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If you're only sleeping 5-7 hours a night, your body has likely been out of balance for years - even if you consider yourself healthy. The truth is, getting less than 7 hours of sleep isn't just 'your normal' - it's a sign that something fundamental is wrong with your body's systems.

Are you tired of spending thousands on supplements, therapists, and functional medicine doctors, only to still wake up in the middle of the night regardless of how clean your diet is?

Imagine what it would feel like to sleep a full 8 hours every night without waking up. To have the energy, focus, and vitality that comes from truly restorative sleep - not just 'getting by' on 5 or 6 hours.


Today, you’ll discover why you're only sleeping 5-7 hours a night and the hidden imbalances keeping you from restful sleep. I'm also sharing Wes's journey - a client who spent thousands of dollars and many months trying everything to fix his sleep before working with me. By the end of this episode, you'll understand the surprising missing piece that was affecting the quality of his sleep and that transformed his sleep after years of disruption - even though he was fit, ate well, and never suspected this was his issue. This could be the missing piece you've been searching for too.


Resource:

Podcast episode 103: Client Success! From 5 to 8 hours of sleep a night-Wes' story of commitment and perseverance


Episode Transcript


If you're only sleeping five to seven hours a night, your body has likely been outta balance for years. Even if you consider yourself healthy, the truth is getting less than seven hours of sleep isn't just your normal. It's a sign that something is fundamentally wrong with your body's systems. Are you tired of spending thousands on supplements, therapists and functional medicine doctors only to still wake up in the middle of the night regardless of how clean your diet is?


Imagine what it would feel like to sleep a full eight hours every night without waking up to have the energy, focus and vitality that comes from truly restorative sleep, not just getting by on five or six hours. You're listening to the Sleep Detective Podcast, where you will learn why you can't sleep and how to fix it naturally.

I am Martha Lewis. I've been a functional health and life coach for the past six 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 without drugs, even if their sleep has somewhat improved with other programs, but they still aren't sleeping like they want to.


Today you'll discover why you're only sleeping five to seven hours a night, and the hidden imbalances keeping you from restful sleep. I'm also sharing Wes' journey, a client who spent thousands of dollars and many months trying everything to fix his sleep before working with me. By the end of this episode, you'll understand the surprising missing piece that was affecting the quality of his sleep and that transformed his sleep after years of disruption, even though he was fit, ate well and never suspected this was his issue.


This could be the missing piece you've been searching for too. So I want to start by telling you about my amazing client, Wes, who came to me after trying so many different things. So when we initially talked, he was sleeping four to five hours a night and he didn't want to spend $5,000 and for it to take six months.


He wanted to try other things first, so he decided to try things on his own. He gave up alcohol, which is great. He went to a therapist to try and help with the mental part of not sleeping. He did blood work with a functional medicine doctor. He took a home gut health test and he tried lots of different supplements.


So he was really trying to piece this together on his own. To spend as little as possible and his sleep did improve a bit, but he was still only sleeping five to six hours a night and he knew that wasn't enough for him. He was still tired, he wasn't as productive as he wanted to be and so he really wanted to get to seven hours of sleep also 'cause he knew that is what is healthy.


And so he came back to me seven months later and he realized that he had already spent $3,500 and seven months had gone by, and he wasn't that much better. And so he committed to the program and we found the reasons why he wasn't sleeping that had been missed. And so if you're only sleeping five to seven hours a night, it means that your body has been outta balance for years.


And even if your body needs eight and you're only getting seven, then you're not gonna be performing at your best. And I know this was true for me too. You know, the recommended amount of sleep is at least seven hours a night, but my body needs about eight and a half. And so. Even when I was getting six or seven hours, that was not enough for me.


And night after night after night of only getting six or seven hours just left me exhausted and really frustrated and tired. So just so you know, everyone is different in how much sleep they need. So if you're getting seven. But you aren't waking up feeling rested, then that's probably not enough for you.


Some of my clients are only getting five hours of sleep and they know that they only need seven, and so that's great. If you feel great on seven hours of sleep, then that's perfect for you. But no matter what, if you aren't getting the amount that you need, and of course it's not just about the number of hours, but about the quality of your sleep.


