Are you struggling to get restful sleep?
Do you have trouble falling asleep?
Are you waking up in the night and languishing there for hours?
Or just generally frustrated because your ‘8 hours’ isn't cutting it?
Incredible sleep
Sleep is one of the best tools we have to improve our health (yes, really). Getting enough sleep improves your body’s resilience to stress, whether that’s emotional, environmental, physical, or from diet. It positively impacts every single physiological process.
There are many critical processes that can only happen when you are asleep, and some that happen better when you are asleep, which is why we’ve adapted to absolutely require it. Simply put, if it wasn’t essential, we wouldn’t need to sleep. But it is, and we do.
Your brain goes through a nightly detoxification process when you are asleep - quite literally washing away the waste accumulated from yesterday. Additionally, tissue growth and repair (hair, nails, and gut lining alike) have an opportunity to take precedence.
Finally, your immune system is most active when you’re sleeping. Research has shown that people who sleep 6 hours or less are 4.2x more likely to catch the common cold than those who get 8 hours (4). Without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a type of protein that targets infection and inflammation, effectively creating an immune response (3). For the benefit of your immune, detox, and GI health, absolutely make sleep a priority.
How much is enough?
A well accepted number from the Sleep Foundation is anywhere from 7-9 hours for normal healthy adults. This is referencing sleep time, not just time in bed! I recommend accounting for an additional hour for the time it takes to get to sleep (ie. spending 8 hours in bed at the very least).
It’s also not sufficient for those who get a lot of physical activity, experience emotional stress, or those with chronic or autoimmune conditions. Your body often requires more repair and clean up time if stressors and demands on it are higher.
For some, insufficient sleep is a matter of priorities, and for others, restorative deep sleep is elusive, even with all of your sleep hygiene ducks in a row! When you feel like you are doing everything right but you are not seeing positive changes, as is true with most things, let’s take a loot at gut health.
Yes, sleep is tightly connected to the health of our GI tract! It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg, good sleep promotes tissue repair, and a happy microbiome; and a healthy gut in turn, promotes good sleep (1). Today I want to talk through the latter.
How does sleep work?
When our eyes perceive that it’s dark, the pineal gland starts to produce melatonin. This prompts us to feel sleepy, and prepare for a restful night’s sleep.
The pineal gland actually converts serotonin into melatonin. Healthy levels of serotonin are important as a precursor for adequate melatonin production at bedtime. Serotonin is better known for its role in mood regulation. It has a number of important jobs including mood-regulation, emotional stability, self-confidence, pain and appetite regulation, and of course, sleep and the circadian rhythm.
Not only can low serotonin make you feel anxious, tearful, irritable, and experience chronic pain, sugar and alcohol cravings, but you likely aren’t getting deep restorative sleep either. This is maybe another reason why anxious, worried and ruminating-type individuals are more susceptible to sleep disturbances.
How do you make more serotonin?
Your body can more efficiently and effectively produce healthy levels of serotonin if it has 1. the supplies, and 2. the tools it needs.
Supplies come from a nutrient-dense diet. Compounds and nutrients like L-tryptophan, zinc, B6, vitamin C, and magnesium, convert through a multi-step process into serotonin. A simple yet nutrient-dense meal like chicken thighs, roast sweet potatoes and a hearty green salad can give you all of the micro-nutrient supplies you need for a good night’s sleep.
And the tools are proper digestion, to get the nutrients needed from food or supplements; a low stress environment, to ensure nutrients are shunted towards neurotransmitter production and not stress hormone production; and a healthy (read: diverse and plentiful) microbiome where all the magic happens.
In fact, 90% of your body’s serotonin is produced by a number of bacterial strains in the gastrointestinal tract (1,2). Making sure these bacteria colonies are healthy and have the right nutrients and compounds on hand is key for getting reliable and restorative sleep.
So while they are common, digestive abnormalities like chronic constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating, certainly aren’t normal and are a great signal that gut health is not where it should be.
Your quality of sleep, as well as mental and emotional health, might be suffering as a result.
Remember, requirements for healthy production of serotonin and ultimately better sleep:
Tons of nutrients in your diet (especially quality proteins, vitamins, minerals)
Healthy (and regular!) digestive function. Sometimes this means working with a practitioner to evaluate what might be driving imbalances in the gut and blocking you from proper function.
Stress management, and plenty of stress relieving activities throughout the day! Prioritize time for REST, just like you find time for work, errands & chores.
A robust microbiome: quality probiotic and raw fermented foods to increase diversity and strength of the beneficial bacteria, and lots of vegetables to feed them.
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Sources:
Li, Y., Hao, Y., Fan, F., & Zhang, B. (2018). The Role of Microbiome in Insomnia, Circadian Disturbance and Depression. Frontiers in psychiatry, 9, 669. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00669
Strandwitz P. (2018). Neurotransmitter modulation by the gut microbiota. Brain research, 1693(Pt B), 128–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2018.03.015
“How Sleep Affects Your Immunity”. Sleep Foundation, OneCare Media. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/how-sleep-affects-your-immunity
Brues, Michael. “Why a Regular Sleep Schedule Matters to Your Health”. March 21, 2020 https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/03/21/why-a-regular-sleep-schedule-matters-to-your-health/?cn-reloaded=1