Are you tired of lying awake at night wondering why you can’t sleep? You’re trying to do all the right things, a relaxing bedtime routine, healthy diet, exercise, no caffeine after 2pm. Or these things don’t help so why bother?


The truth is, there are underlying imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake. And your mind and nervous system may also be affecting your sleep.


In this episode I’m going to tell you all of the hidden issues that could be ruining your sleep.


And I’m going to give you access to a checklist where you can get clues to find out which imbalances are affecting you personally, because it’s different for everyone. 


Get access to the checklist here!


Schedule a consultation to get started with the Complete Sleep Solution program so you can consistently sleep 7+ hours uninterrupted, naturally and permanently.


Resources:


00:00 Introduction: Why Can't You Sleep?

01:12 Personal Journey: Overcoming Insomnia

02:11 Hidden Health Issues Affecting Sleep

05:28 Mental Stress and Its Impact on Sleep

07:14 Checklist for Identifying Sleep Issues

09:33 Download the checklist


Episode Transcript


Are you tired of lying awake at night wondering why you can't sleep? You're trying to do all the right things, a relaxing bedtime routine, healthy diet exercise, no caffeine after two, or these things don't help. So why bother? The truth is there are underlying imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake, and your mind and nervous system might also be affecting your sleep.


In this episode, I'm going to tell you all of the hidden issues that could be ruining your sleep and to celebrate the 200th episode of this podcast, which means I've been doing this for almost four years now. I'm going to give you access to a checklist where you can get clues to find out which imbalances are affecting you personally, because it's different for everyone.


This is the Sleep Detective podcast, while you will learn why you can't sleep and how to fix it naturally. I'm Martha Lewis. I've been a functional health and life coach for the past five years, and I've helped over 200 clients find and fix the root causes of their health issues so they can consistently sleep seven to nine hours a night without drugs.


Now, almost nine years ago at this point, when I was dealing with insomnia, I was awake every morning from three to five or 6:00 AM and I remember lying awake at night being so frustrated that I didn't know why I wasn't sleeping. I was doing all the right things.


You know, I looked at online of course, and I was following all the sleep hygiene and I ate a really healthy diet. I exercise, but none of those things were enough to help, and I would try to track my sleep to figure it out and write down all the variables during the day. Let's say every once in a while, I would have one night of really good sleep, and I would try to think of everything I did that day and recreated the next day, and then I wouldn't sleep well the next night.


And none of it made any sense, which was so frustrating. It wasn't until I did functional lab testing and learned about imbalances in the body that affects sleep, that I was finally able to get to the bottom of it, and I found out I had a parasite, which I'd probably had for 13 years. Since traveling in Nepal and India, I had hormone imbalances.


Probably from having a baby at age 39, but I also had heavy metals that I didn't know were there, especially uranium. I had too much copper in my body from taking birth control for over a decade, even though it had been a decade before I had neurotransmitter deficiencies. Because of the parasite. My gut wasn't healthy, and so I developed food sensitivities.


All of those things were affecting my sleep, and so there were many physical, hidden health issues that I didn't even know were there. And this was really surprising for me because I was a healthy person. I've been passionate about nutrition since my early twenties. I got a master's in holistic nutrition in 2008.


I was working for a DO as his nutritionist. I was managing the supplement department of a health food store. My friends knew me as the healthy person. I ate organic food. I worked on Anor Organic Farm. I exercise, I live in Jackson Hole, which is this very healthy and clean environment, and so it didn't make sense that I was the one who developed sleep issues.


And of course my blood work always showed up normal. The doctor, every time I went to the doctor, they said, oh yeah, you're perfectly healthy. So they had no explanation for why I was awake every night in the middle of the night. Now there are many different physical imbalances that affect sleep, and I have done a podcast episode on each of these high cortisol at night inflammation in the body.


