Sleep is essential for a healthy body, mind, and spirit. The average person gets less than 6 hours of sleep leaving them open to weight gain and many health issues like heart disease and diabetes, and hypothyroidism. Many studies show that night shift workers have worse health when compared to day shift workers, giving us an indication that not just amount of sleep but also when you sleep is important.
Why do we sleep?
The simplest answer is to repair and clean up the system so that you can attack the next day. During sleep, our body sends the most amount of blood flow to the liver because the body is cleaning up the mess you made during the day. You cannot repair tissues without taking the garbage out, think about it this way. If you just let the trash in your house build up over months to years, it causes many unhealthy things to occur in your home. Rats, insects, flies, and all sorts of mold and fungus grow around the area affecting the air you breathe, the water you drink, and your ability to move. The same things happen when you do not take out the body’s garbage; you get sick from infections, toxins, and the inflammation that they bring.
Other things that happen when you sleep are that your body increases testosterone and human growth hormone. The body uses these hormones to repair tissues all over the body. They are at their highest amounts when you sleep and after you lift weights. The United States has a silent epidemic of low testosterone in our population. This leads to poor sleep quality, low energy and drive, and lack of muscle mass.
What causes poor sleep?
Number one: stress. (What I like to call the Black Plague of the 21st Century)
High cortisol levels throughout the day lead to poor sleep at night. When cortisol is high, melatonin is low. You will have a hard time getting to sleep or staying asleep. Cortisol will also cause you to form more glutamate in the body which is excitatory in nature rather than making GABA which helps calm you. The sleep cycle gets thrown off as you stay up later and don’t get to bed at a decent time. As we said above, this leads to poor blood sugar control leading to weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes.
Number two: infections.
Yes, infections can cause poor sleep habits. Your gut is tied directly to your sleep through serotonin which is your happy neurotransmitter. The gut makes 90% of your serotonin which then is made into melatonin. Low serotonin means low melatonin. You cannot make something out of nothing. Infections decrease your ability to make serotonin by stealing the nutrients you eat to keep growing and then releasing an inflammatory chemical called LPS. Having an inflamed gut often leads to poor sleep, anxiety, and hormone imbalances.
Number three: toxins.
When your body can’t take out the garbage, many things suffer inside. Sleep is one of those things. These people can be high in anxiety, low energy, brain fog, sore all over, all of which makes getting to sleep or staying asleep very difficult. If you wake up between the hours of 1-3 AM you are often dealing with toxic overload. This is the time that your liver is most active trying to clean up the garbage.
Number four: hormone imbalances (Specifically insulin and estrogen)
When you have high and lows in blood sugar levels your body will have a hard time staying asleep. When you hit the low on the rollercoaster of blood sugar your body will wake you up as it wants you to get moving or eat something. Low blood sugar will also cause anxiety which raises your cortisol level stopping melatonin production. Estrogen overload in both men and women will block testosterone which is needed for repair during sleep. Many people with high estrogen levels have anxiety issues and poor gut health.
How do we get a good night’s sleep?
First start with the bedroom environment. No electronics, keeping the temperature at 65 degrees, and trying to get it as dark as possible. Next pick a time that you get to bed each night and make it consistent. Wake each day at the same time as well. This sets the tone for your body. Other suggestions to do are journaling before bed to get any thoughts out of your head, no electronics an hour before bed, and using amber colored sunglasses at night to block blue lights is also good for preparing your body for sleep.
I also suggest you clean up the garbage that is piling up inside your body. A detoxification program is essential for good health these days, you can’t be a clean fish in a dirty bowl. This allows the body to produce the hormones and neurotransmitters needed for sleep and repair. It improves the health of the gut and reduces inflammation.
Lastly, a stress detox is very helpful in getting your sleep cycle back to where it should be. I like to use melatonin or L-theanine for this. It has worked wonders for many of my patients who have struggled for years to get to sleep or stay asleep.
Sleep is vital to being healthy, happy, and loving life.
-Dr. Brian Opp, D.C.