You’ve been lied to—fixing your sleep isn’t just about a dark room and no screens before bed.


The reason you aren’t sleeping is because your body is out of whack, even if you live a healthy lifestyle. 


In this episode, I’m going to explain the top 5 hidden health issues that affect sleep that I’ve seen from working with over 200 clients for the past 5 years. And I’ll tell you about my client Samantha who had all 5 of these issues, which is really common.


Resources


00:00 Introduction: The Truth About Sleep Issues

01:15 Meet Samantha: A Case Study

01:49 Hormone Imbalances and Sleep

04:59 Gut Health and Its Impact on Sleep

09:29 The Role of Neurotransmitters

11:14 Mineral Imbalances and Sleep

13:39 Toxins and Their Effects on Sleep

15:43 Conclusion: Overcoming Sleep Issues

17:29 Final Thoughts and Invitation to the Smart Sleeper email series


Episode Transcript


You've been lied to. Fixing your sleep isn't just about a dark room and no screens before bed. The reason you are sleeping is because your body is out of whack, even if you live a healthy lifestyle. In this episode, I'm going to explain the top five hidden health issues that affect sleep that I've seen from working with over 200 clients over the past five years.


And I'll tell you about my client, Samantha, who had all five of these issues, which is really common. My name is Martha Lewis, and I'm a certified functional health coach specializing in finding the root causes of why people just like you can't sleep and have tried what seems like everything you're listening to the sleep detective podcast, where you will finally understand why you can't sleep.


And how to fix it so you can consistently sleep seven or more hours uninterrupted naturally. Before I get started, I do have a favor to ask. Please share this podcast with someone you know who is having trouble sleeping. You can text them the link or tell them over lunch. My goal with the show is to reach and help as many people as I can, and I can't reach them without your help.


Thank you in advance. So first I want to tell you about my former client, Samantha. So Samantha was in her mid thirties and had been dealing with sleep issues for about 10 years. She would have times where she would go weeks with little to no sleep. She was eating a paleo diet, intermittent fasting, and she started walking instead of doing intense exercise.


Among the many other things she tried to do to fix her sleep. She would see a functional doctor. Get supplements at temporarily helped her and then find herself dealing with sleep issues again. Months later. She was on this nightmare rollercoaster She even had to take leave from her medical job and miss out on family events because of her sleep issues Luckily, she found this podcast and signed up for the complete sleep solution program and I found the imbalances in her body So the first one I want to tell you about that I see in all of my clients is some sort of hormone imbalance.


So first of all, I mean, sex hormones. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, but especially when. estrogen and progesterone are depleted, or if they're out of balance that can lead directly to sleep issues. So our hormones are like a symphony, right? So when a lot of musical instruments are playing This beautiful music piece, they need to all be playing in the same key and the same, um, the same speed, the same volume, and that's how it sounds beautiful.


So if any one of those is out of whack, let's see the violin is screeching at a really loud noise. That's going to ruin the entire thing. And it's the same with our hormones. So it's more than just, Oh, doing blood work and. Estrogen is fine and progesterone is fine. If one is, um, is greater or lesser than the other, then that's going to lead to issues.


So hormone balance is what is so important. And then the other main hormone I'm looking at is cortisol. So I'm sure you've heard of cortisol is one of our stress hormones. You might even know that that is why you are waking up at night or having a hard time falling asleep because the body's releasing cortisol at night when it shouldn't be.


And so that is also one of the things I look at in the testing that I do is to see what's going on with your cortisol. So blood work. Might show that cortisol is normal, quote unquote, but that's just testing it that second in time. It could be in range that second in time, but what you really need to see is your pattern because cortisol should be lowest in the morning spike to its highest level within two hours of waking up and then gradually go down throughout the day.


So a lot of times I'll see, and this happened to me, is that cortisol is normal in the morning. But it's super high in the middle of the night higher than it's even in the morning. So no wonder you can't sleep when that's happening. So for Samantha, her sex hormones actually looked really imbalanced, but her cortisol during the day was really high.


And so it wasn't necessarily high at night, but it showed that something was really stressing her out during the day for cortisol to spike so high. So hormones is one piece of the puzzle that pretty much applies to everyone, but in very different ways. Now the second common underlying health issue I see has to do with gut health.


