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Can an unhealthy gut cause insomnia?

Have you ever experienced one of those nights where your stomach is bothering you so much, you keep running to the bathroom? One of those nights where the pain is enough to wake you up? It’s the worst. But excessive pain and running to the bathroom isn’t the only time your gut affects sleep. Recent research shows that an unhealthy gut can cause insomnia.Can an unhealthy gut cause insomnia

Digestive Cycles

We’ve heard of menstrual cycles and sleep/wake cycles, but did you realize that your digestive system also has a cycle?

The digestive process is much more complex than we realize. There are so many moving parts that it’s hard to imagine that it’s working on autopilot as we go about our day. 

It begins when we smell food and ends after we use the bathroom. But in between and after there are still things happening. 

The whole process takes about 36 hours to complete. The first 6 to 8 hours are just getting the food through your stomach and small intestine. The digestive process looks something like this:

  1. Smell initiates our salivary glands to secrete saliva.
  2. Saliva mixes with the food as we chew it. Enzymes in the saliva help to begin breaking down our food.
  3. Then we swallow it and it travels down to our stomach.
  4. In our stomach, the food is mixed with digestive juices and begins to be broken down. 
    1. At this stage, some of the food has been digested and nutrients extracted. Some of the food will pass along to be removed. 
    2. Others will be passed to the microbiome to be fermented by the gut microbiome. These parts often contain the super beneficial nutrients and byproducts that help our bodies heal themselves (polyphenols, prebiotics, SCFA,  etc.)
  5. After this is complete it will push through and be excreted in a bowel movement. But this isn’t the end.

You’ve heard of the ‘rest and digest’ part of your nervous system. While you are resting your digestive system is still working. After we go to sleep, our digestive system should be able to focus on:

  • Cell proliferation
  • Repairing and reinforcing the intestinal barrier and other structures
  • Motility
  • Immunity-boosting
  • Digestion and absorption of nutrients like carbs, lipids, proteins, and electrolytes

If we eat too close to bedtime it means our digestive system will be working at digesting the food rather than these important tasks. If we get on a continual cycle of eating late it throws off our circadian rhythm which can contribute to insomnia.

Circadian Rhythms

The circadian rhythm, sometimes called your biological clock, is the natural way our bodies know when each thing should happen: sleeping, waking up, eating, hormone release, digestion, etc.

Every tissue and organ in your body contains molecules that maintain this cycle. There is a group of nerve cells that create the “Master Clock” which resides in the hypothalamus of humans. 

When it starts getting darker outside, it signals the master clock to start secreting more melatonin to make you sleepy. 

Many different things can affect your circadian rhythm, including jet lag, depression, obesity and other metabolic conditions, bipolar disorder, seasonal affective disorder, light/electronic devices, gene mutations, or even work shifts. 

Alterations in your circadian rhythm can lead to insomnia.

What is insomnia?

Insomnia is a condition in which someone finds it difficult to fall asleep or to stay asleep. It can be brought about by many things including anxiety, genetic factors, schedule changes, stress, hormones, and many other things. 

Doctors will often conduct sleep studies to confirm if you have insomnia or another sleep-related condition and will treat you from there. Some of the common suggestions to help insomnia include:

  • Get on a good sleep schedule — go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning
  • Keep your room cool, quiet, and electronic-free
  • Exercise daily (in the morning and early afternoon is best) to burn off some of that energy that could be keeping you awake
  • Eat at the same times every day — avoid eating close to bedtime
  • Try not to take naps 
  • Limit caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and other stimulants, especially near bedtime
  • Check with your doctor to see if any of your medications could be disrupting your sleep cycles
  • Manage stress, decrease anxiety, and improve your ability to relax. Try things like massage, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, or hypnotherapy.
  • You can even try medical interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or medications. 

But what happens when you’re doing all of these things (most of the time) and you still can’t sleep? Recent research is suggesting that your gut bacteria could be to blam.

How do gut and sleep cycles affect each other?

Our internal clocks have a lot of moving parts. While the main control panel is in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of our brain, the tissues of our digestive system can override these controls. 

So our brain might be on the right cycle, but our gut could be sending signals that it isn’t quite ready for the resting time. Continual disturbances like this can contribute to insomnia and make it hard to shift back to a healthy rhythm. 

But this isn’t the only way our gut can affect our sleep cycle.

Research shows that people who have insomnia have a different microbial profile than those who do not have insomnia. Ruminococcaceae UCG-002 and Ruminococcaceae UCG-003 have shown a link between insomnia and metabolic syndrome (a known condition of gut disturbance).

Your gut also houses melatonin receptors. The majority of melatonin comes from cells within the intestines. 

These melatonin receptors are what allow the brain and gut to talk to each other. If there is a disruption in this communication, it can affect melatonin levels and how they signal your cells. 

But this works the opposite way, too. If your circadian rhythm is off because of travel, disease, or other changes it confuses your digestive system and its timing. Your digestive tract no longer knows what time of the day it is and doesn’t know which stage of digestion it should be working on.

This leads to a myriad of problems like, gastrointestinal distress, inflammation, and a reduction in your immune system which can lead to disease.

Unfortunately, knowing which happened first can be a difficult thing to figure out. Additionally, it becomes a continual cycle of one affecting the other negatively to create an unhealthy loop. So what can you do to improve insomnia and gut health at the same time?

How to improve gut health for better sleep

First, it’s helpful to know that your insomnia isn’t your fault. A lot of suggestions feel generic and don’t help as much as you’d hope. 

That’s what makes this research so exciting! We finally have another way to tackle insomnia that may have longer-lasting effects to support your health.

So we can do the usual things to support gut health:

But what foods are best for your gut health and help you sleep?

The following is a list of foods with the highest concentrations of melatonin. Eating these foods regularly can help to boost your melatonin levels naturally. 

Melatonin is relatively bioavailable meaning your body can extract and use it directly from food sources. 

The foods with the highest levels of melatonin are:

  • Eggs
  • Fish (especially salmon)
  • Pigmented rices (nonglutinous black rice, red rice, and wheat were much higher than white rice varieties)
  • Barley
  • Oats
  • Wheat
  • Strawberries
  • Cherries
  • Grapes
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Mushrooms
  • Germinated legumes and seeds 
  • Nuts (especially pistachios)
  • Medical herbs such as St. John’s Wort, Huang-qin, Chantui, Gouteng, Diding, Shiya tea-leaf, Feverfew, black pepper among others

Not only can melatonin-rich foods improve your sleep habits and gut health, they can also help you manage stress better. 

A study in mice showed that no matter the type of stress they were under, getting extra melatonin helped them to deal with the stress more effectively. In addition, they didn’t experience the negative side effects of stress that they normally do.  

Other studies have found that taking melatonin supplements doesn’t work as well as including food that is rich in melatonin in your daily diet. So diet will be the best way to support both your gut and sleep. 

Some other ways you can improve your circadian rhythm, gut health, and sleep quality include:

  • Fasting
  • Exercising 30 minutes 3-5 times a week
  • Not eating for several hours before you go to bed
  • Training your body to be on a healthy schedule/routine

Have you tried any of these foods to improve your sleep/insomnia? Let us know what you thought from your experience in the comments below.

Know someone who deals with insomnia? Give this article a share so they can test out this information to hopefully give them a better night’s sleep!

 

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