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Most people who can't sleep have already tried the obvious things ā€” the bedtime routine, the screen cutoff, the magnesium gummies. This episode is about what comes next.


Peter is a 78-year-old scientist who spent a decade on Ambien, saw multiple sleep specialists, and was on a CPAP for years. None of it solved his sleep. When we ran functional lab tests, we found two things no doctor had ever looked for, and addressing them changed everything.


In this episode I walk through five unconventional things that actually move the needle on sleep: the underlying body systems most people have never been told to look at.


If you've tried everything and you're still not sleeping, this is where I'd have you start.


00:00 Why You Still Canā€™t Sleep

00:52 Peterā€™s Insomnia Story

02:08 Fix 1 Balance Blood Sugar

04:41 CGM and Hidden Resistance

06:22 Fix 2 Anti Inflammatory Eating

08:02 Fix 3 Support Adrenals

10:29 Fix 4 Liver Detox Support

13:28 Fix 5 Calm Nervous System

15:01 Free Guide and Resources

15:23 Peterā€™s Results and Wrap Up


Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] You've tried sleep hygiene, maybe even medication, and you still can't sleep. This is why. The things that are disrupting your sleep aren't the things anyone talks about. Not your doctor, not articles about sleep, not the wellness influencers, not even ChatGPT.


I'm Martha Lewis, a functional sleep practitioner for seven years. I've worked with hundreds of people who have already tried everything and still couldn't sleep. And what I find consistently is that the real causes are things nobody has ever told them to look at. Today, I'm going to walk you through five things you can start addressing on your own right now that you probably don't even realize are affecting your sleep.


These aren't the usual tips you hear everywhere else. If you tried everything and you're still not sleeping, this is where you can start today.


First, I want to tell you about my client, Peter, who was seventy-eight years old when we were working together. He's a [00:01:00] scientist, so he was very into wanting data. He had had lifelong sleep issues, waking every ninety minutes to use the bathroom and not being able to go back to sleep. He had been on Ambien for a decade by the time we started working together, and he did not want to be dependent on a drug.


He had seen sleep specialists, multiple sleep labs. He had already been on the CPAP for over ten years, but nothing was solving his actual insomnia.


He also tried two different drugs in the morning just to feel alert because the sleeping pills, the Ambien, made him feel so groggy and sedated. He still wasn't right, and he didn't want to have to be on a drug to go to sleep and then a drug to wake up in the morning. So he really came to me looking for a non-drug solution.


And when I ran the functional lab test, I found things that his doctor didn't find. [00:02:00] So I want to tell you what they were and would fixing them actually work after a decade of nothing really working.


The first thing you can start doing today to help your sleep is to work on balancing your blood sugar. When our blood sugar is drastically up and down, let's say we start our day with a cup of coffee and a pastry, and blood sugar spikes really high, and then it crashes really low, and then you feel exhausted and tired, and your body craves quick carbohydrates and caffeine and sugar to get blood sugar back in balance again, and then you're on this extreme roller coaster.


I've even found that many of my clients having a smoothie for breakfast is spiking their blood sugar too much.


So when that spike and crash are happening all day, that's gonna continue into the night. And we want our blood sugar to be pretty stable overnight. Whenever it drops too low, the body releases cortisol because [00:03:00] cortisol puts glucose back into the cells and literally raises blood sugar again.


But when the body's releasing cortisol in the middle of the night, that's going to wake you up and make it really hard to go back to sleep. This is why stabilizing or balancing blood sugar is so important for sleep.


What I recommend to balance blood sugar is you definitely want to start breakfast with plenty of protein, some fat, and some carbs are fine, but not too many carbs.


And then having all meals balanced in that way, trying not to have snacks, especially snacks that are only carbs, so we don't want like chips or pretzels or even fruit by itself is going to cause this really big blood sugar spike.


And It's also important to note that when you aren't sleeping well, that can also affect blood sugar regulation because that regulation's supposed to be happening when we're asleep. So sometimes my clients are eating a pretty [00:04:00] perfect diet and still having blood sugar issues. And in that case, then I do sometimes recommend a supplement for a few months to help stabilize blood sugar while we're working on their sleep.


Because that blood sugar and sleep can be a vicious cycle where imbalanced blood sugar is affecting sleep, but then sleep is affecting blood sugar balance. And so sometimes we need something to break the cycle, and diet alone isn't always enough. So in that case, I'll recommend a blood sugar support formula or sometimes an inositol supplement that can help to stabilize blood sugar in the short term.


