15: How neurotransmitters in your brain affect sleep

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.

My lovely client Sherry wrote, "A couple months into working together, I slept 9 hours last night!!!!!!!. First time in years that I didn't have extreme irritability. Two days prior to my period, I was in a great mood. Thank you."

Thank you, Sheri.

Today I want to talk about neurotransmitters and sleep because you need the right amount of neurotransmitters to feel good and to sleep well. Now, neurotransmitter deficiencies happen when your gut isn't healthy and your brain isn't healthy. And 90% of neurotransmitters are made by the good bacteria in your gut. So if your gut isn't healthy, let's say you have a pathogen in your gut, or your gut wall is damaged, like, which we call leaky gut, or you aren't digesting food well, then your gut won't make the feel good chemicals it needs to be happy, to be in a good mood and to sleep well. All right, so now let's talk about the main neurotransmitters that are relevant to sleep and mood. So the first one is serotonin. This is known as our happy and joyful neurotransmitter, and it actually helps us fall into a deep and restful sleep. Now, signs of serotonin deficiency are depression, especially that lack of enjoyment type of depression.

But even PM's, inner rage, paranoia, and poor sleep all mean that you likely don't have enough serotonin. Serotonin is actually the precursor to melatonin, so we need enough serotonin to produce melatonin so that we can sleep. Now, gaba is another neurotransmitter. It's called the anti anxiety hormone. And this affects sleep as well, because if you're deficient in Gaba, you're going to find it hard to turn off your mind. So it's going to lead to that racing thoughts and anxiety. And so the most common GABA deficiency issues are anxiety, nervousness, and insomnia. So a lot of my clients have anxiety as well as insomnia.

And this can be one of the reasons why dopamine is another important neurotransmitter. This is our pleasure and reward chemical, and it's also responsible for sending messages back and forth between nerve cells. And the main effect of low dopamine is actually lack of motivation, similar to depression. But instead of lack of enjoying things, it's more of just not really feeling motivated to do anything. So if you're feeling this way, this isn't your fault. You could just be lacking dopamine. And I'll tell you how, how to improve the levels of all these neurotransmitters. Now, melatonin is the other hormone, neurotransmitter like compound.

We know this as our sleepy hormone. It definitely regulates our circadian rhythm. It also regulates the release of our other neurotransmitters. So everything in the brain and the body is so connected. There are four important things to consider to keep your brain healthy and to make enough neurotransmitters so that you, again, can feel good and sleep well. And the first isn't surprising, but it's to have a healthy gut. Since the good bacteria in your gut make the majority of neurotransmitters, it's essential to have a healthy gut. So to do this, you want to address any pathogens you might have in your gut, such as parasites or H.

Pylori or candida, because these pathogens kind of take over the good bacteria and they damage the gut wall. I do want to point out that even though the good bacteria are making the neurotransmitters, this doesn't mean that everyone should take a probiotic. Many of my clients have too many bacteria, both good and bad. A probiotic is just adding more fuel to that fire. The reason for everyone's insomnia is not lack of neurotransmitters or lack of good bacteria in the gut. That's why testing is so important, so we know exactly what's going on. We can't just assume that everyone needs a probiotic or everyone doesn't have enough neurotransmitters. There are many different causes of insomnia.

There are many different imbalances in the gut that is going to be different for everyone. It's why testing is essential. Now, the second thing you want to do to encourage healthy levels of neurotransmitters is to lower inflammation in the body and the brain. And your diet is actually the number one factor that causes inflammation in the brain and an inflamed brain cannot have a healthy level of neurotransmitters. And so processed foods, like, you know, with unhealthy oils, with refined sugar and flour, fried foods, genetically modified foods, even foods you're sensitive to, that you might not even know about it if you're eating those things and you aren't supporting your brain with the nutrients it needs. Now, many of my clients eat a pretty healthy diet. They eat organic, they don't eat a lot of processed foods, but many people are sensitive to gluten and dairy, for example, and they don't realize it. And so they're eating these foods that are affecting their blood sugar levels.

They're causing inflammation and stress in the body, and they're damaging the gut and the brain. If you're having trouble sleeping, then one of the first things I always recommend is to go on an anti inflammatory diet. This is going to likely benefit you without even having to do any testing. So that means avoiding gluten, dairy, refined sugar and alcohol are like the big four. If you can start eliminating those things and lower that overall inflammation, give your gut a chance to heal, that can go a really long way to you getting better at being able to sleep well. Now, the third thing you want to do to encourage healthy neurotransmitter levels are to keep your blood sugar levels steady. If your blood sugar is too high or too low, that's actually going to affect your brain. And what happens is if glucose levels in the brain are low, say you have low blood sugar, insulin resistance, or even diabetes, your body isn't going to make enough neurotransmitters to be healthy.

So blood sugar is really important. Now, your brain also needs plenty of oxygen. Now, this probably seems obvious, but we don't think about this, and it's surprisingly common for the brain to lack oxygen. And actually, stress is the number one cause of lack of oxygen. And this happens for two reasons. So, first of all, when you're stressed, you breathe really shallowly instead of deeply. And then secondly, stress keeps the body in that constant state of fight or flight. And when you're in that fight or flight mode, blood and oxygen are going to go to your lungs, heart and limbs and away from your brain.

Anemia is another common cause of lack of oxygen to the brain. And iron deficiency anemia is the most common, although there are other types of anemia, too. But you might be surprised at what can cause you to have iron deficiency anemia. I mean, one of the main causes can be a parasite that actually feeds on iron. This is why iron supplements? People find out they're anemic, they take iron supplements. That actually makes them feel worse, and that's because they start feeding those pathogens even more. So they start thriving, reproducing, multiplying, causing even more inflammation and more gut issues. Gluten intolerance is also going to cause you to not absorb nutrients from food well.

And if you have bacteria in the stomach called H. Pylori, this actually causes low stomach acid. And so then you aren't breaking down protein properly and getting the nutrients that you need from that protein, including iron. So you can see that many different factors affect brain health and gut health. Neurotransmitter deficiencies, food intolerances and allergies, anemia, gut infections, autoimmune disease, joint pain and inflammation, poor digestion, poor diet, smoking and more. All of these things are going to affect the levels of neurotransmitters, which are going to affect sleep. All right, I wish you a good night sleep, and 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. This program has four modules so you can learn about what really causes sleep issues and how to optimize your diet and blood sugar for better sleep. It also has five bonuses, such as how to calm your nervous system, how to exercise for your best sleep, and how to get off sleeping pills. It comes with videos, handouts and checklists so you can start implementing right away.

The cost is normally $37, but for being a listener of this podcast, you can use code SLEEP20 to get $20 off, making it a steal for $17.

Sign up today at https://thesleepdetective.com/sleepessentials/

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