Is Your Gut Sabotaging Your Sleep?

By Well+Good You can eat well, rock your workout, and maximize your spiritual well-being, but if you're only clocking five fitful hours of shut-eye a night, your otherwise-healthy routine isn't helping you as much as you think it is. So it's too bad that falling asleep (and staying asleep!) is so tough for so many people--as in, the 50-70 million American adults with a sleep or wakefulness disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These days, pillow problems are a full-blown epidemic. (Right, Arianna Huffington?) RELATED: 5 Steps You Can Take For Better Sleep According To Arianna Huffington Which is why Shawn Stevenson--writer, nutritionist, and creator of the super popular "Model Health Show" podcast--focused specifically on ZZZs in his new book, Sleep Smarter. And one of his top strategies is...wait for it: improving your gut health. "There's a remarkable connection between gut health and sleep, and a lot of people have no idea about it," says Stevenson, who admits his own ignorance on the subject until he really dove into the research. Melatonin--the regulator of the body's sleep-wake cycle--is produced in the brain, but there's also a ton of it in your digestive tract. "The health of the bacteria in your gut, what we call your microbiome, is critical to the production and proper function of your sleep-related hormones," he explains. Bettering your gut health in order to boost sleep is a process that takes some time (you are, after all,...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news