So you know, no matter how long you're sleeping, you wanna wake up feeling rested. And so if that's not happening, then it's a sign that your body isn't healthy. And of course, getting five to seven hours is better than someone who isn't sleeping at all. I do work with some clients who go nights in a row without sleeping, or who are only sleeping one to two hours a night, and you know, you're definitely in a better place if you're getting at least five to seven hours of night, but your body's meant to sleep between seven and nine hours.


And so if you're getting less than that, it's because there are imbalances in your body that are keeping you from being able to sleep normally. So to be able to sleep at least seven hours a night are your ideal number of hours. All we need to do is find and fix those imbalances. And of course we also wanna make sure that your mind isn't sabotaging your sleep too.


So I definitely believe in a body and mind approach. But I think what most of you don't know is that not sleeping is a sign that your body isn't totally healthy, that there are hidden underlying health issues that you don't even know are there that are affecting your sleep. So the most common imbalances I see in people who are sleeping five to seven hours a night are high cortisol at night.


So many of my clients, and for myself too. The body's releasing cortisol at night when it should be lowest, and I'm sure you know, cortisol is one of our stress hormones, and what it does is it raises our body temperature and blood pressure and heartbeat. It gives us energy and it makes our mind race because it's meant to help us survive in the moment.


But of course we don't want that to be happening at night when we're trying to sleep. So if you have trouble falling asleep, or if you're like me waking up in the night and awake for a couple of hours, it could be because your body's releasing cortisol. Or if cortisol becomes depleted, then it releases adrenaline instead, which is going to have the same effect.


Another common imbalance I see have to do with sex hormones, and this is true for both women and men. And so when progesterone and estrogen are low, that can cause sleep issues When testosterone is high, that can cause sleep issues. When. There's what's called estrogen dominance, which is when estrogen is higher than progesterone in women or higher than testosterone in men, that's a sign that the liver isn't detoxing it properly.


And so that can also lead to sleep issues. So sex hormones are usually a piece of the puzzle. Now I usually see in 95% of my clients, I also see neurotransmitter deficiencies. So especially serotonin, gaba, and dopamine. All of those are responsible for our mood and motivation and also for sleep. And so sometimes my clients are coming to me and they also are experiencing anxiety, depression, or anger, other times like me, my only symptom of these depleted neurotransmitters was sleep issues. And but it's important to test for those because then we know what's happening there and it's an easy, quick thing to supplement with that can really improve your sleep right away. Another thing I'm assessing for that's really common that we'll talk about with Wes in a minute are blood sugar issues.


Even if blood work is normal and your fasting glucose is in range and your insulin is in range, blood sugar can still be an issue even if you're at a healthy weight and fit. And so I'll talk more about that in just a minute. I'm in almost. I'm gonna say 99% of my clients, I see liver detox issues as well, and this is even if people aren't drinking alcohol.


So we are just exposed to so many different chemicals and toxins, in our lifetime on a daily basis and. If you have infections in the gut or pathogens in the gut, then those things are also releasing a lot of toxins. And so it's really easy for the liver to become overburdened and it's most active at night trying to get rid of all the toxins.


And if there are more than it can handle, then those toxins circulate around. They cause a lot of inflammation. The body releases cortisol to deal with that inflammation because cortisol is also an anti-inflammatory hormone, but then it's gonna make you wake up at night. The tests I do show which parts of liver detox are affected because methylation needs different nutrients than sulfation and glucoronidation, for example.


And so you don't need to know all of those differences. But that helps me pinpoint what supplements are going to help. And then I recommend other things you can do besides just supplements to also support liver detox. Now, in most of my clients, I am usually seeing some sort of pathogen in the gut.


So by that I mean it could be a parasite. H pylori is a bacteria that lives in the stomach that I see in at least 85% of my clients. There can be other bacterial overgrowth and there can be fungal overgrowth such as candida, which is a type of yeast and mycotoxins, which are from mold. So those pathogens are most active in the middle of the night, and that's when they are, releasing all of these toxins that cause a lot of inflammation.


Again, the body releases cortisol to deal with that inflammation and it's going to wake you up. So for me, I had a parasite and my cortisol was higher in the middle of the night than it was any other time of the day, which is the opposite of how it's supposed to be. Another common imbalance I see have to do with minerals.


And so there's more to sleep than just magnesium. It's actually the balance of calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and other minerals that are so important. And when those get out of balance in different ways, they affect sleep. And then there are toxins such as heavy metals. Or mold, like I mentioned, that are causing a lot of inflammation in the body as well.


