This may gross you out, but here's the truth: if you're waking up at 3 AM, there's probably something living in your gut that's keeping you awake.


Today, I'm going to tell you exactly which pathogens could be sabotaging your sleep and how to find and fix them so you can finally sleep through the night. 


By the end, you'll know if this is your missing piece and what to do about it.


Schedule a consultation to get started with the Complete Sleep Solution program so you can consistently sleep 7+ hours uninterrupted, naturally and permanently. https://p.bttr.to/3VJwvDs


00:00 Introduction: The Hidden Cause of Your Sleepless Nights

00:28 Meet Martha Lewis: Your Sleep Detective

00:53 Personal Experience: Battling a Parasite

01:40 The Three Main Pathogens Disrupting Your Sleep

02:09 How Pathogens Affect Your Sleep

03:38 The Liver's Role in Sleep Disruption

04:42 Hormonal Imbalances and Sleep

05:23 Neurotransmitters and Gut Health

06:52 Comprehensive Approach to Sleep Solutions

07:25 Deep Dive: Parasites

08:53 Deep Dive: H. Pylori

10:38 Deep Dive: Candida

11:22 Testing and Natural Solutions

13:51 Conclusion: Take Control of Your Sleep


Episode Transcript


[00:00:00] This may gross you out, but here's the truth. If you're waking up at three or 4:00 AM every night, there's probably something living in your gut that's keeping you awake today, I'm going to tell you exactly which pathogens could be sabotaging your sleep and how to find and fix them. So you can finally sleep through the night.


By the end, you'll know if this is your missing piece and what to do about it. This is the Sleep Detective Podcast where you'll 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 six years, and I've helped almost 300 clients bind and fix the imbalances in their bodies so they can consistently sleep seven to nine hours without drugs Now.


I found out that one of the main reasons that I was waking up at three o'clock every night for two years was that I had a parasite and I was shocked because I already was a nutritionist. I [00:01:00] had a certification in gut health. I drank bone broth. I made and ate fermented foods. I took probiotics. I did so many things to help my gut, but that parasite had taken hold and those things weren't enough to get rid of it.


So you can try to do all these things to heal your gut, but if there is a pathogen living there that's damaged your gut. And it is thriving. You have to also address that pathogen. Now, there are three main pathogens I'm going to talk about today. I'm gonna talk about parasites, a bacteria called h pylori and yeast like candida.


And I'll talk about each of these individually in just a few minutes, but for me, I had a parasite. Some of my clients have all three of these, and so that means their gut has been unhealthy for a very long time, and it's totally explaining why they aren't sleeping. So first I wanna talk about how do these pathogens affect sleep and why is it that [00:02:00] they are making us wake up at three and 4:00 AM so consistently.


So it turns out that these creatures are nocturnal, and this is kind of the gross part, but. It is the middle of the night that they are eating. They're excreting 'cause that's what happens when you eat right. And their excrement is toxic to our body. And so it causes a lot of inflammation. And whenever there's inflammation, the body releases cortisol because it is an anti-inflammatory hormone.


But we should not be releasing cortisol in the middle of the night because cortisol gives us energy and makes our mind race. And you know, it's one of our stress hormones, so it's not supposed to be being released at night when we're supposed to be sleeping. And once a body releases cortisol, it takes about an hour to an hour and a half to clear it.


So this is why if you're waking up at three and four and not able to go back to sleep. Like I was until almost 6:00 AM which was when my son, who was a baby who was waking up for [00:03:00] the day, I was not getting enough sleep and neither are you. So that's how they actually affect sleep. And then they also affect.


Other systems in the body that can also lead to sleep issues. So first of all, they put this extra burden on the liver and it's the middle of the night when our liver is supposed to be detoxifying and getting rid of toxins. And when there are more toxins and it can handle. That causes inflammation. The body releases cortisol.


Again, you're going to be awake. So having a pathogen in the gut is like a double whammy because the pathogen's directly causing inflammation and then it's also putting on the, an extra burden on the liver. Then other toxins are also causing inflammation. And then when the liver can't detoxify all of these toxins properly, hormones can build up especially estrogen and lead to something called estrogen dominance, which can cause insomnia.


Other toxins can build up because the liver can't take care of 'em. So the chemicals were [00:04:00] exposed to pesticides and things from food, and so all of those toxins then just. Are also causing inflammation, which is affecting sleep. Now, these pathogens also indirectly lead to hormone imbalances. So when the body is having to make a lot of cortisol to deal with stress and inflammation, it takes those resources away from making sex hormones.


So the body's always gonna prioritize stress and what it sees as survival and inflammation before reproduction. Which is where stress hormones come into play. So it's always gonna focus on making cortisol if it needs to, and not focus as much on the sex hormones. So then those become depleted or out of balance, which can also lead to sleep issues Now.


These pathogens also indirectly affect our neurotransmitters. So it's the good bacteria in our gut that make up to 90% of our neurotransmitters. So things like gaba, serotonin, [00:05:00] dopamine, melatonin, all of these things that help us feel. Good and calm and relaxed and able to sleep. So when a pathogen is taken hold, a lot of times the good bacteria become depleted because one of their jobs is to fight the pathogen.


But if there are too many pathogens, if the balance is wrong, then the good bacteria become depleted. Then they can't make the neurotransmitters that we need for sleep as well. Now when our gut isn't healthy, so these pathogens actually directly damage the gut. They cause inflammation. Even just that low grade inflammation is affecting sleep.


