Is It Your Gut Or Your Brain That Is Keeping You Awake At Night?
We all know that eating before bed has been commonly known as giving us nightmares, or at least that's what our parent's told us.
Now is this an old wives tale or could there be some truth to it? Well once you have done a bit of research and made yourself aware of just how much similarity exists between the brain and the gut not only are you going to be amazed at what you discover, but you are going to be convinced that what goes on in your gut has a dramatic effect on what is happening in your brain, and can have a great influence on your health both mentally and physically.
To begin with when you are sleep your brain goes through 90 minute cycles, and guess what! So does your gut.
In the brain, unknowingly to you, your sleep is interrupted with spurts of rapid eye movement.
This is the time that you will dream.
Now your gut, as said previously, goes through 90 minute cycles too.
What it does is produces muscle contractions in slow waves.
However, interestingly it also produces short spurts of rapid muscle movement.
Okay so there just might be something here.
It gets better though.
Studies have shown that people who suffer from various bowel afflictions also do not have normal REM sleep.
Those people who suffer from conditions like irritable bowel syndrome as well as some other bowel conditions often complain of never feeling well rested.
They may feel as though they had experienced a full normal sound sleep but the results from this type of sleep are not there.
They feel tired and drawn out.
To add to this interesting story it has also been discovered that people who don't have a normal REM sleep and are given low anti depressant medications do much better.
Now these same anti depressant medications have also been shown to have good results in the treatment of some gut disorders such as IBS.
The links to this fascinating subject are endless.
Are we looking at a solution to many ailments such as IBS, depression and even weight control? So there you go.
There is very little doubt that there is a dramatic link on the gut and brain and how they correlate when it comes to sleep.
So maybe our parents were smarter than we gave them credit for.
Maybe eating and upsetting our gut before bed is not such a good idea after all.
Now is this an old wives tale or could there be some truth to it? Well once you have done a bit of research and made yourself aware of just how much similarity exists between the brain and the gut not only are you going to be amazed at what you discover, but you are going to be convinced that what goes on in your gut has a dramatic effect on what is happening in your brain, and can have a great influence on your health both mentally and physically.
To begin with when you are sleep your brain goes through 90 minute cycles, and guess what! So does your gut.
In the brain, unknowingly to you, your sleep is interrupted with spurts of rapid eye movement.
This is the time that you will dream.
Now your gut, as said previously, goes through 90 minute cycles too.
What it does is produces muscle contractions in slow waves.
However, interestingly it also produces short spurts of rapid muscle movement.
Okay so there just might be something here.
It gets better though.
Studies have shown that people who suffer from various bowel afflictions also do not have normal REM sleep.
Those people who suffer from conditions like irritable bowel syndrome as well as some other bowel conditions often complain of never feeling well rested.
They may feel as though they had experienced a full normal sound sleep but the results from this type of sleep are not there.
They feel tired and drawn out.
To add to this interesting story it has also been discovered that people who don't have a normal REM sleep and are given low anti depressant medications do much better.
Now these same anti depressant medications have also been shown to have good results in the treatment of some gut disorders such as IBS.
The links to this fascinating subject are endless.
Are we looking at a solution to many ailments such as IBS, depression and even weight control? So there you go.
There is very little doubt that there is a dramatic link on the gut and brain and how they correlate when it comes to sleep.
So maybe our parents were smarter than we gave them credit for.
Maybe eating and upsetting our gut before bed is not such a good idea after all.
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