Sleep and Gut health : What is the link ?
Research suggests that your gut health can affect your sleep, and vice versa.
1. LACK OF SLEEP AND GUT HEALTH
Lack of sleep can affect your food choices and, in turn, the microbes Some studies are showing that sleeping for longer than usual on a single night can improve blood sugar control after breakfast, while going to bed later is associated with a worse blood sugar response after eating the next morning. Blood sugar dips like this can lead to increased appetite and eating more processed foods , which can have negative effects on your gut health.
2. LACK OF SLEEP AND GUT MOTILITY
The MMC ( Migrating Motor complex ) is designed to move matter through your digestive tract. ( Pushing food and other particles through the gut, the migrating motor complex keeps you regular and helps to prevent gut infections like SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). It's a crucial component of any healthy digestive .
Although sleep cycles and MMC cycles are independent, it is clear in studies that sleep does modulate gastrointestinal motility.
3. HOW YOUR MICROBES CAN AFFECT THE QUALITY OF YOUR SLEEP
There’s an increasing amount of evidence that the makeup of your gut microbiome is linked to how well you sleep.
· In one study , researchers analyzed samples of the participants’ gut bacteria and then used activity watches to record their sleep behavior over a 30-day period. The study found that increased microbiome diversity correlated with longer sleep times and better sleep efficiency, which is how much of the time the participants spent actually sleeping while they were in bed.
What is happening is we think that 80% of serotonin is produced in the gut and serotonin is a precursor to melatonin which is your sleeping hormone, so if you are not producing enough melatonin due to inflammation in the gut your sleep will be affected
Other research has looked at the relationship between gut bacteria, sleep, and levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is involved in regulating our sleep cycle, and our gut microbiome is a part of the process that controls the amount of serotonin in our body.
The range of “good” and “bad” microbes in your gut has been linked to how well you sleep, and some researchers believe that changing your microbiome can improve your sleep.
We found that total microbiome diversity was positively correlated with increased sleep efficiency and total sleep time,
4 .KEY HABITS TO HELP YOUR SLEEP :
Light is a widely underestimated factor for our health. Sunlight is a driving force without light there would be no plants, animals nor humans.
We humans live according to the circadian rhythm, the day and night rhythm. The issue with modern day living is that most of us live under too little natural light during the day and under too much artificial light at night. The artificial light sources has direct physiological effects. Too much artificial blue light at the wrong time of day promotes cortisol production and impacts the microbiome.
Go outside early in the morning when you get up and do not look at your mobile phone beforehand. Doing this is like aligning your internal clock to the natural rhythm of nature. This will in turn promote the production of healthy levels of cortisol in the morning to wake you up and melatonin- your sleeping hormones in the evening.
During the day take breaks and go outside and expose your skin as much as possible. In the evening avoid looking at your phones and make sure to dim bright light. You could also use some Himalayan salts lamps .
