Hidden Causes of Insomnia with Martha Lewis

In this enlightening conversation, sleep expert Martha Lewis joins host Magic Barclay on the 'Magical Life' show. Martha shares her expertise in functional health, highlighting the importance of quality sleep for overall health and wellness. She decodes the physiological stresses and mineral imbalances that cause insomnia, while unpacking the interconnection between gut health, hormones, and sleep. Martha also discusses her program, 'The Complete Sleep Solution', which uses functional lab testing to identify clients' health imbalances that disrupt sleep. She elaborates on how eating habits, blood sugar levels, and exposure to bright lights at night impact sleep quality. Moreover, Martha advocates for stress resilience, work-life balance, and maintaining gratitude as crucial aspects for overall health and wealth. Providing valuable insights and practical tips, this episode emphasizes the critical role of good sleep in a healthy lifestyle.

Connect with Martha at https://thesleepdetective.com/

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host, magic Barclay. And today Martha Lewis joins us. Martha is a certified sleep expert, functional health coach, and creator of the complete sleep solution. She helps people who want to sleep. But just can't. She goes beyond the basic sleep advice that you read about everywhere else and she addresses what's happening in the body that causes insomnia and tells you how to fix it. She talks about how gut health, hormones, mineral imbalances and more can keep people awake at night. She does functional lab testing to find out these physiological hidden stresses that keep her clients awake at night. She also addresses the mental impact on sleep by helping her clients with stress resilience and sleep anxiety. Welcome

Martha Booth: 1:54

Martha. Thanks so much for having me

Magic Barclay: 1:57

now. I love someone else talking about functional health because that's what I do. And you know, we're going to get to the big stress question a little bit later, but I've seen in practice that there is such a big swing in poor cortisol awakening response. People just seem to be more cortisol junkies than they ever were. Have you seen that?

Martha Booth: 2:27

Definitely. For sure. Um, high cortisol or even, you know, low cortisol cause it's been depleted. It was high for so long.

Magic Barclay: 2:36

Definitely. More on that in a moment. Let's get into our standard three questions. Everyone gives me different answers and I'm really excited about yours. So here's the first one. What can your expertise do to accelerate health, be it emotional, spiritual, or the physical?

Martha Booth: 2:57

I love it. You know, I'm, I'm specializing in sleep, but really what my program is and what I do is help people get healthy again, because I see sleep as not being healthy. If you can't sleep, then there's something wrong because we're meant to sleep. Our bodies need it. Our brains need it. And so it is a health problem. And. Although people might not have any other symptoms in some cases, there are still these imbalances going on in their body that are keeping them from being able to sleep normally. So I'm really diving deep into health with everyone so that they can then sleep as they should be able to.

Magic Barclay: 3:36

So what. Poor health comes from poor sleep. Just to give the listeners an idea of what they're

Martha Booth: 3:43

looking for. yeah. So poor health can cause poor sleep and then poor sleep can lead to poor health. So, um, in that direction, you know, for people who aren't sleeping enough, because either they can't, or they aren't prioritizing it, I mean, it's shown that. Getting fewer than seven hours of sleep a night consistently increases your risk of so many different chronic diseases. So everything from heart disease to diabetes to depression to Alzheimer's to certain forms of cancer. There's so many connections between sleep and our long term health.

Magic Barclay: 4:20

Definitely. Look, our second question is about wealth. People think wealth is just money. It's just finance, but you can also have personal and emotional wealth. So what are your top three tips to creating any kind of wealth?

Martha Booth: 4:35

I would say my first tip is first of all, being grateful for what you already have. And that's definitely something I try and practice on a daily basis. And, I have a lot of goals that I want to achieve, so it's easy to focus on that and how far away I might feel from that. so it really helps me to focus on what I already have and how lucky I already am. Um, and so I recommend that too, to a lot of my clients, cause it, I mean, that lower stress, it lowers cortisol levels. It, um, has all kinds of benefits to, to practicing gratitude. So I think that that's really important. You know, wealth is also about, I think, enjoying your time and having, I mean, there's a lot of talk about work life balance, but I think that that, whatever that means for you, that is important to where, you know, just as important as making money and working is also your friendships and your connections with other people and time spent outside and just really. Enjoying and appreciating life is really important. And then the final thing I would say is, wanting to make a difference in the world, and wanting to contribute to other people really, that makes me feel really wealthy and, and drives me and gives my life and what I'm doing a lot of purpose. and so yeah, so I think wealth is definitely can include money, but so many more things as well.