And I will say this is true even if you don't have gut issues. Like when I had a parasite, I didn't have any gut issues. My digestion was fine, but it was affecting my sleep and health in other ways. So, you know, a lot of my clients come to me and they do have bloating or gas or constipation or diarrhea, but not everyone does.

And everyone has something to address in the gut. No one's gut is totally healthy. And this makes sense because if you have any symptom, including sleep issues, there's no way your gut is perfectly healthy. Now gut health affects sleep in a few different ways. First of all, if there is a pathogen in the gut, like I mentioned, I had a parasite.


And, or it could be bacterial overgrowth, especially something called H. pylori that I see in 85 percent of my clients that lives in the stomach. There could be candida like yeast or just kind of bad bacterial overgrowth, but all of those pathogens are nocturnal. So it's the middle of the night that they are most active and they're eating.


And excreting, which releases all these toxins, which causes a ton of inflammation. And whenever there's inflammation, the body releases cortisol because it's an anti inflammatory hormone. I feel like we don't really know this about cortisol. And so that cortisol is going to give you energy. It's going to make your mind race.

It's going to keep you awake or wake you up. Almost all my clients have some sort of pathogen happening in the gut that's explaining why they aren't sleeping well. Now, another way the gut affects sleep is if you have something called leaky gut. So this is when the gut wall has become damaged.


And this can be from pathogens. It can be from drugs, prescription drugs or recreational drugs. It can be from stress. Stress directly damages the gut wall. It can be from eating foods you're sensitive to, but when the gut lining is damaged, things that shouldn't get through the gut lining into the bloodstream do.

So toxins and undigested food particles. And so they leak through the gut wall, that's why it's called leaky gut, and get into the bloodstream and cause inflammation. And again, when there's inflammation, your body releases cortisol, which is going to wake you up. So gut health is super important for sleep.


We also need enough good bacteria in our gut to make neurotransmitters. And that's the next thing I want to talk about. But 90% of serotonin, GABA, melatonin are made by the good bacteria in the gut. So if your gut isn't healthy, if you don't have enough of those good bacteria, you're not going to make those neurotransmitters that help you feel calm and relaxed and able to sleep.


And there's more to this too. Like so many people say, well, I'm taking a probiotic for gut health and that's great for most people. Most people probably do need that, but it's not going to be enough if there's also a parasite that's killing those. Good bacteria. And if your gut lining is damaged, a probiotic isn't enough to just transform your gut health.


And sometimes I see so much bacterial overgrowth of bad and good. And so in that case, a probiotic is just adding more fuel to that inflammatory fire. And so that's why I really believe in testing instead of guessing because not everyone should take a probiotic. For some people, it's actually. Going to make things worse instead of better.


So knowing what your body needs, what your gut needs is really key. So for Samantha, she had really low of the good gut bacteria. She didn't have any major pathogens, which like I said is actually unusual, but she showed she wasn't digesting protein well, she had a really high immune response.


So even though no pathogen showed up, something was causing an inflammatory immune response. And so we talked about it being the food she's eating and a possible toxin that I will explain in a little bit. So the third hidden health issue I see with almost all my clients are depleted neurotransmitters.


So again, I talked about those because the good bacteria in the gut are responsible for making them. And so there are lots of different neurotransmitters. GABA and serotonin are the ones I see most related to sleep because GABAs are anti anxiety neurotransmitters. So it helps us feel calm. Serotonin is also a relaxing hormone or neurotransmitter.


Um, and so a lot of people are deficient in these and that can happen when your body's stressed and your body's producing a lot of cortisol. Again, when your gut isn't healthy, there are also those of us, including myself, who are genetically predisposed to being depleted in these neurotransmitters. So this is definitely something that we want to look at.


And I found, I just started using this test a couple of years ago, and I found that when we know that certain neurotransmitters are low, I can recommend supplements to support those. My client sleep improves really quickly because if you're deficient in GABA and you take a GABA supplement, it can really help you calm down and be able to sleep.


Now for Samantha, her GABA was low and the neurotransmitter test also looks at some stress hormones. So epinephrine and norepinephrine, what I grew up calling adrenaline and noradrenaline. Um, but those can become depleted when the body's been stressed for a long time. And so that's just another, piece of the picture that I'm looking for.


So that is what was happening for her. Now the fourth underlying health issue that is so common is our mineral imbalances or full on mineral depletion. And so you've probably heard of taking magnesium to sleep and probably even tried it. And while most people are deficient in magnesium, what's more important is the balance of magnesium and the other minerals.


