How Gut Health Is Connected To Sleep

The human body is an inner-connected system that functions as a whole. It is no surprise that the brain and the gut connection would also be correlated to sleep. With 50 million to 70 million people struggling with sleep disorders, we must understand how the function of our body is connected to our rest. Our gut is responsible for helping release serotonin and melatonin, both of which are the main hormones released for sleep. In this article, I will discuss how your gut can affect your sleep and then give you healthy ways to enhance your gut health to better your sleep.

What are the benefits of sleep?

Sleep has several benefits: better mood, more energy, less stress, and reduced risk of anxiety, heart disease, and diabetes. During sleep, our heart rate slows down, which lowers blood pressure and allows your body to restore lost nutrients during the day. During sleep, your heart and brain get to rest. While your brain rests, it gives it the ability to store and absorb the information you consumed the day before, improving cognitive function and memory. While sleeping, our insulin hormone gets to restore your livers and stored glycogen levels to ensure you wake up with plenty of energy and balanced blood sugar. Sleeping improves decision-making skills, focus, clarity, and more.

Not getting enough sleep puts our body in a state of stress, where cortisol and adrenaline play a huge role in keeping our body functioning. When this happens, we are at risk of having anxiety and high amounts of stress. When we do this day in, and day out, we cause our bodies to metabolically slow down. Putting strain on our heart and brain, slowing down the function of our cognitive ability, and causing plaque buildup around our heart. Not getting enough sleep also slows down our metabolism, causing us to gain weight and causing our blood sugar to get out of balance, possibly leading to diabetes. Just by only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night can cause many physical and mental conditions.

What happens in your Gut During Sleep?

During sleep is when all of the magic happens. When your body goes into parasympathetic mode and starts recovering all of your energy, cellular repair organs, brain, muscles, bones, and gut health. The way it works is your heart rate lowers, which conserves your body's energy and helps the heart recover. When sleeping your brain stores information, like memories, experiences, information you learned and much more. Sleep increases your ability to think, problem solve, creativity, focus, and much more. Sleep helps you regulate emotion through the levels f serotonin that are replenished when you sleep. The better the rest, the better you can control your feelings. The way this works is through the amygdala; by helping this part of your brain recover, it helps it to respond in a more adaptive way. Getting enough sleep also helps with insulin regulation, helping your body break sugar better and regulate your blood sugar levels. It has also been shown that better sleep helps with better eating habits, decreasing sugar cravings. During sleep, your gut produces cytokines that help build your immune system up to help fight infections, sickness, and inflammation. Most of your body's functions each night of sleep come from the gut.

Through the 4 stages of sleep, your body has multiple different functions it has to go through for all of the other areas of your body to be taken care of, which is why you must get 6-8 hours of sleep each night.

What is Serotonin & Melatonin?

Melatonin is a hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness. It helps with the timing of your circadian rhythm, your internal clock. Being exposed to light at night decreases melatonin production, causing sleep disturbance. With the proper display of melatonin, your will improve your sleep quality, emotional regularity, insomnia, and much more.

Serotonin is a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and throughout the body. Serotonin is critical in sleep, mood, digestion, wound healing, blood clotting, and sexual desire. Serotonin is also known as 5-hydroxylamine; it is a monoamine neurotransmitter. It affects everything from our brain to our gut health. If we don't produce enough serotonin, it can cause anxiety, depression, mania, and other mental health conditions. Most of the serotonin found in your body is in your gut (intestines). About 90% of serotonin is in the cells lining your gastrointestinal tract. It has released into your blood circulation and absorbed by platelets. Only about 10% is produced in your brain.

What does it Mean If I Can't Sleep?

When you feel you cannot sleep, many actors that play into it. From hormone imbalance, screen time, stress, temperature in your bedroom, digestion, and much more. First, identify the external circumstances that are holding you back from getting to sleep, what content you are consuming, and whether you are eating dinner too late and stressed about work. If none of those apply, then ask internal questions, such as, " Are you worried about something in the future? Are you feeling depressed or emotionally disconnected? Do you have any pain or discomfort in your body? Are you tense? Asking yourself questions gets you in touch with your body and gives you an opportunity to get to the root cause quicker.

