I recently completed my Masterclass: Solve Your Sleep Mystery, where I laid out the 3 keys you need to be looking at if you aren’t sleeping. I’ll be covering all 3 keys over the course of the next three episodes, starting today with key number 1: The Body.


Imbalances in the body can lead to insomnia.


Maybe you think you are “healthy. But if you are doing all the right healthy things, but you still can’t sleep, it’s a sign there are imbalances in your body that are causing your sleep issues.


A healthy body sleeps well.


I get it. I have cared about my health my whole life. I ate organic. I exercised. I had a low-stress life living as a ski bum in Jackson Hole. I was “healthy” and yet I still developed sleep issues at 39. I had underlying health issues (like copper toxicity and a parasite) that had nothing to do with “taking care of myself.” 


Insomnia is your body’s way of telling you something is off. You should be able to sleep normally.


Here’s what you need to know about the common ways our body is out of balance.


Cortisol: our stress hormone





Cortisol is known to support our fight or flight response when under stress (for example when being chased by a bear).





We see a bear: Cortisol is released.  





What happens next? Cortisol causes glycogen/sugar to be released so you have energy. It will make your mind race so you can think clearly and quickly about what to do. It increases your heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature and decreases pain sensitivity. It takes away resources from systems that are unnecessary if you are about to die, such as digestion, reproduction, and immunity.





Cortisol is also an important hormone which wakes you up in the morning and keeps you alert all day.





Cortisol itself isn’t bad. We want it there when we need it.





But our body doesn’t do a good job of differentiating between everyday stress like traffic and work meetings, physical imbalances such as a parasite, and being chased by a bear.





Cortisol also suppresses melatonin. 





It’s really common to see high cortisol levels at night for people with sleep issues. To solve this problem we need to not just lower cortisol but to figure out why your body is releasing cortisol at night.





Imbalances that cause the body to release cortisol at night:





Gut health.


Gut health is an involved subject, you can hear all about it in Episode 6 of the Insomnia Fix.





Commonly, we find that a pathogen in the gut, such as parasites, H. pylori, and Candida, is actually causing these issues.





These pathogens are nocturnal. It’s the middle of the night when they eat, excrete, and release toxins. Cortisol is anti-inflammatory so your body will release cortisol to combat these pathogens.





Additionally, the good bacteria in our gut are responsible for making 90 percent of our neurotransmitters (serotonin, GABA, melatonin, etc.). We need enough good bacteria in balance with bad bacteria for the healthy production of neurotransmitters.





Liver Congestion


If your body is overloaded with toxins, eventually these toxins back up, and it’s more than the liver can process.





Your liver is also most active in the middle of the night.





If you have a pathogen in your gut, it is releasing toxins in the middle of the night and putting an extra burden on your liver as well.





We use a lab test called The Dutch Test to determine how well your liver is functioning. If the liver isn’t functioning well, it will take intentional liver support to help you sleep.





Food sensitivities


If your gut is unhealthy and the gut wall is damaged your body starts reacting to certain foods, and this can cause your struggles at night.





Often we don’t see the real impact of food sensitivities until we’ve gone 30 days without that food, and when we reintroduce it we can tell the difference. Personally I believed I could eat gluten without a problem until I cut it out of my diet for a month; when I added it back in I felt bloated, tired and had trouble sleeping again.





Imbalances unrelated to cortisol which can hurt your sleep:





Hormone Imbalances


If estrogen or progesterone are low (in both men and women) it can lead to sleep issues.


If estrogen is high it can also lead to sleep issues. This is also often a sign that our liver isn’t functioning well. 





But why are the hormones out of balance? Often hormone issues are a sign of long term stress over time. Cortisol issues can deplete sex hormones over time, so we see this especially as people get older.





So we can’t just supplement hormones, we want to get to the bottom of the cause of this stress.





Mineral imbalance


The focus of looking at minerals is all about balance. Especially balancing our primary minerals of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium. So we can’t just add magnesium, for example. We need to find the proper balance of minerals. Supplementing the wrong one could actually make an imbalance worse.





Heavy metals


A build up of heavy metals: lead, arsenic, cadmium, copper, uranium, etc. is a common cause of insomnia. Heavy metals enter the body in many ways (water, birth control, etc,) and are toxic. 





To solve heavy metal toxicity, it’s important to start with mineral balance. When our body is deficient in certain minerals, it might actually hang onto heavy metals as a replacement. I never suggest a detox of these metals without addressing mineral imbalances.





Mold toxicity


Often people are exposed to mold and our body can’t dispose of it properly, which happens to about 25% of the population. Mold toxicity causes a slew of issues, including insomnia.





Neurotransmitter imbalance


Neurotransmitters are the brain chemicals that keep us functioning well and feeling good. We can test directly for neurotransmitter levels, which we can quickly solve with lifestyle changes and supplementation.








These are the big imbalances I see in my clients, as they are all so interrelated. All of my clients have more than one of these imbalances. It’s crucial to look at the whole picture of the body, and not just one part.





If someone is experiencing hormone imbalance, a parasite, and poor liver function and you only look at the parasite, but don’t support the liver or hormones, sleep can get worse.





We are looking actively for these imbalances through testing at the Complete Sleep Solution, and the only real way to figure out which issues are causing your insomnia, is to look specifically at your own levels and find what is out of whack.