People make split-second judgments about you constantly! You can’t change that. However, you CAN improve that initial impression. One simple step can change peoples’ perception of your competency.
What do salt and soup have in common?
They can both improve your sleep.
Here’s how.
Stress & Mineral Use
When the body is stressed, it uses a variety of minerals to fuel the stress hormones. These hormones enable a person to push through real or perceived threats.
If stress is very intense or chronic, minerals in the body are quickly depleted. The adrenal glands, which help with the stress response, essentially steal minerals that were divvied out to other parts of the body. Those adrenals figure that survival is the priority.
Water Absorption
If you are waking up in the middle of the night to urinate, it is often because your water isn’t getting absorbed properly. Therefore, essentially the water is going in your mouth and quickly out the other end without doing much good in between. Luckily, that problem is fixable, enabling better sleep!
Minerals enable the body to properly absorb and utilize water.
When mental or physical stress is draining the body of minerals, there often aren’t enough minerals left over to help with water absorption.
Furthermore, tap water is not as mineral rich as spring water. For this reason, it can be helpful to add minerals to drinking water. Adding a pinch of sea salt or ConcenTrace minerals to water can increase water absorption.
Action Steps
#1. Reduce Stress
I know that certain stresses may be out of your control. Let’s not focus on those.
There are so many ways that you can reduce or eliminate the strain on your brain and body. Decreased stress means better sleep.
Reduce or eliminate sugar, alcohol, and processed carbs. These all stress the body and therefore deplete mineral reserves.
Limit lifestyle stresses. For example, don’t engage in excessive physical exertion that leaves you feeling extremely drained rather than worked but energized. Tackle that intense workout in the future, but first build up your body through a restorative diet and by eliminating some of the other stresses that are draining your reserves.
Fix poor digestion. If food is not properly absorbed, nutrients needed to combat stress will not be available for the body. You could be eating a “perfect” diet but not be getting the benefit of it due to poor digestion.
Overcome food allergies. Work with me or another health professional to identify and eliminate food sensitivities or allergies that are causing a constant low grade stress on your system.
#2. Build Up the Body
Increasing minerals in the diet will help the body to absorb water properly and combat stress. Both of these things will improve sleep quality.
Add more sea salt. Place a small pinch of sea salt in your water to help increase absorption. Or add more to your food. Click here to learn more about sea salt.
Eat mineral rich foods. Ingesting bone broth on a regular basis is a great start!
It’s between 3 and 4am. Once again, you’re awake for seemingly no reason.
In the darkness, you sleepily stumble to the bathroom, thinking your bladder must be to blame for this undesired wake up.
But before we start pointing fingers (poor bladder), let’s look at additional reasons as to why people wake up in the dead of the night. I’ll also address why it’s often a struggle to fall back to sleep.
But first… let’s quickly review the power of sleep.
Why Sleep Matters
If your sleep is poor, I encourage you to start aggressively addressing it.
Poor quality sleep leads to a myriad of health problems. Each bodily system needs sufficient rest and recovery or it will start to fail. Let’s avoid that.
Good sleep improves energy, helps digestive function, reduces anxiety and depression, enables proper detoxification, and decreases unwanted fat.
Without quality sleep, energy reserves are drained. Caffeine and carbohydrates become necessary crutches to help a person hobble through the day. However, those small, dietary boosts can’t replace the healing power of sleep. They are only temporary fixes that have negative, long-term ramifications.
The Causes of the 3-4am Wake Up
When the body and brain are overtaxed, it can be challenging to get through the night without waking up. This can be for 3 main reasons:
1. Hormones are imbalanced due to a poor diet.
2. Stress has compromised blood sugar levels.
3. Minerals are depleted.
Diet, Blood Sugar, and Sleep
Today we’ll address diet’s impact.
Sugary foods and beverages throw off the body’s ability to keep blood sugar in check. This can dramatically impact sleep.
For example, before bed you eat some chips and enjoy a glass of wine, which both process like sugar in the body. These refined carbohydrates give an initial energy kick and/or feel good mental buzz thanks to the serotonin boost they provide.
However, ingesting refined carbohydrates and alcohol can cause disrupted sleep. This negative impact is amplified if these are consumed in the evening.
Why is that?
Sugar is Stressful
Eating refined carbohydrates disrupts the whole hormonal system, which helps determine sleep quality.
What defines a refined carbohydrate? Essentially it is any sweet or starchy food or drink that has been processed. Chips, almost all bread, most protein bars, alcohol, soda, cereal, cookies, candy, and pasta can sabotage sleep.
The Impact of the Evening Snack
After ingesting the chips and wine (or insert your night-time guilty pleasure), the body receives a surge of sugar in the blood.
As the sugar pours in, the pancreas releases unnaturally large amounts of insulin, the sugar storage hormone. This is an emergency like response because high blood sugar is very damaging and causes concerning inflammation.
