to sleep.

One of the functional lab tests I run is called the GI Map which will show your gut health and whether or not you’re dealing with a pathogen or parasite. 

I run another functional lab test, which shows your neurotransmitter health. 

Hormone imbalances can cause sleep issues 


Hormone imbalance can have a lot to do with sleep health too, regardless of where you are in pre, peri or menopause. It’s important even if you have a regular cycle. 

Men can have hormone imbalances that affect sleep as well.

I use the DUTCH, another functional lab test, to show your hormone balance. 

Best practices for getting your body back in balance


Test, don’t guess…

That’s what I recommend first and foremost.

But if you can’t test, there are many best practices for getting your body back in balance, including: 
  • Monitoring your blood sugar levels and keeping them as steady as possible throughout the day.
  • Supporting your liver.
  • Minimizing toxins in your environment by eating organic foods, using a high quality water filter, and using more natural personal care and cleaning products .
  • Eating an anti-inflammatory diet.

If you want to test, I can help you. 

You are meant to sleep well! Inside The Complete Sleep Solution program, my team and I use functional lab tests and assessments to find everything in your body that’s causing insomnia. 

Book a free consultation to talk about what’s preventing you from sleeping well, what your ideal sleep situation is, and how The Complete Sleep Solution program will help you fix your insomnia for good.

Find out more at www.thesleepdetective.com

Learn More About Victoria Yates:

Victoria is an intuitive eating & body image coach for women, specializing in helping women to stop dieting & love their bodies through learning how to eat intuitively. She teaches how to have a healthy lifestyle built on the science behind intuitive eating. Victoria believes you don't have to go on a diet to be healthy.