Magic Barclay: 5:54

For sure. Look, our final standard question is about weight loss. And that is if you've ever battled your weight, what was the trigger to lose it? Or what can you offer the listeners to reduce stress, which we know is a key issue in weight problems.

Martha Booth: 6:12

Yes, definitely. so I recently actually just lost 10 pounds. And, you know, until then I, you know, that's kind of all I needed to lose. but my weight had, I just noticed that my weight had been creeping up just a few pounds every year. And so I finally, you know, once it got to a certain weight this year, when I had my check in and it kind of put me at a different category, like a risk, you know, changed my BMI to where I was at an unhealthier level. And, Until then I had been into intuitive eating and listening to my body and, you know, loving my body, even if it did have a few extra pounds, but that seeing that effect and how it could affect my health really motivated me, to focus on that. And so for me, I learned a lot about how the brain works and how, me thinking that I couldn't lose weight was really getting in the way of that before. And. And learning about how to resist urges and kind of rewire my brain to when you crave a food, it doesn't mean that you just go and grab it. You can interrupt that process and use your higher, more rational brain, um, to not give into that urge. And over time, those urges start to go away. So that's been my really recent journey with weight loss.

Magic Barclay: 7:34

And so the second part of that question being around stress, we just mentioned cortisol earlier. And, you know, many people are so stressed for so long, it really underpins any weight battles they're having. What are some tips there to manage stress?

Martha Booth: 7:53

Yeah, that's such a good question. And it's so true because cortisol makes our body hold on to fat. And so if you're constantly stressed, it is really hard to lose weight. so I see it as two prong where there's mental stress. And so alleviating that, I mean, I think we really have to take a step back from our very busy modern lifestyle and learn how to relax when we wake up, relax before bed, take time to relax during the day. Okay. And, and not just go, go, go all day long because our bodies are not meant for that. So that's something I definitely help my clients with is where can they find space in their day to relax, to let, these thoughts out and take this time to, to kind of deal with the busyness of our lives. And then the other part of it is. our physical stress that we might not even know about. So a pathogen in the gut or hormone imbalance or heavy metals, like all of those things are happening physically in our body and we're not even aware of it, but they are causing stress and causing our bodies to release cortisol, which is going to impede weight loss. So I like to take a body and mind approach to that.

Magic Barclay: 9:06

Fantastic. So that's our standard three questions. Now, I really want to ask you more about. The complete sleep solution. Can you tell us about your program and what it does

Martha Booth: 9:18

for people? Yeah. So my program includes four functional lab tests that look at gut health, hormone balance, mineral balance, heavy metals, neurotransmitters, food sensitivities, all kinds of things that can affect sleep. And so, um, I work with people for. Six months, we have multiple sessions over those six months, where I go over their test results, and I give recommendations based on their results and their health history and their habits to get their bodies back in balance. And it's very holistic because I'm looking at, diet. I'm looking at, of course, optimizing habits around sleep. I'm looking at exercise. I'm helping with stress with that mental stress. and with the tests, we're uncovering the physical stress. And then I recommend supplements that I see as for the short term. while we get your body functioning correctly so that you aren't having to take something like a pharmaceutical drug forever. So yeah, so that's how that works. I offer a lot of support because I think that is what's also missing from, the Western medical system where you talk to your doctor for 15 minutes once a year and that's kind of all you get. So, and plus I'm, you know, I ask people to make some changes usually to their diet, some of their habits, and those can be difficult. And so. I'd really like to walk people through that and give them the support to make those changes as easy as possible so that they are successful in the program and they do get the results they want, which is better sleep.

