Sleep & Constipation

I am a fitness professional, training client since 17 years. My clients start from 6 am in the morning Monday to Saturday. I have to wake up at 4.30 to do my morning errands and what time do I sleep? Well never before 11pm /11.30 pm. This has been my routine since so many years. Past few years I started feeling really bloated, constipated and started suffering from IBS ( Irritable bowel syndrome) . Doctors performed various test on me. They concluded the cause of my constipation being stress and put me on medication to relieve the constipation.

Somehow I was not convinced about the diagnosis. I was not stressed by any means. Also I realised Drs were treating my discomfort (symptoms), not the cause of the problem. My constipation continued regardless of the medication. Good poop was a distant dream and so many times I remember going a day or two without relieving myself, with a stomach so bloated, it feeling like a stone inside me.

I started reading to find out more about causes of constipation. I tried many medicines and many kitchen remedies, which would help me for few days and again I would be back to same discomfort. I was getting annoyed, noticing that all the proven methods of treating constipation were not helping me.

Remember, my work days are Monday to Saturday, waking up at 4.30 am, leaving me with a mere 4.5/5 hours of sleep. Sunday I would sleep in and Sunday started becoming my best day of the week with my gut feeling amazing. No bloating and good poop. Magic !!!!

Taking note of this, I started changing my habit of little sleep. I started sleeping earlier. It took time for my body to get used to it and my adrenal to settle down. I started noticing a big difference in my gut. My constipation problem became less and less with all the other factors and my routine, remaining the same, apart from sleep.

There is a clear correlation of sleep and gut health:

Good Sleep = Good Gut

Bad Gut = Poor Sleep .

Why is sleep important?

We all know what happens to our body when we sleep. Sleep helps us to recover our system from our day’s activity and prepares us for the next day’s activity.

Let us understand what happens to your body when you sleep. The reasons that sleep is considered so important is because it allows your body time to rest and repair itself, it gives your brain the time it needs to recover. It increases the blood supply to your muscles and it gives new tissue time to grow. Your digestive system is one of the many systems in your body that benefits from this process, in several different ways.

The digestive system gets time to rest. During the day, your body is crying out for glucose, your main source of energy, to fuel your muscles, joints, nervous system and healthy digestion. To do so, your digestive system is working constantly, breaking down your food to meet the glucose levels required. However, when you sleep, your need for glucose is greatly reduced, giving your metabolism and digestive system a break. Both can finally gradually slow down.

Sleep gives you a chance to replenish your energy levels, which are essential for your digestive system to function properly. Without adequate supply of energy, your digestive system won’t be able to break down your food as efficiently, leading to a wide range of unpleasant symptoms.

Now let see what happens when you don”t get enough of sleep.

Digestive disorders such as IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) are also known as inflammatory disorders. IBD, for example, refers to a collection of digestive conditions, such as Crohn’s Disease, and is believed to have a close link to inflammation. Some forms of IBD are caused by a problem with the immune system, whereby the immune cells start to attack the intestinal tissue, causing widespread inflammation. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation may exacerbate this problem, resulting in higher amounts of inflammation throughout your body, including your muscles and joints, as well as your gastrointestinal tract.

Seeing the link? If you are suffering from gut problems like constipation, get more serious about your sleep. Sleep is essential to your gut health.

Some ideas on how to fix your sleep:

Get a bed time routine of sleeping at same time.

Try to get at least 6 hours of sound sleep if not more.

Avoid drinking too much water at night.

Avoid heavy dinner.

After dinner wait for at least 90 min before you hit the bed.

Make exercise part of your regime, science has proven how exercise helps sleep.

What else can do you need to do?

To fight off constipation, you need to fix your sleep as well as keep your gut at ease. Our body is a kinetic chain, one loose end and the entire chain breaks.