Your Gut Can Help You Sleep

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Sleep is one of those things that we just can’t do without. In that sense, it is like food: If you are hungry, even Brussels sprouts can start looking good. If you are sleep-deprived, you will be craving a nap or nodding off at odd times. You can also get irritable and less efficient.

Lack of sleep can cause auto accidents, industrial accidents, and many mistakes, burn-outs, and mood swings.

Chronic lack of sleep can be associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease.

You are more apt to eat high-calorie comfort foods or highly processed foods if you are sleep-deprived. Lack of sleep can lead to poor eating, which can become a vicious cycle. Research tells us that eating poorly and/or eating highly processed foods creates a dysfunctional microbiome in your gut, which, in turn, can adversely affect your sleep.

Sleep and Your Gut

Many times, individuals don’t do anything about their lack of sleep. They just keep going. Or, they may use a sleep aid like Ambien or melatonin. However, Ambien is not recommended for regular use, and melatonin is unregulated and it can be difficult to know how much you are getting.

As it turns out, getting to sleep and staying asleep is not just a matter of bringing on a few chemicals to make it happen. Our bodies have a circadian rhythm, which kicks in and lets us know that it is time for sleep. But, as with everything that happens in our bodies, nothing happens in isolation. Sleep isn’t just sleep. Sleep is a total body function.

The link between gut health and sleep has been the subject of extensive investigation. Science is even calling the gut our “second brain.” There are around 100 million neurons in the gut, even more than in the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system (but not more than the trillions in our brains). Our guts talk to our brains all the time because they have a lot to say.

Gut Feelings

As noted, sleep is complex. Here is a short list highlighting a few simple things that aren’t simple at all when it comes to interacting with your gut and brain to help you sleep.

Melatonin

Melatonin in your brain is produced in the pineal gland. It reacts to light/dark cycles that are part of your circadian rhythms, thus helping you get to sleep. Melatonin in the brain also has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and so it contributes to the health of various brain cells.

It turns out that there is a lot more melatonin produced in your gut than is produced in the pineal gland of your brain. In fact, there is around 400 times the concentration of melatonin in the gut than there is in the brain. Melatonin is found in other tissues as well, which speaks to its myriad functions beyond inducing sleep. Research tells us that melatonin is an amazing antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-obesity, and anti-cancer hormone.

The point is that melatonin contributes directly to sleep in the brain. Indirectly, it contributes to sleep by being part of a team that contributes to health and well-being.

Melatonin has been shown to have therapeutic and preventive effects on some diseases, including the neurological diseases of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis. Research tells us that individuals with those diseases often have disruptions of their gut microbiota, including production of gut melatonin.

We can take supplements of melatonin, but a better way to get enough melatonin is to take care of our guts. We can do that by eating whole foods and enough fiber. In fact, research tells us that people who consume the most fiber (to a point, of course) sleep the best.

In addition, we can nourish the melatonin in our guts by eating whole foods that contain it. Melatonin can be found in eggs, fish, nuts, mushrooms, wheat, barley, oats, cherries, strawberries, grapes (including wine), tomatoes, peppers, and olive oil.

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Magnesium

Magnesium is a mineral that is often mentioned in conjunction with getting calm and sleeping better. Like melatonin, it does much more than that. It helps to balance blood sugar and blood pressure, relax tense muscles, and reduce pain (it is the main ingredient in Epsom salts). Further, it apparently runs more than 300 enzyme reactions in your body. It is found everywhere in our tissues, especially bones, muscles, and brain.

You can take this as a supplement, but often it is recommended to rub it on your skin, where it is readily absorbed (back to the Epspom salts). This is also a good idea because some supplements are not well made, and dosage can be an issue. The wrong dosage can lead to an upset gut.

A safe way to get more magnesium is in food. You can find it in nuts, seeds, spinach, plant-based milks, beans, dark chocolate, avocado, potatoes, whole grains, tofu, bananas, and cauliflower.

Tryptophan

Tryptophan has famously been attached to the drowsiness that we experience after eating turkey dinner at Thanksgiving. This has been debunked lately, dispelling it as myth, saying that it is actually being overfull that makes us sleepy. They have a point. Turkey is not loaded with tryptophan. Other foods provide more. Chicken would be one example.

Tryptophan is important for sleep (and other things) because it is a precursor to serotonin, which is then a precursor to melatonin. Little wonder that it helps us sleep.

You can find tryptophan in leafy greens, sunflower seeds, watercress, soybeans, pumpkin seeds, mushrooms, broccoli, peas, and some cereals that are fortified with it. It can also be found in chicken, cheese, fish, milk, peanuts, and egg whites.

The Take-Home

Things that can help us sleep are everywhere. It may seem like it is our brain that helps us fall asleep. But it is also our gut, and how we choose to nourish it, that is crucial to getting good, quality sleep.