There are 3 main reasons why you’re waking up at 3am and having trouble falling back asleep. 


In this episode, you’ll learn:


  • How the blood sugar rollercoaster during the day directly affects your sleep at night
  • The surprising truth about how your liver affects sleep, even if you don’t drink alcohol
  • You might not be alone…there may be a parasite or pathogen in your gut keeping you awake
  • How to find and fix the imbalances in your body so you can sleep well without meds


You won’t want to miss this episode! 


You can consistently sleep 7+ hours uninterrupted, naturally and permanently! Get started by booking a free consultation.


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Episode Transcript


Have you tried everything from natural to pharmaceutical just to get a good night's rest? Join me, Martha Lewis, certified sleep expert and functional health coach. As I unpack what's really keeping you up at night and how to change it, this is the Sleep Detective podcast and I'm going to show you how to sleep well so you can enjoy your life.


Hello everyone and welcome. Today I'm going to talk about why you're waking up at 3:00 AM and how to fix it. So I just did a couple reels about this. I did one about why you're waking up at 3:00 AM that got tens of thousands of views, and then all these comments, well, how do I fix it so I can't explain in one minute on a social media reel, all the things, right, all the reasons and how to fix it. So I wanted to tell you in a longer style format, everything that you need to know about why you're waking up at three in the morning and how to fix it.


So the first reason that I see with my clients has to do with blood sugar. So this might be really surprising, right? But the thing is, whenever blood sugar drops too low, the body releases cortisol because that actually puts glucose or energy back into the cells and raises blood sugar. So if you are on what's called the blood sugar roller coaster all day long where it's really extreme, right? Say you start your day off with too many carbohydrates or a pastry and a sugary coffee, your blood sugar's going to spike really high and then your body's going to release insulin to lower it, then it's going to drop really low and then your body is going to be stressed and want energy and so it's going to release cortisol to raise it again. And so that means you're on that extreme rollercoaster all day and all night.


So that rollercoaster is going to continue into the night. And again, when it drops too low, it's going to wake you up. And it's crazy. I have some of my clients use continuous glucose monitors to measure their blood sugar and we can see these dips at two or three in the morning and it's exactly when they say they're waking up. So it's crazy to see it on the monitor and see that that is what is happening to their blood sugar. So that's one reason why you might be waking up at 3:00 AM every night. Now, the second reason actually has to do with liver detox. So the liver is most active in the middle of the night and that's when it is trying to deal with all the toxins in your body. And when there are more toxins than it can deal with, then those toxins circulate around.


They cause a lot of inflammation. And then the body releases cortisol because cortisol is actually an anti-inflammatory hormone. And so you can get toxins from pesticides and the food you're eating from chemicals in your personal care and cleaning products. If you also have heavy metals, if you have mold toxins that have built up in your body, definitely alcohol is going to be a toxin as well that your body has to get rid of. But some of my clients are like, I don't drink so I don't have toxins, but unfortunately we're exposed to a lot of toxins all the time and our body can handle a normal amount of those. But when there are too many, then it becomes overburdened. And so that can also be a reason why you're waking up. Now, the third most common reason I see actually has to do with the gut, a pathogen in the gut by a pathogen, I mean a parasite.


I actually had a parasite that was causing my cortisol to be super high in the middle of the night. And I'll tell you why in a minute. But not all of our clients have a parasite. There can be other pathogens such as bad bacterial overgrowth. H pylori is the kind of bacteria that lives in the stomach that I see in 85 to 90% of my clients. And candida is a type of yeast. So the reason why these pathogens affect sleep is because they are nocturnal. So they are most active in the middle of the night, especially around three and 4:00 AM. So what they're doing when they're active is they're eating and then they're excreting and therefore releasing a lot of toxins. Those toxins cause a lot of inflammation. They also put an extra burden on the liver. Again, then your body's going to release cortisol because of that inflammation.