When the gut is damaged, we don't digest food like we're supposed to, and so we become deficient in certain. Nutrients because our bodies aren't breaking down things properly. Our minerals can get outta balance, and those things also affect sleep. So it's not even just the pathogen, it's everything else in the body that is also affecting sleep.


So by the time someone has any sort of symptoms such [00:06:00] as not being able to sleep normally there's more than one system that's outta balance. So there's more to it than just, okay, let's kill the parasite. We need to look at everything that the parasite has affected, and that's what I do in my Complete Sleep Solution Program.


So I use different lab tests and assessments to find everything that's affecting sleep. And then give my clients a plan to get their bodies back in balance so they can sleep normally and be able to sleep through the night instead of waking up at that dreaded three and 4:00 AM. If that's something you're interested in, feel free to book a consultation with me.


You can find that link in the show notes. So let's get into each of these pathogens. So. The first one I wanna talk about are parasites. So you might have heard of Giardia. That's a common parasite that's found in the United States. It's in supposedly almost every body of water in the United States. I had a parasite called blastocystis hominini that, or blasto for [00:07:00] short that I've seen in a few other clients as well.


There are other parasites like end. In Dola Max Nana and into Meia Coli and other lovely creatures. Now, I think that I got my parasite from traveling NEP, Paul and India over 10 years before I found out that I had it. But we can also get them in the United States as well, and we get them from eating contaminated food and water, so they pass through stool.


If water isn't filtered properly, for example, or food is. Prepared with water that isn't filtered properly, then we can get these parasites. Now we're exposed to these things, often likely, and when the gut is healthy, it can fight them off. But if they are able to take hold, then they do and they reproduce and they thrive and they cause a lot of damage.


So. Definitely, this is something that I see not in all my clients. Maybe about 25% of my clients have an actual parasite. [00:08:00] Another bacteria, or another pathogen that I see a lot more commonly is something called h pylori. H pylori is a bacteria that actually lives in the stomach. And what it does, it thrives by raising the pH of the stomach.


We actually want our stomach to be very acidic. That's how it starts breaking down protein. So h pylori makes the stomach more neutral, and then we don't digest protein well. We don't get the amino acids and minerals and other nutrients we need from protein as much as we should. So we become deficient in those things.


And all of these things can affect sleep. So that is something that I see honestly in about 85% of my clients. And there's a lot of debate about h pylori where some doctors and scientists and researchers think that. Because it's estimated that it's in about 50% of the population, that it's just a normal part of our gut at this point, however.[00:09:00] 


I see this in far more than 50% of my clients and my colleagues who, you know, work with all kinds of people with different health issues, also see it at a higher rate than this 50%. Now, h pylori is a number one cause of stomach cancer, which luckily is very rare. It can cause stomach ulcers and. Again, I find it affecting sleep because it is active in the middle of the night and because it is affecting our gut and our digestion.


So this is something that I definitely think is important to address, especially if it's at a high level in my clients. Now, the last pathogen I wanna talk about is something called candida. This is a type of fungus or yeast, and it is a normal part of our gut. But when it's overgrown and takes over, it is very toxic.


It produces this toxin called acetyl aldehyde, and it also goes hand in hand with mold toxins because they are another type of fungus. [00:10:00] When I see this in my clients and I know that they have trouble sleeping and especially they're just awake at three or four for the rest of the night, it's not surprising when I see that they have candida.


So this is definitely something that we want to address as well. So how do we find out what is in the gut? So I use a test called the Gut Zoomer that is looking at hundreds of different things living in the gut, including all of these different pathogens that I've mentioned. And also the good bacteria, and it really looks at overall gut health as a whole as well.


So besides just looking at what's living in the gut, it's showing how well you're digesting food, what's happening with the immune system in the gut, all kinds of things related to the gut and. I just wanna say that if you ask your doctor for a stool test to look for pathogens, it's only gonna look at 10 or less pathogens, so it's probably not going to come up with what [00:11:00] the gut zoomer is when it's looking for dozens of different pathogens.


And a colonoscopy isn't going to show these either. A colonoscopy is looking at the lining of your gut and looking for polyps to see if there's possible colon cancer. They can do a biopsy and look for h pylori. But if they don't get a section of the gut where that h Pylori was, then it can easily be missed.


And so the gut zoomer is looking for the DNA of these pathogens in order to detect them. So the good news is we can address all of these things naturally. Yes, there's an option to take drugs for them myself, and most of my clients prefer to deal with this naturally. So there are ways to do that, and like I said before, there's more to it than just getting rid of the pathogen.


We also need to focus on overall gut health. So if you aren't digesting food properly, we need to support your gut with that. If there's a lot of inflammation in your gut, there are things to help with that. If the [00:12:00] lining of your gut, if those cells have been damaged, we want to rebuild those. If we just try and kill the pathogen and don't focus on gut health.


The next time you're exposed to something, it's just gonna be able to take over again, and you're gonna be right back where you started. So looking at every way that your gut needs support and addressing the pathogen is really key. And I address the pathogens differently depending on what they are. So that's why we need to actually know what's going on with the test.


So I hope that this helps you understand what could be happening and. If you are waking up at three or 4:00 AM I would bet a lot of money that some sort of pathogen is happening, and the gut health is a major reason why that's happening Now, if you want to know how to actually do these tests and find out what's going on and fix everything so that you can sleep well, you wanna watch the next video coming up here.


Call the Three Step Sleep [00:13:00] Fix for adults over 40. All right. Thanks for listening, and I will talk to you next time.

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