My client Peter realized that he had got into this habit of drinking margaritas during COVID. And so when he started wearing what I call a continuous glucose monitor, which is what I recommend for many of my clients who I suspect have blood sugar issues, then he was able to [00:05:00] see how much that margarita was making his blood sugar spike, and then what was happening during the night where he was still on that roller coaster and it was crashing during the night.


And I also suspected insulin resistance for him because he would get super sleepy after meals. And sure enough, that was later confirmed when he got blood work done to test for not only fasting glucose, but also A1C and insulin. So those three numbers together can show what's going on with blood sugar.


Fasting glucose can be totally normal and insulin meanwhile is creeping up and A1C is creeping up, and you have no idea that there's an issue. But over time it is going to become an issue.


So wearing a continuous glucose monitor can really help you see how what you're eating is affecting your blood sugar, and then you can adjust accordingly.


When I was working with Peter, he had to get a prescription from his doctor for a continuous glucose monitor. [00:06:00] Now they're super easy to get just over the counter. And so I use a company called Lingo, where you can get, a Free Libre three CGM that's pretty inexpensive.


You can get two sensors for $89, and then I have a code as well where you can get 15% off. So I will have those links in the description.


Now, the second thing I highly recommend doing if you aren't sleeping well is to adopt more of an anti-inflammatory diet. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to be perfect, but this is so important because, most sleep issues are caused by stress and inflammation. And inflammation can come from many places.


It can come from pathogens, it can come from toxins and your body not being able to detox properly, but it can also come from our food. And if you think about it, that's something we are exposed to multiple times every single day.


[00:07:00] So eating lots of refined sugar and flour and processed foods, refined oils cause a lot of inflammation.


There are also some foods that tend to be more inflammatory for many people. So gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, corn are some of the big ones. And I don't recommend that all my clients need to stop all of these foods. I like to test first and see and base it on their symptoms.


But eliminating these foods, especially just the refined processed foods, can go a long way in really reducing inflammation in the body.


So Peter found out that he had gluten sensitivity through the testing, and he did further testing and found out that he had the genes for celiac disease. This is why gluten was having such an inflammatory response for him.


And again, that's not true for everyone. But he noticed a dramatic difference once he stopped [00:08:00] eating gluten.


Now, the third thing I highly recommend if you aren't sleeping is to support your adrenals. So your adrenal glands are what make cortisol and other stress hormones and even some of our sex hormones to a small extent.


When the body has been under stress for a long time, the adrenals have to keep making cortisol to deal with that stress and inflammation. And when there's a lot of inflammation at night, which I see from pathogens in the gut, again, from toxins and the liver not detoxing properly, um, and from blood sugar swings, then the body has to release even more cortisol.


And when the body's releasing cortisol at night, of course, that is going to wake us up


Since most of my clients are under stress and, you know, I see it as two general kinds of stress. There's the mental stress that we think of when we think of stress, right? Being busy all the [00:09:00] time, working a lot, you know, juggling a lot of things like work and parenting and social life.


But then there are also stressors in the body that a lot of times you don't even know are there. , You can't always tell that there are toxins that your body's dealing with or that there's a parasite in your gut. You might have that and like me and have no symptoms at all. So your adrenals become stressed over time, and cortisol is high at night, and it's keeping you awake.


So Peter had super high cortisol at night, and this was totally explaining why he was having trouble sleeping.


What I recommend doing about it, I mean, of course, the end goal is to find out what is stressed in your body and address those things. It's also to minimize the mental stress as much as you can while knowing that we can't eliminate everything. You know, we're living in this modern world.


I also tend to recommend [00:10:00] stress support formulas for most of my clients. One of my favorites that I think could benefit anyone is something called Night Time HPA by Gaia Herbs, and this has adaptogenic herbs that help our bodies deal with stress, so ashwagandha, and then it also has relaxing herbs that help us feel calm and relaxed at night. So it is meant to t- be taken at nighttime and help with sleep. And I can link to that supplement in the description as well.


Now, the fourth thing I highly recommend is supporting your liver. I always say that almost all of my clients have trouble detoxing, and this is even true if people aren't drinking alcohol.


