17: How heavy metals ruin 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 client, Todd, who had many heavy metals, which I'm talking about in this episode, wrote, "I am happy to report my fourth consecutive night of only getting up once. Yay."

He had been waking up many times in the night before, so it was so great to work with him.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode. I want to talk about heavy metals because heavy metals could be causing your sleep problems. I want to talk about this because I've seen this recently in a lot of my clients, that their tests are coming back with high levels of mercury and aluminum and lead and arsenic and cadmium and copper, as well as many others. And so I'm just seeing this theme right now where this is really prevalent in a lot of my clients who I'm testing. These metals are not meant to be in our body, and it's because of the industrial revolution that we're exposed to these metals more now than ever before. These are toxic, and so they circulate throughout the body. They cause inflammation and stress that is going to lead to illness and aging and genetic defects, none of which we want right now.

These metals also accumulate in places like the brain, causing neurological issues such as insomnia, anxiety. They accumulate in the liver, which is going to contribute to liver detox issues, which can contribute to you waking up. Because the liver is most active at night. They can also accumulate in the bone, the kidneys, the heart. So kind of different metals accumulate in different places in the body, but they can definitely lead to this waking up at night. And so let's talk about where these heavy metals are coming from, because they're all coming from different places. So mercury can come from dental fillings that have mercury in them. So if you've got dental fillings a while ago that abulgram fillings, then they have mercury.

Large fish you're probably aware of, like tuna, are going to have high amounts of mercury. Aluminum is another common one I'm seeing, and that can be in tap water. It can be from cooking with aluminum pots, which restaurants tend to do, or aluminum foil. It can be drinking from aluminum cans and antiperspirant, which is what most conventional deodorants have, also use aluminum. Now, arsenic is another one. I see this. It can be in tap water, and it's actually really high in brown rice, especially if it's not organic. Cadmium comes from marijuana.

It tends to be in the soil that marijuana plants are grown in. And then uranium is one. I see that. I actually had really elevated levels of a while ago because it can be in tap or well water. And uranium tends to be in mountainous regions. So I'm in the rocky mountains. If you are too, then. Then you might be exposed to that.

And so it's also going to be in root vegetables that are grown in the soil in those climates. And then copper is another one. Now, it's not technically a heavy metal because we do need it, but if you have too much of it, it becomes toxic. And so I see this often in my female clients, but even some of my male clients as well. And so that's because it can come from birth control, but also drinking water from copper pipes, from having a vegetarian diet that tends to be low in zinc, and from swimming pools. Chlorinated swimming pools have copper. And these toxic metals are going to cause mood disorders. They can cause insomnia.

They can cause hypothyroidism and a bunch of other symptoms. They affect our hormone balance. They actually damage the gut. So it's important to address gut infections as well. And H. Pylori is a bacteria that I see in 90% of my clients. So I see it highly correlated with sleep. H. Pylori actually helps protect the body from heavy metals. So it can be really hard to get rid of an H. Pylori infection. If you also have heavy metal toxicity, your body's just going to hold on to that H. Pylori. Now, it's interesting, too, because mineral deficiencies can lead to an increase of heavy metals, because heavy metals can do some of the same jobs as minerals. So, for example, cadmium can do 20% to 30% of the functions of zinc. So if you're deficient in zinc, then your body might hold on to cadmium so that it can do those necessary functions.

But the problem is that cadmium is carcinogenic. It can cause cancer. So you definitely don't want that building up in your body. You want enough zinc to do 100% of its job. Now, I don't recommend any kind of aggressive detox or collation therapy for heavy metals. What I do is I focus on balancing the primary minerals first. And so we look at those with the hair tissue mineral analysis that I do for all my clients. And so we really want to balance calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, usually almost in almost all my clients, those are out of balance, and that's also contributing to their sleep problems.

So we want to work on balancing those first so that the body gets strong enough to release those heavy metals on its own. And then I recommend a supplement to support your body as it gets rid of those heavy metals so they aren't circulating around, causing more symptoms that you don't want. And I also want to make sure that you aren't being exposed to heavy metals, because if your levels of heavy metal show really high on that hair tissue mineral analysis, you likely are dealing with a current exposure. And if they're lower than it could be from past exposure, and your body hasn't been able to get rid of them yet. And so this is just one piece of the puzzle that I look at to uncover why my clients can't sleep. So I run a hair tissue mineral analysis for all my clients because these heavy metals and the mineral imbalances are so common. Now, there are other reasons why you can't sleep, but this is a major one, and it's overlooked by almost all other practitioners. Now, for my client, Todd, this was one of the main factors for him.

He showed really high levels of uranium, mercury, cadmium, and even lower levels of lead and aluminum. So his might have been the worst I've seen as far as heavy metals showing up for him. And it came out that he is a frequent marijuana smoker. So that explains the cadmium. Unfortunately, I have nothing against smoking marijuana or people who want to smoke marijuana, but there are health effects to these things. And he had, he was copper toxic, too, and it turned out he had been drinking water from copper pipes when he would come to visit his home in Jackson, Wyoming. And he had high uranium as well.

Now, he also had other issues, right? He had high cortisol at night. He had gut pathogens. And so, you know, heavy metals weren't the only thing. But if we had just worked on hormones and gut health and overlooked this, he likely wouldn't get any better, because he really needs some support to make sure that he isn't continuing to get exposed to these heavy metals and to help his body, you know, detox from those metals. So if you've done other testing and it hasn't solved your sleep problem, this could be the missing test. Again, you can address gut health and hormone balance and everything else, but if you have heavy metal toxicity, you're not likely to get better, and it's going to be really hard to get a rid of an H. Pylori infection.

Like I talked about, if you have these high heavy metals, 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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