But cortisol wakes us up, it gives us energy, it makes our mind race. It's our stress hormone. So we want that to be low in the middle of the night. But if you have a pathogen that's causing all this inflammation, cortisol is going to be high in the middle of the night. So those are the top three reasons why you're waking up at 3:00 AM. So how to fix it is you actually need to find what those reasons are for you. So you need to find why you're waking up at 3:00 AM and then fix those things. And this is what I can help you with in my programs, especially the Insomnia Insight Program. I, first of all screen for blood sugar issues and then I have an entire module in the program about how to balance your blood sugar, how to measure blood sugar, first of all to see if it's an issue for you, what symptoms might indicate as an issue for you, and then how to balance it so that your blood sugar levels stay more steady.


They're going to go up and down as you eat during the day, but they shouldn't be going up extremely on that crazy rollercoaster. So that's something that I assess for liver detox issues. Almost all my clients need liver support and I screen for that in the assessments. The Dutch tests that I use that looks at hormones actually shows how those hormones are being broken down by the liver. So then I can see how different parts of liver detox are working, including methylation, sulfation and more. And the GI map that I use for gut health also has a marker for liver function for a process called glucoronidation. So there are multiple ways that the liver detoxes and they all need different nutrients. So when we know which phase or which part your liver needs, then we can support it with the right nutrients. And then one of the tests I also do in the Insomnia Insight Program is a GI map.


So this is a stool test that is looking at gut health. So it's going to show what's living in your gut. It's looking for multiple different parasites for those bad bacteria, for h pylori, for candida, for lots of different pathogens. And then there's actually more to it than just killing off a parasite, for example. It's really supporting overall gut health so that when you're exposed to pathogens in the future, they aren't able to take hold and damage your gut. So the test also looks at how well you're digesting food, how strong your immune system is in your gut, and 80% of our immune system in the body is actually in the gut and how much inflammation is in the gut. It has a marker for gluten sensitivity. And so I can tell from all of those things that it's looking at if you have leaky gut, which means that the lining of your gut has become damaged.


So it's really looking at overall gut health, and I help you support that as well. So you can find out, okay, is it blood sugar, is it liver detox, is it pathogens? Is it two of those or all three of those, which it can be. And so that's a way to be able to sleep through the night and to not wake up at three in the morning is to find which imbalances they are for you and fix those things. And I also want to tell you a quick story about one of our clients in the Insomnia Insight Program named Jane. So I love it. She messes me that she slept seven and a half hours straight for the first time in years. Now Jane is a mom with a toddler and she had been struggling with sleep for 13 years, starting in college. So all of her adult life, she wasn't able to fall asleep when she wanted, and she was waking up way earlier than she wanted to.


She also had low energy, high stress, brain fog and mood swings, and she had been seen a naturopath and had also tried different sleep supplements, everything from CB, D, different herbal supplements, melatonin and magnesium. But nothing had helped. And she really wants to sleep better because her lack of energy and drive keeps her from living the life that she wants to live. And so we ran the test. Her test results showed many imbalances, which explained her trouble sleeping. So she had blood sugar issues, she had high cortisol at night. She had poor methylation and liver detox, so we needed to work on that. She had a parasite and poor digestion and possible mold toxicity. So all of the things she had, all of the things that I just talked about. And before we even got these results though, I recommended supplements to support liver detox so her body could start getting rid of possible mold toxins.


And so I could tell from her assessment that she needed support in this so I could tell her right away within a week of signing up to get started on some things, she also changed her diet and worked on balancing blood sugar and she started sleeping better right away. So I've recommended supplements to support all the imbalances. Once she got the test results back, she's already sleeping better and has more energy during the day before we've even gotten a chance to address the parasite and mold. So she's only been in the program for two months and she just wrote it is so much more easier for me to wind down and fall asleep these days. I actually get excited when it's bedtime. Last night I slept seven and a half hours straight, which is unheard of finally feeling like my body is getting the rest.


It so desperately needs. Thank you. So even though there are always multiple causes of sleep issues that are different for each person, the plan to correct them is simple and it can be really fast. So inside the Insomnia Insight Program, I'll find and fix the imbalances in your body that are affecting your sleep and causing you to wake up at 3:00 AM so that you can sleep through the night uninterrupted, wake up feeling rested with energy and in a good mood. So I just want you to know that this is possible. There's a reason why you're waking up and we can fix it. So you can sleep well.

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