Running on Empty!
Sometimes the surge of sugar causes insulin to overreact. The excess insulin stores too much sugar. It is stowed away not only as energy in muscles (good) but also as body fat (bad in excess).
This results in low blood sugar. The body needs a certain level of blood sugar to function properly. Otherwise systems start to shut down.
Between 3am and 4am, the body sometimes runs out of fuel due to a dangerous blood sugar dip. In the dead of night, the body increases stress hormones, which activate the release of glucose (e.g. sugar) into the blood.
Your brain is trying to keep you alive.
Those stress hormones not only normalize blood sugar levels but they also wake you up.
When your system is flooded with stress hormones, it can be extremely challenging to relax and sleep.
Take Action
Blood sugar can be balanced.
So what is the perfect diet to optimize sleep? A whole food diet is a good start. Reduce or cut out the sweets, alcohol, and soda.
However, it’s often not that straight forward. Each person has unique stresses, brain chemistry, genetics, and activity level. Those factors will determine the ratio of dietary fat, protein, and carbohydrates needed. A tailored food plan can help reverse a negative sleep cycle.
If you are tired of dealing with sleep deprivation and want targeted dietary guidance to address it, I encourage you to reach out to me.
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But wait! There’s more!
This is part 1 of a 3 part series on overcoming sleep disruption. On Wednesday and Friday of this week, I’ll cover how stress and mineral depletion can cause sleep deprivation. Stay tuned!
What helps you to get good quality sleep? Share your tips in the comments section.
Is a diseased or malfunctioning body part causing trouble? Sometimes the proposed “remedy” is to remove it completely.
Although I realize that some emergencies call for such a drastic measure, I don’t think we’ve been given spare parts.
If an organ or gland was placed in us, it has a purpose. That biological role is important to understand so that you can support the body appropriately in the absence of the part.
On the Chopping Block
Over the years, I’ve supported clients who have lost their large intestine, parts of the stomach, reproductive organs, lymphatic tissue, the appendix, and tonsils. However, gallbladders have been on the chopping block with astounding frequency.
The long-term ramifications of gallbladder surgery can be disastrous. Many clients come to me complaining of a variety of health conditions that are linked to their missing gallbladder.
That organ is often removed due to gallbladder stones or pain caused by a clogged gallbladder. In speaking to the dozens of clients I’ve worked with who have undergone the removal of this key organ, not one has been told that their gallbladder served an important role.
That is tragic.
Why do you need one?
Once your food passes through the stomach, it moves to the top section of your small intestine, the duodenum. Here bile is released from your gallbladder when fat is detected in the intestine.
Bile is like dishwashing detergent in that it emulsifies or breaks down the fat you digest. When fat is detected in the intestine, bile is released.
If you don’t have a gallbladder, it is very challenging for your body to absorb fat properly. The body needs unprocessed, dietary fats for a variety of vital functions. Fats are used to build healthy sex hormones, bolster the brain, fuel the heart, and reduce joint inflammation.
The Ramifications
If healthy fat is not absorbed properly, due to a malfunctioning or absent gallbladder, many complications can occur or be exacerbated.
Digestive Distress:
Constipation
Diarrhea
IBS
Hormonal Imbalances
Low libido
Infertility
Menopausal symptoms
Erectile dysfunction
Thyroid imbalances
Poor energy
Muscular and Joint Issues
Muscle fatigue
Joint pain
Neurological Impairment
Mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression
Mental fatigue
ADHD
Nutrient Insufficiencies
Poor absorption of fat soluble vitamins A, E, D, and K
Inflammation
Cardiovascular inflammation (e.g. high cholesterol and high blood pressure)
Chronic joint pain
Why the Gallbladder Fails
There are 2 main problems that can occur.
#1. If you ingest poor quality fats, such as hydrogenated oils or vegetable oil, your gallbladder will become clogged.
Or
#2. If you eat a fat-free or low-fat diet, your gallbladder gets lazy because bile is not triggered by normal amounts of dietary fat in the intestine. Our bile should be thin and free-flowing; however, a low-fat diet causes the bile to become stagnant, and it turns into a thick sludge.
For Those Without a Gallbladder
If you do not have a gallbladder, your body will have a lot of difficulty digesting fats. Consequently, people without gallbladders are most likely deficient in certain essential fatty acids, fat-soluble vitamins, and even minerals. This can lead to the aforementioned health ramifications.
If your gallbladder has been removed, it is important to ingest bile salts as a supplement at your meals, which take the place of the bile traditionally secreted by the gallbladder. Otherwise, your dietary fats will inflame your digestive system rather than nourish your body.
Get Support
Want to learn more? If your gallbladder is sick or has been surgically removed, it’s time to take action.
I encourage you to schedule a free 15 minute consultation. Simply click here. You need a game plan tailored to your body, missing parts and all.