We are exposed to so many toxins from our environment, from what we put on our skin to what we're eating and drinking. There are just so many more toxins in the world since the Industrial Revolution than there ever were before. And there can be toxins being produced in our [00:11:00] bodies, especially by gut pathogens, or there could be mycotoxins from mold.


When I do the testing, I can see that most people are having a hard time with methylation, which is part of liver detox or sulfation or glucuronidation. And so pretty much all my clients need this liver support. And Peter was one of those as well.


I recommend different supplements for liver support. It kind of depends on what people have going on. Something I often recommend is called a methyl B complex. So this has folate and methyl B12, which are necessary for methylation. And then it has some milk thistle as well to support liver function.


There's something called liver nutrients that has a lot of different liver support compounds in it. And I also love CellCore's KL support, which stands for kidney [00:12:00] liver support.


But beyond just that, we want to minimize your exposure from toxins, help your body get rid of the toxins. And then there are other things you can do to support your liver as well. And I actually have an entire episode about this that I can link in the description of how the liver disturbs sleep and different things you can do to support your liver.


The liver affects sleep because it is most active at night, especially between 1 and 3 a.m. That's when it's doing its primary job of getting rid of toxins. And when there are more toxins than it can handle, those toxins circulate around causing a lot of inflammation. Again, the body releases cortisol because it's an anti-inflammatory hormone and it's going to wake you up.


This is why working on detox is so important for sleep. Taking a supplement can help.


Also things like taking Epsom salt baths can help kind of pull toxins out and provide your body [00:13:00] with the minerals, especially magnesium that it probably needs.


Also drinking warm water with a fresh squeeze of lemon juice in it first thing in the morning. That really helps stimulate bile production by the liver. And doing things like a sauna, like making sure you're sweating regularly, making sure you're drinking enough water and urinating frequently, making sure you're having at least a bowel movement a day because we get rid of toxins through our pee, poop and sweat.


Now, the last thing I recommend is working on calming your nervous system. Many of my clients who aren't sleeping well have become kind of stuck in that fight or flight, right? And maybe you feel this yourself, where you just feel on all day, and even though you're tired at night, you feel just wired, like your brain and body are not ready to shut down, even though you want to be able to sleep.


When we're just go, go, go all day, and also when we're dealing with toxins and [00:14:00] pathogens in the gut and liver detox issues and blood sugar swings, then your body gets stuck in stress mode. And so it can be really hard to get out of that. But there are different things you can do.


You know, this is why just breathwork and meditation and things like that are recommended. Even five minutes of breathwork in the, in mid-afternoon can help get your body into that rest and relax mode instead of stress mode, and that can actually help you sleep better at night.


Of course, taking time to wind down before bed, this is super important as well.


There are some programs that I recommend for my clients, especially if they have a history of trauma, to help get their nervous system out of fight or flight.


There's something called Primal Trust that is really wonderful, or The Work Out, Witch is kind of passive stretches and exercises you can do to help release trauma from your body. And again, I will link to those in the description as [00:15:00] well.


I also created a free guide to go with this episode. It's called Five Unconventional Sleep Fixes Nobody Tells You About, and it gives you everything that I covered today in a format that you can actually use. So each fix is laid out clearly so you know what to do and why it matters for your sleep. You can grab it for free at the link in the description.


Back to my client, Peter. By the time we finished working together, he was off both medications completely, both Ambien and the drug to wake him up in the morning.


He was sleeping mostly through the night. He would wake up and have to go to the bathroom, but he would be able to get back to sleep again.


He also lost 33 pounds without even trying. So, you know, we're not focusing on weight loss, but when you remove inflammatory foods and lower inflammation and stress in the body, then excess weight just tends to come off without even needing to try.


He also got his [00:16:00] mental clarity back, which was super important for him. That's why he was really motivated to fix his sleep and not be on these drugs. So even though he's 78 and retired, he was still working on the science that he was doing about global warming. So he's super passionate about that and wanted to finish that research while he was still alive.


He was also got back to exercising and hiking two to eight miles a day. He lives in Jackson, Wyoming, where I live, and so that's a super important part of our life here is being able to enjoy the outdoors that is in our backyard. And he said at 78, he's feeling better than he had in years.


And the things that changed everything were ones that his doctor didn't look for. He actually got a letter from his doctor congratulating him on all the progress he's made and how much better his blood work looked, and so he was thrilled about [00:17:00] that as well. And you can hear Peter's story here.

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