And so all of my clients have different combinations of some of these imbalances. And even though this might seem like a lot to fix, they're all connected. So this is why I believe in looking at everything at once and getting the big picture, what's going on. And it's also gonna be the fastest way to get better 'cause I talk to a lot of people who have seen someone for gut health or seen someone for hormones or seen someone for adrenal fatigue. But it hasn't all been put together, like every piece of the puzzle and everything that's going on. And so that is what is usually missing. And a lot of times then the other imbalances get missed.


And so let's say. You know, you find out your gut isn't healthy, you find out you have a parasite. You work on your gut well, your gut has caused your hormones to get outta balance, and so we also need to correct the hormones that are outta balance. Your gut has affected your neurotransmitters, and so it's gonna be faster to actually support those neurotransmitters in the short term.


Your gut has affected liver detox. So if you aren't supporting liver detox, it's gonna be hard to get better. Your gut has affected your, how your body is absorbing nutrients, and so that's one way that minerals get held, a balance. So everything is connected and so. Actually addressing a pathogen in the gut will help balance hormones and reduce your liver's burden of toxins, for example.


But the fastest way to get better is to support all of those things at once. So even though your body has been out of whack, likely for years. We can restore balance in just a few months when we address everything at the same time in my programs. Now for Wes, when I did the comprehensive sleep and health investigation for him using the functional lab tests and assessments, I found that he was dealing with h pylori dysbiosis, which is an imbalance of good to bad gut bacteria.


He had high cortisol at night just like I did. He had low serotonin dopamine and his stress hormones have become depleted over time. His minerals were depleted and he had blood sugar issues, and so we helped him adjust his diet. We helped him change his exercise schedule from four 30 in the morning to the afternoon, and that helped him be able to relax more and be able to sleep in.


He took supplements, he worked on stress, so he did everything that we recommended. And after five months in the program, he had definitely improved, but he still wasn't sleeping how he wanted to yet, and he had been really resistant to looking at blood sugar because he already ate well. He was fit. He didn't think that it was an issue, but he didn't want to start testing his blood sugar levels.


But he agreed to change his diet to see if. Working on balancing his blood sugar in that way would help. And so one of the main things he was doing, he was eating a smoothie for breakfast. And even though it had protein powder, even though it had fat and not a lot of sugar. He agreed to try to switch to more protein and did other hacks that we recommended to stabilize his blood sugar, and it turned out that addressing blood sugar was the game changer.


In fact, he. Was on my podcast and I will link to his interview in the show notes where we talked about his journey and his story, and he said the big thing that really made the difference was the dietary changed. I really focus on increasing protein intake and also did some things in terms of the order of food to try to address minimizing glucose spikes, and I think ultimately surprising.


One of my root causes was a blood sugar imbalance. And so he wrote five months into the program after focusing on blood sugar. Another good news update 10 nights in a row, getting back to sleep in bed. After waking between 1230 and two 30. I'm a hundred percent certain I haven't had 10 nights of decent rest in a couple of years.


And so if he didn't have our support in the program, he wouldn't have gotten better. But because we were constantly monitoring his case and making sure we were addressing everything that could be affecting his sleep. We could see what was missing. And so we encouraged him to look at blood sugar and that's what made the difference.


Now, of course, he still needed to address the other imbalances that were affecting the sleep, but in his case, working on balancing blood sugar was the final piece of the puzzle. And so the functional lab test plus the assessments I do, give me all the data I need to see. That explains why your body can't sleep peacefully at least seven hours a night.


And so based on test results, your health history, your habits, your symptoms, I will pinpoint the most important factors and help you fix them as simply as possible so you can stop trying to self-diagnose on Dr. Google and DIYing it or doing it yourself so you can schedule a consultation to get started with my programs.


So you can consistently sleep at least seven hours a night. Without needing medication, and the link to the consultation is in the show notes. This is the first time you'll have personalized insight on everything related to your sleep and health and mindset in one place from a body and mind perspective, so you don't have to spend months waiting to go to multiple specialists, practitioners, and therapists, and trying to follow multiple protocols.


I know how frustrating it is to not be able to sleep. And that's why I want to help you get to the bottom of your sleep issues so you can sleep well and feel amazing. Again, thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you next week.

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