And unhealthy gut hormone imbalance, blood sugar issues, liver detox issues, neurotransmitters, and more. There are all these different possibilities and they're different for everyone. So everyone has some combination of these imbalances, but not necessarily all of them. So I will link to each of these topics in the show notes so you can dive deeper into these if you want.


I just want you to know too, that if you've already done some functional lab testing and say you've looked at gut health or adrenal fatigue or hormones, and those things haven't helped, it just means there are other imbalances that haven't been addressed yet, because by the time we have any symptoms such as not sleeping well, that means that multiple systems in the body are out of whack.


So the body has tried to stay in balance for as long as it can, but eventually the scales get tipped enough to where one system in the body that's outta whack starts affecting another system and then another system, and eventually it manifests in symptoms such as sleep issues for some of us. And so I just want you to know that even if you've tried going down this route, if you haven't gotten better, it just means that something has been missed and we can find out what that is.


Now there are also mental stressors that can affect sleep too. Mental stress from trauma or say worries about money or being in a relationship that isn't really serving you anymore. Being busy all the time. All of that stress affects the body, and so the gut lining becomes damaged. When we're stressed, our minerals get out of balance or become depleted because we use certain minerals more than others when we're stressed.


And then heavy metals can build up because they do part of the job of minerals. Even though they're toxic for the body, our neurotransmitters become depleted under stress. Our hormones become depleted and get out of balance because of stress. So we also want to address some mental stress and help you deal with stress better while understanding that the mental stress has affect the body as well, so they're connected.


So this means that your mindset in general about sleep, but also about life, is going to affect your sleep. Your mental health. So if you're experiencing anxiety or depression or anger, that's also a sign that your body's outta balance. And your nervous system can get stuck in fight or flight. And many of my clients tell me this, that they just can't relax, especially at night.


They have that wired but tired feeling all day, and even at night when they wanna be sleeping, that is a sign that your nervous system is stuck in stress mode and it can't relax. So of course it's going to be hard to sleep. So there are physical and mental reasons for not being able to sleep, and the fastest way to get better is to look at both of those at the same time.


So what I want to give you today is a checklist I created called the what's Causing Your Sleep Issues checklist. You can access this at the link in the show notes. So look there, and what I have done is I've looked at multiple categories that affect sleep. That I've already mentioned with the symptoms for each of them.


So you can just go through and check off what you're experiencing and these can give you some clues as to which imbalance is affecting your sleep. So the more you check off for each category, the more likely it is that that system in your body is outta balance. So let's say you're looking at is cortisol out of whack?


So yes, if you have belly fat that you can't get rid of, if you have mood issues, if your energy isn't good, if you tend to get low blood sugar, if you tend to have a cold body temperature, if your libido isn't the same as it used to be, those are all signs that your cortisol is out of whack. Now you might notice that you'll see some of the same symptoms in multiple categories, especially fatigue, mood issues, foggy thinking.


These can be signs of hormone imbalance and mineral imbalance and liver detox issues and gut issues. And that's because symptoms don't necessarily tell us what's going on in the body because different imbalances can lead to those same symptoms. That's why I do functional lab testing to find out exactly what's going on in your body.


But this checklist can give you some valuable clues. So if you check off, say, six symptoms of hormone imbalance, then it's pretty likely that that is an issue for you. I also wanna add, I didn't include trouble sleeping in the symptoms free to imbalance, because I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast and downloading this checklist that you have trouble sleeping.


But it is a symptom for each category as well. And. A lot of people don't know that gut health affects sleep and liver detox issues affect sleep and neurotransmitters affect sleep. So you'll be able to make some connections here from this checklist so you can go ahead and download that now. And like I said, the link to that is in the show notes.


Also, feel free to email me and let me know what shows up for you on this checklist. You can email me at support@thesleepdetective.com. I am really excited to share this with everyone and I hope that it helps you see what imbalances might be causing your sleep issues so you know the next steps and you know what needs to be addressed.


All right, everyone, thanks for listening and I will talk to you next week.

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