Generally, when you cannot sleep, what is happening inside of your body is melatonin, serotonin, and other essential hormones aren't being released when they should be, causing your body to still think it is awake, confusing your circadian rhythm. When this happens, it can make it hard for your body to get to sleep.

From an emotional standpoint, if you are struggling to get to sleep because of anxiety or stress, it's because you have thoughts or emotions just stirring in your mind that you need to compartmentalize or process with someone. It's best to have a journal next to your bed, and just journaling about what you are feeling can help with relaxing your mind and helping you get to sleep.

Within your gut, if you have too much food or inflammatory food within your stomach, it can slow down the body's ability to break down food and make it harder for your body to secret melatonin to help you get to sleep. That is why it is recommended to not eat 2 hours before bed.

How do I Improve my Gut Health to Improve My Sleep?

When it comes to healing the gut or enhancing it for sleep, there are necessary nutrients that help to promote a healthier sleep cycle and improve the body's ability to recover while sleeping. Please ask your doctor before adding any new supplement or herb to your diet, as they may interact with medication.

Probiotic Bacteria

Our gut is made up of over 100 trillion strains of bacteria. These bacteria help with the production of serotonin, a vital hormone made to enhance your parasympathetic system. The nervous system is used to help your body recover and utilize nutrients in an effective way. Probiotic bacteria can be found in animal-based foods and plant-based foods. The best source of probiotic bacteria is from raw kefir and raw dairy, as they contain our bodies' most natural form of healthy bacteria. These bacteria help to enhance our immune system and build up bacteria that can enhance our digestibility of food. Along with these, eating plentiful amounts of fruits and vegetables contain prebiotic fiber that helps with breaking down certain foods and the nutrient absorption of nutrients.

There are also companies now that make some of the best probiotics on the market. If interested, click here to learn more. Some plant-based probiotics come from fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, tempeh, kimchi, and any other fermented vegetables that contain live bacteria that can be beneficial to your probiotic bacteria

Magnesium

In the world, we are all magnesium deficient; magnesium is an essential mineral that helps with digestion, mood, sleep, recovery, and much more. Making sure you are getting enough magnesium in your system is crucial in enhancing your sleep and overall gut health. Click here for a great product that has all seven forms of magnesium. I do not recommend taking more than 1500 mg a day as that can cause loose stool. Be cautious with how much you take on a daily basis.

Calming herbs & Amino acids

Herbs are a great way to calm you down to get some sleep. Some of the best are ashwagandha, lemon balm, passionflower, valerian root, chamomile, lavender, hops, skull caps, and more are all great at calming your nervous system and setting you up for great sleep. In addition, amino acids are excellent at managing the brain and gut to help your body relax and soothe you into sleep. Amino acids such as L-theanine, GABA, 5-HTP, and L-Tryptophan are the best for calming, and then all amino acids are great in general for recovery. Click here for a great recommendation for amino acids

Fasting

During sleep, our gut has to do a lot of work when helping our body recover, and if it has too much food to digest, it can disrupt sleep. It is great to stop eating 2-3 hours before going to sleep as that gives your body enough time to digest the food and help with the secretion of melatonin. I always recommend going on a short walk after dinner to help get the food digesting.

Deep Breathing & Cold showers

Meditation is a great way to calm you down and get to sleep. Practicing deep nasal breathing helps slow down the heart, calm the nervous system, and help with managing cortisol before sleep. Taking a three-minute cold shower actually helps with the secretion of melatonin as well and is helpful in building your immune system up against the cold, which enhances your immune system.

Takeaway

Overall, the benefits of taking care of your gut and your sleep can drastically improve your health and quality of life. Get better sleep by making it easier for your gut to do its job.