12: Three ways an unhealthy gut causes insomnia

Episode Transcript:

Welcome to the why you can't sleep podcast. If you struggle to sleep and you've tried what seems like everything, you are in the right place. There are imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake, and you're going to learn what they are in this show. Now let's kick off this episode with an inspiring success story from one of my clients who has significantly improved their sleep by correcting the underlying health issues that were causing their insomnia.

Another one of my awesome clients, named David wrote, "I contacted Martha during the fall of 2020, and at that point in time, sleep was a very difficult process in my life. Today, I can proudly say the combination of changes in life events and the results from Martha's help have truly turned my life around. Martha's knowledge on testing and then applying it to the proper supplements is worth its weight in gold."

Thank you so much for those kind words, David.

Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode. I'm excited to talk to you today. And before I get into today's topic, I just want to say something that I have been thinking about a lot lately, and that is that it's really hard to what I call fulfill your life purpose or really find meaning in your life when you aren't sleeping. And I know this is true because I decided to start a business as a pediatric sleep consultant after my son was born. And at the same time, I wasn't sleeping. And I know that most days when I hadn't slept all the night before, I was super tired. I was just getting through each day, right, like I was doing the bare minimum to take care of my son, to go to work, to do a couple things for my business if I felt like it.

But I wasn't really able to focus on that and to be motivated to do all the things I needed to do and to have the clarity and the energy to think of all the things that I wanted to do and really give value to people so that they would be inspired to hire me and get my help. And so I hope many of my clients have something they want to accomplish as well. So I work with all kinds of people, from teachers to entrepreneurs, to stay at home moms to people who are retired. But a lot of them know what they want to be doing with their lives or they are trying to figure out. They know that they want something more, but they're too tired to figure it out. And it's really hard to figure it out and to go toward your dreams when you aren't sleeping. So that's why I'm so passionate about helping people sleep because it's going to make the world a better place when you can pursue your passion, which is likely helping people, helping humanity in some way, because I know that that has been really necessary for me to pursue my passions. All right, so let's get into the topic today, because I'm going to talk about a little bit about gut health, but really how gut health affects everything else that also contributes to insomnia.

So I talked about the gut and brain sleep connection recently and really emphasize the importance or the knowledge that everything in our body is connected. And so you can't have an unhealthy gut for long before it's going to affect other parts of your body, other systems in your body. So I want to explain how those are all connected. Now, I've talked about this before. You're probably aware that an unhealthy gut is a major contributor to insomnia. So you need good bacteria in your gut to make neurotransmitters. Dopamine, serotonin, gaba, melatonin. 90% of these are made in the gut.

And so these are what help us relax and feel good and feel calm and be able to sleep well. So that's one way that the gut is really important for sleep. Another reason how an unhealthy gut can sabotage sleep is if you have pathogens. So I'm talking about parasites, bad bacteria, yeast, like candida. These pathogens are most active in the middle of the night, and they cause a lot of inflammation. And in response to that inflammation, your body releases cortisol, which is an anti inflammatory hormone, which is going to cause your heart to beat faster. It's going to cause your mind to race, and it's going to give you energy, which is going to make it really hard to sleep when that's happening in the middle of the night. And then another way that gut health affects sleep is that if your gut wall is damaged, if you have what's called leaky gut, then that's going to cause all this inflammation in your body, which is also going to sabotage your sleep, because, of course, cortisol.

So those are just some of the ways that gut health affects sleep. And I have a previous podcast episode all about that, if you want to dive into that even more. But I do want to point out that it's not just about gut health. So gut health isn't the only reason why my clients can't sleep. Now. Yes, almost all of my clients have an unhealthy gut in some way or another, some are worse than others. There is a spectrum of gut health, but an unhealthy gut is going to cause other parts of the body to get out of balance as well. And then those imbalances are also going to contribute to insomnia.

So, for example, the gut health affects the liver. So when your gut is damaged, then toxins and undigested food particles get through the gut wall and into the bloodstream. So that's what happens with leaky gut. This puts an extra burden on the liver because your liver has to deal with all of those toxins, and because those toxins circulate around, causing all that inflammation. Now, your liver is also most active at night. And so if there are more toxins than it can handle, those toxins are circulating around, causing inflammation and causing your body to release cortisol, which, as we know, is going to wake you up. Now, gut health is also going to affect our mineral balance. And mineral balances can lead to insomnia, as well as even mental health symptoms like depression and anxiety.

First of all, you know, if your gut isn't healthy, you aren't going to absorb minerals from food or even from supplements very well. And secondly, your adrenal glands need more sodium and potassium, especially to produce cortisol to deal with stress. And then when you're stressed, your body actually burns through magnesium five times faster. So it's common to see these minerals depleted over time from chronic stress, which isn't helpful because it's actually these minerals that would help us deal with stress better, but they become depleted really quickly. Now, your gut health also affects hormones. This is because when your gut isn't healthy, again, you're going to have inflammation from pathogens, from food sensitivities. We start reacting to foods when our gut wall is damaged. And so your body's going to continuously produce cortisol to deal with that inflammation.

But the problem is cortisol and our sex hormones, they're all steroid hormones, so they all use the same resources. But when you're stressed, your body's always going to prioritize making cortisol, and it's going to take those resources away from making your stress hormones, excuse me, your sex hormones. So those sex hormones will become depleted over time. And when estrogen and progesterone are low, it can cause sleep issues. So I see this in a lot of my, especially older clients who have been dealing with stress for longer, that their, all of their hormones or sex hormones have just become depleted over time. And usually cortisol has as well, because at some point, the body doesn't have enough resources to even make enough cortisol to deal with all the stress they're under. I also want to point out that high estrogen and high testosterone can actually become elevated and cause sleep issues when your liver can't break them down properly because it's burdened with too many toxins. So, again, everything's connected, right? The gut, the liver, the hormones, it's all very connected.

Now, your gut is also going to affect blood sugar. So when your gut isn't healthy, your immune system is going to start attacking the foods that you're eating, leading to these food sensitivities. And these food sensitivities actually affect your blood sugar levels. Poor gut health is also going to affect your sensitivity to glucose and insulin, which can lead to weight gain, fat storage, insulin resistance, and insomnia. The bottom line is that an unhealthy gut can cause insomnia, and an unhealthy gut leads to other imbalances in the body that can also cause insomnia. So, to get better, you need to address all the imbalances that are keeping you awake, because if we just look at gut health, but your hormones aren't, are actually out of whack, your minerals are out of whack, your blood sugar isn't regulated very well. We can do everything we can to heal your gut, but the rest of those things aren't gonna get back in balance, or it's gonna take a really long time, and so you're still gonna have insomnia and other symptoms. So, really, we want to address everything at the same time, get your body back in balance to a point where you're able to sleep normally.

It's really just that simple. I know it sounds complicated, but I wanna make it as simple and easy as possible. All right, I will talk to you next time.

Are you ready to take the first step toward figuring out your sleep issues? You want to start with the essentials. So I created the Sleep Essentials program to help you get started improving your sleep. It's based on what I start with for my one on one clients, so it's things that everyone needs to address.

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