There are a lot of reasons we do not get enough sleep: Stress, depression, anxiety or binge watching your favorite movie. These are obvious reasons for deficient sleep. Have you ever thought there can be other reasons as well- may be there is something going on in your body which is disturbing our sleep! It is your digestive system. Lot of scientists have figured out the correlation between our gut, sleep & overall health. Let us deep dive into this into detail.
Gut is one of the most important & clever organs in our body that communicates with every other organ including the brain. Our gut is also referred to as the second brain considering how it communicates & controls various bodily functions. It is also home to the enteric nervous system that is directly in contact with our brain & central nervous system, regulating various important processes. Gut is a long tube extending from our mouth to anus & is home to trillions of microorganisms located in the colon & collectively called as microbiome. It contains both good & bad bacteria. Around a third of our gut is common for everyone. The balance comes from our genetics, environment, lifestyle, diet & personal background. The composition of our gut changes & evolves as we age. Our diet & environment- where we live have a huge impact on composition & diversity of our gut. Consumption of Sugary & processed foods, lack of prebiotics, probiotics, fibre, antioxidants on a regular & prolonged basis have a negative effect on your gut & can lead to leaky gut, resulting in chronic inflammation.
Healthy digestive tract & healthy gut have a huge influence on our sleep. Lack of sleep, our appetite & obesity is correlated. However, till now, we are not aware of the role of the gut microbiome in our sleep. Shift between day & night( specifically in case of shift workers & frequent travellers across time zones) not only impact our circadian rhythm but rhythm of our gut microbiome as well given that their activities depend upon day & night schedule. This is the reason our gut has an impact on the circadian rhythm of other organs as well.
It is a well known fact that sleep deprivation increases our appetite & leads to weight gain. This happens because lack of sleep decreases production of leptin hormone which is responsible for feeling full. Besides, it also increases the level of ghrelin, also known as hunger hormone. So when we lack sleep, leptin does not signal or control when we are full but ghrelin tells us to eat more, resulting in weight gain.
Microbiomes can impact our sleep by hindering the sleep-wake cycle, circadian rhythm & hormones that regulate sleep. So how can we hack this? We should feed our gut with prebiotics & probiotics to take care of the well being of our gut. In fact, probiotics is also beneficial for our sleep.
A healthier gut can also solve problems related to our mental health, anxiety, mood swings, depression. People suffering from these mood disorders & sleep disorders usually experience their gut disturbed & out of balance. People who do not sleep much experience mood swings & depressive behaviour. In fact, probiotics have solution for mental well being & can overcome anxiety & depression
Some tips of improving your sleep through developing a healthy gut.
- A gut aligned food regime that limits processed & high saturated fat diet intake, goes a long way in improving our sleep patterns.
- Just by doing a simple hack of including fibre & fermented foods such as Kefir & yoghurt in everyday meals. You can also expand this list by including nuts, dark chocolate & colourful plant based foods.
- Avoid late night snacks & consuming high calorie foods before 2 to 3 hours of your sleep, since it will impact your sleep.
- Get a lot of prebiotic foods such as apples, artichokes, onions & garlic that are great energy sources of various microorganisms that live in our gut.
To sum up, Gut Microbiome is our second brain & healthy gut can improve our sleep. Evaluating the interaction between our sleep, digestive health & gut microbiome can help us overcome mood & sleep disorders To unlock & decode your gut microbiome composition, sign up for our gut intelligence services here.