Especially calcium, sodium, and potassium. So it's like the hormones and the symphony, you know, need to be in balance with each other. It's the same with our minerals. And so minerals get out of balance when the gut isn't healthy and you're not digesting food well and getting the nutrients you need from food.


And also during stress. So when we're stressed, we burn through magnesium. Five times as fast as when we aren't and the adrenal glands really need sodium and potassium to function to make cortisol. So I see a lot of times sodium, potassium are super low and calcium, magnesium are way higher. And so that imbalance can directly lead to sleep issues.


And sometimes I see the opposite where calcium, magnesium are low, sodium, potassium are high. That's a sign of acute stress, and that's also going to affect sleep. So minerals are something that's commonly overlooked, but is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Now, Samantha had what's called the four lows pattern, which is when all four of those primary minerals, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium were all depleted.


So instead of there being this imbalance, they were just all low and all of her minerals pretty much across the board were low. So this is a super depleted state is when the body has been under stress for a long time. And it's burned through those minerals. And so she really needed support with those minerals.


And if this again had been overlooked, it would have been hard for her to get better. If someone had just looked at gut health or just looked at cortisol and skipped looking at the minerals. She likely would not have gotten better and definitely not as quickly as she did. So this is a super important piece of the puzzle.


Now the fifth thing that I see in almost everyone is some sort of toxin. So this could be heavy metals and the hair tissue mineral analysis that looks at mineral status also looks for heavy metals. Another common thing I see is mold toxicity. And so I don't do an immediate test for this, but I do assess for it in the intake forms when someone signs up and I can tell if this is likely an issue based on symptoms.


And sometimes people want to do a test to confirm so we can test for what are called mycotoxins, which are the toxins that mold creates in the body. Um, or we can assume that they have it and we're going to make sure that they aren't living in mold and then deal with the mold or the mycotoxins appropriately.


So, toxins are almost always going on and It's hard to get away from toxins in this day and age. Even if you're drinking from a high quality water filter and you're eating organic foods and all the things, again, you could be living in mold and not even know it. It might not even be visible or you could have been living in it 10 years before.


And Some people, about 25 percent of people have a gene that makes them unable to detoxify mold in the body. So those mycotoxins continue to live and thrive in the body and wreak havoc on many different systems in the body. So looking for toxins is A piece of the puzzle as well that is really critical to look at.


And Samantha had possible mold toxicity and she could correlate it cause she had lived in New York and knew she lived in a place with mold. And that's when her symptoms started. It's not always that clear cut, but it's amazing when it is. And so we. Can know, okay, well this, this timeline makes sense.


So that is definitely something that we need to deal with. So those are the five most common hidden health issues that I see in my clients. And, you know, a lot of my clients I'm working with are healthy. They care about their health. They're eating right, they're exercising. Maybe they're even taking supplements or they're biohacking so it's hard to believe that these things could be going on, right? It was the same for me. Like I've been into nutrition and health for decades. And yet I still got a parasite, which I think I got from traveling in Nepal and India, and that affected my health over time. So even though you're doing all the right things, if you aren't sleeping, it's still a sign that your body's out of whack and something has caused enough stress in your body.


That it is affected different systems and it's led to the symptom of not sleeping and whatever other symptoms you're experiencing as well. So the good news is after working together, Samantha is now sleeping seven to nine hours a night. Most nights. She has more energy and mental clarity than she's had in a long time.


She was even able to go back to school for computer programming by the end of our time together. So she decided to change career paths completely. Uh, to something that she was excited about and was sleeping so well that she could go do that. She also noted that she doesn't feel lonely and detached from her husband and family like she did when she wasn't sleeping.


So you probably know how isolating and lonely it can feel when no one understands what you're going through. And when you're awake in the night for long periods of time, that can feel really lonely. So that was another benefit for her of figuring out her sleep issues. Now, if you want to learn more about why you can't sleep and how to fix it, I invite you to sign up for my smart sleeper email series.


So when you sign up, you'll immediately receive your first email where you'll learn about what really causes sleep issues and you'll know exactly how to find and fix a root causes of your sleep issues so you can sleep well without drugs. Then you'll get regular life changing emails about how to sleep well so you don't have to live with sleep problems any longer.


You can sign up at the link in the show notes. All right, everyone. Thanks for listening and I will talk to you next time.

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