HealthChek™: Chronic Fatigue – Managing your sleep to protect your microbiome

MANAGING YOUR SLEEP:

Your brain washes itself every night when you sleep. It is critical to get 7 to 8 hours of restful sleep each night for this cleansing of your brain to occur. Chronic fatigue from lack of sleep, and stress, elevate the level of steroid hormones in your blood. Excessive blood steroids wreak havoc on your gut and change the bacterial flora in the gut from a predominance of good bacteria that protect the gut lining to a predominance of bad bacteria that allows leakage of unwanted substances (toxins) through the gut wall (leaky gut). These toxins invade your nerves and your brain to cause chronic inflammation, brain fog and memory loss. The chronic inflammation makes it even harder for you to sleep and sets up a vicious cycle: Your leaky gut become worse with increasing chronic fatigue, and you must repair your leaky gut to restore your normal sleep pattern. What can you do?

  1. You start the repair by eating the right foods to replenish your friendly gut bacteria to begin the repair of your leaky gut
  2. It is perfectly fine to use a mild sedative on a short-term basis to attempt to restore a normal sleep pattern, and allow your brain to wash itself at night.
  3. It is also okay to use supplemental tablets of melatonin, the natural sleep hormone, to attempt to normalize your sleep pattern.
  4. Yoga and Meditation are great for relaxation prior to sleep.
  5. Gentle reminder to turn your computer and your TV off a couple hours before bedtime. Gentle reminder that when you hit the TV remote control from your bed, you have turned off the television light, but the TV is still running in the background. You must turn off the TV at the source.

Please let your doctor know if you need a mild sedative to normalize your sleeping pattern. You can purchase Melatonin from any reputable health food store.

Let me repeat: It is critical to get 7 to 8 hours of restful sleep each night for this cleaning of your brain to occur.

Next Article: HealthChek™: Protecting Your Gut: Additional nuts, seeds and vegetables that feed your microbiome