Healing your gut involves more than just taking probiotics.
100% of my clients have an unhealthy gut that is contributing to their insomnia. Your gut is supposed to make feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotobnin and melatonin that help you relax and sleep. If your gut isn’t healthy, then it can’t make those neurotransmitters. And if your gut isn’t healthy, then there’s a lot of inflammation which causes your body to release cortisol which wakes you up at night.
There are 5 steps to healing the gut. If you leave out one of them, you won’t be able to rebuild your gut so you can sleep well.
1. Remove
This is the most important step and one that is overlooked by many practitioners.
You need to remove anything that is keeping the gut unhealthy. I’m talking about pathogens: parasites, bacteria like H. pylori and yeast like candida. If you don’t remove pathogens and toxins, your gut will never get better. Pathogens feed bad bacteria and enable them to thrive.
You also need to remove foods you’re sensitive to that are causing inflammation. These foods damage the cells in the gut wall that are supposed to protect the gut and absorb nutrients.
And you need to remove as many toxins as possible, whether it’s pesticides from foods, parabens from personal care products and chemicals in tap water. Toxins cause lots of inflammation and can overtax your liver which can also cause you to wake up at night
85% of my clients have H. pylori.
50% have a parasite.
40% have candida.
The GI Map I run for all my clients tells us what pathogens are living in their gut so I know what to address.
2. Replace
You want to replace things you’re missing. If you aren’t digesting your food well, then digestive enzymes will help you break down food properly so undigested foods don’t continue to damage the gut. If your gut isn’t healthy, you aren’t absorbing many vitamins and minerals. You may need some supplements temporarily to replace nutrient deficiencies.
3. Reinoculate
This means giving your body beneficial bacteria and their food with pre and probiotics. All of my clients have dysbiosis (and you do too if you can’t sleep!) which means there’s an unhealthy balance of bad to good bacteria. Probiotics crowd out the bad bacteria and support other good bacteria and your immune system.
4. Repair
If your gut wall is damaged, there’s inflammation that’s preventing it from healing. Food like bone broth and supplements like L-glutamine, aloe and immunoglobulins help heal the gut lining and soothe inflammation.
5. Rebalance
You have to look at everything holistically to truly restore your gut health. I also look at diet, exercise and managing stress because they're just as important as supplements for healing the gut.
I guide my clients with all 5 of these important steps. Every single one of my clients has a pathogen in their gut (and I did, too!). But I don’t just help them get rid of the bug. I help them restore the health of their gut and their body so those pathogens don’t come back and affect their sleep again.
I address everything that is keeping your body unhealthy, not just the gut. If you try to repair your gut without dealing with your unbalanced hormones or the stress in your life, those imbalances and stressors will keep the gut wall unhealthy. No matter how many probiotics you take or how much bone broth you drink, your gut won’t stay healthy.
If you know in your gut that your gut is part of your sleep problem, I can help! Book a free call with me to talk about what’s going on with your sleep and how I can help you find out what's causing your insomnia so you can sleep peacefully and have lots of energy during the day.