How Your Gut Health is Linked to Sleep
“Trust your gut” isn’t just for making big decisions. The connections between our guts and our overall health has been growing as more research is done about bacteria, probiotics and the importance of macrobiotic organisms that live in our bellies. But what is “gut health” and how does it connect to sleep?
What Is Gut Health?
Gut health is just what it sounds like: It’s about the health of your gastrointestinal tract - otherwise known as our guts. Your gut is full of tiny bacteria that help us break down food, fight infections and impact our ability to digest and pull nutrients from food.
What Is a “Healthy Gut”?
A healthy gut refers to the actual health of the bacteria, immune cells and their ecosystem that exists in your stomach, intestine and even esophagus. A healthy gut doesn’t just affect your bowel movements, gas and bloating. The bacteria in your stomach keeps “bad” bacteria at bay, impacting the health of your body as a whole. An unhealthy balance of good and bad bacteria - meaning that you have more “bad” than “good” can increase the risk of getting Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome or other issues with gut and digestive health.
But gut health doesn’t just impact your intestinal tract. Connections between intestinal health and brain function, sleep patterns and mood have found that a healthy gut plays out in every part of our body.
This is information that is being uncovered more with holistic health research - we are more knowledgeable now than ever about how our systems within our bodies impact each other and play out in our lives from our sleep to mental health to physical health.
How Does Gut Health Impact Your Sleep?
So how does gut health impact sleep?
The connection between gut health and sleep isn’t linear. Gut health can impact sleep but our sleep can also impact our gut health. A diverse and healthy ecosystem of gut bacteria play a part in the production of serotonin and melatonin hormones in our brains. Melatonin is the main sleep hormone that helps us fall asleep and stay asleep.
When we have unhealthy guts, it can impact our sleep hormones and make it hard to sleep. At the same time sleep apnea, insomnia and other sleep disorders can impact the health of our guts.
So, an unhealthy gut can make it hard to sleep, which in turn can harm the bacteria in your gut which makes it even harder for this system to support your sleep. It’s a circle that continues until something changes.
How To Tell If You have a Healthy Gut?
Your bowel movements are the best indication of your gut health. Daily bowel movements that are free of loose stools, constipation or diarrhea are signs of a healthy gut. Other intestinal symptoms such as bloating, gas, abdominal pain etc are signs of gut health challenges.
At the most basic level, a healthy gut is a functioning gut. Pay attention to your body and listen to what it’s telling you.
How Do You Improve your Gut Health?
Diet is a key player in improving your gut health. Eating lots of fresh veggies and fruits, avoiding high sugar or processed foods and adding fermented and bacteria-heavy foods can help promote gut health. Probiotics can help to restore the gut microbiome and ecosystem too.
Some great foods for gut health are yogurt, kefir, almonds, kimchi, sauerkraut, olive oil, almonds and sourdough breads. In general, sticking with healthy foods will help you with a healthy gut.
Gut Health and Sleep
Paying attention to your gut health could help you sleep. It may sound silly that your stomach connects to your brain, but it couldn’t be more true. So trust your gut and listen to what it tells you about your body; Your sleep depends on it.