“Even if the connection seems far-fetched, research has shown that the microbial community in your gut is capable of keeping you up at night”
The first time I spoke with Maher, he sounded apprehensive. I was yet another practitioner on a long list of people he had seen to try and resolve his sleep issues, so far without success.
Years of struggling with insomnia had clearly left an impact. Maher was tired and feeling low. Nights were spent in a sort of twilight zone, asleep but never deeply and still remotely aware of what was going on around him. Most mornings he needed a couple of hours to clear the fog in his head and by afternoon he was ready to take nap. As a financial analyst he needed to be sharp and focused and while he had been managing at work, he was worried about functioning optimally without adequate sleep. He used prescription sleep medication from time to time, but he knew he needed a more sustainable solution.
After doing a detailed assessment of Maher’s health history, it became clear that there were underlying imbalances that could be traced back to his core health. Repeated use of strong medication for acne, frequent courses of antibiotics, a history of a stomach infection and the use of proton pump inhibitors, stress at work, and a sub-optimal diet had compromised the health of his gut and gut microbiome. I explained to Maher that even if the connection seemed far-fetched, the microbial community in your gut can literally keep you up at night.
Your gut microbiome consists of over 100 trillions microorganisms that play an essential role in up to 95% of your biological functions. They not only support your digestion, but they also help regulate your immune function, your hormones, metabolism and your sleep. When in balance this inner ecosystem keeps your body humming along happily. But when out of balance, it can play havoc with your health.
To understand how this works with regards to sleep, it is important to look at one of the most crucial components involved in regulating our sleep pattern: the circadian rhythm, also known as your internal body “clock”. This central inner clock is housed in your brain, in an area called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. It guides a network of peripheral clocks that are housed throughout your body in various tissues and organs and together these clocks regulate many biological functions including the sleep-wake cycle. Your circadian rhythm is extremely sensitive to internal and external factors such as light, ambient temperature, and seasonal changes and it is influenced by your genes. And here’s where the gut microbiome comes in: your body’s biological clock works in synergy with your microbial clock and changes in microbiome composition can influence host clock gene expression in our brain (Li et al., 2018).
There are many more ways in which the gut microbiome may impact your sleep: gut bacteria can influence the levels of hormones and neurotransmitters that are required for good quality sleep, such as melatonin, tryptophan, serotonin and GABA. When the gut microbiome is out of balance and when there are potentially pathogenic microorganisms present, toxins released by these microbes can pass to the brain and affect sleep structure. Gut inflammation caused by bacterial dysbiosis can result in brain inflammation (Li et al., 2018). It is clear from the research that a compromised gut microbiome may be keeping you up at night.
In Maher’s case, when we further investigated the state of his gut microbiome with the help of a microbiome mapping test, it became clear that this may have been the missing link in his quest to improve his sleep. And so, restoring his core health was where our work began.
With targeted nutrition, supplement and lifestyle changes Maher worked on rebalancing his gut microbiome, weeding out the bad players and boosting the growth of keystone beneficial species. He implemented key changes in his daily routine to support the circadian rhythm and he started managing his stress levels better. It didn’t take long for him to see improvements in his sleep pattern and to start feeling more energized, focused and productive at work.
Sleep issues are at a record high, especially among high powered people that need their energy and focus. The prevalence of sleep disorders combined with a growing understanding of the importance of sleep has led to an explosion of products that claim to help us sleep better: from sleep tracking devices such as the OURA ring, special blue light blocking glasses, supplements to temperature-controlled mattresses. The size of the global sleep economy was a staggering US$ 432 billion in 2019 and is expected to increase to $US 585 billion in 2024 (Frost & Sullivan, 2020). While many of the sleep gadgets offer wonderful support, when the foundation for good quality sleep is not there, you will not achieve your optimal level of shut eye.
Are you struggling with your sleep, finding it hard to fall asleep at night, waking up frequently in the night, dealing with racing thoughts or do you have a tough time waking up in the morning? Are you frequently experiencing fatigue, fluctuating energy levels, lack of focus or brain fog during the day? Consider investigating what is happening in your gut. It may just be the missing link.
If you feel you need help with this, I would like to invite you to a free Discovery Call so we can discuss your challenges and goals in more detail as well as what a personalised health optimisation approach would look like. You can set that up here.
Be Well.
Monique