Magic Barclay: 10:59

You're talking my talk. I'm loving this. People often think that, you know, they, they can't get to sleep at night because of. Noise outside or because of light or because of, you know, something else external, there's often an internal reason. Why is it that people's internal clocks change? And can you link that up to maybe the things that they're consuming or the things that they're thinking? Like, where is the link there to change that

Martha Booth: 11:35

biochemistry? Yeah. Well. for some people, for sure, if their body clock is off, and that can be from, being in artificial light late at night when ideally we wouldn't be exposed to bright lights, because the you know, toward nighttime, we should be in more darkness so that our body starts producing melatonin, which tells us that it's time to go to sleep. So I think a lot of habits around working late at night, being on, especially on the computer, even watching TV, that all of these tell the body that it's daytime when then you want to be going to sleep. And so it totally interferes with that. So, I mean, I don't think that the only reason why people aren't sleeping is because they're watching TV at night. For example, I think for most people, if they can't sleep, there's more than that going on. but even those lights are still going to affect the quality of your sleep, even if you do think that you're sleeping well. So yeah, I think it's, A lot of those habits and again back to our modern lifestyle of being exposed to bright lights. Into the night is really affecting our ability to sleep.

Magic Barclay: 12:51

So let's talk about this biochemistry of getting to sleep. We've mentioned cortisol. We've mentioned the awakening response. What are the links to maybe the

Martha Booth: 13:03

diet? Yeah, great question. I mean, first of all, there are Inflammatory foods. So that can be gluten, dairy, refined sugar and alcohol. Those are the big ones. So when they're causing inflammation in the body, then the body releases cortisol because it's an anti inflammatory hormone. And so if that's happening at night from the dinner you ate or the ice cream you had before bed, then cortisol should be really low at night and melatonin should be high. And so if you're eating these inflammatory foods and your body's releasing cortisol instead, which is going to suppress melatonin, which is going to make it really hard to go to sleep. So that's an important component. And, you know, many of my clients have gluten and dairy sensitivities. And so. Um, eliminating those foods can really help, you know, lower that inflammation and, and let the gut be able to heal. And another component to diet and sleep really has to do with blood sugar, because if your blood sugar drops too low, if you're, let's say you're on an extreme roller coaster during the day from, You know, eating refined carbohydrates and sweetened drinks and things like that and your blood sugar spiking really high and then it's going to crash really low, and your body's going to release insulin to lower it and then your body's going to want quick energy and it's going to crave more sugars and carbs in that quick energy and it's going to release cortisol to release glucose into the cells to give you that energy. And so then your blood sugar is going to spike really high again. And then you're on that extreme roller coaster. And if that's happening during the day, then that continues into the night. And when it drops too low at night, your body's released cortisol and it's going to wake you up. So You know, making sure to keep blood sugar levels steady by avoiding, again, those inflammatory foods and, um, and quick energy foods like refined carbs and sugars is really key in making sure you have enough protein and fat with every meal and snack and, and really making sure that your meals are balanced, ideally for you as far as protein, fat, and carbs are concerned. is really important too for sleep and keeping those blood sugar levels steady.

Magic Barclay: 15:34

So what sort of ratio of protein, fat and carbs should people be aiming for at different stages of their life?

Martha Booth: 15:43

Well, so what I recommend is I'm not sure you've heard of this called the metabolic typing diet. And so according to this, there are three types of people. So they're the protein type, On the other extreme is the carb type, and then in the middle is a mixed type. And so, and this makes sense to me that not everyone should be eating the same ratio, like not everyone should be low carb or high carb, like we're all metabolically and genetically different. And so, um, there's quizzes you can do online for metabolic typing to And then, And so then once you know whether you're a protein type or the carb type or the mix type, then you can, um, adjust your diet accordingly. Um, so it, so I do think that it's different for everyone and that it can change too, throughout your life, whereas. You know, children tend to need more carbs and that quick energy. And then as we get older, we might need more fat and protein and fewer carbs because we don't need to burn through that energy as quickly. So, yeah, so I think it's different for everyone.

Magic Barclay: 16:55

Right. Is there something we haven't covered that you think the listeners need

Martha Booth: 16:59

to hear? I think mainly that, if you can't sleep and you've tried following what I call the sleep rules right of not watching screens before bed or wearing blue light glasses not drinking too much caffeine too late in the day, making sure to exercise like if you're doing all those things and you still can't sleep, then there's something more going on. And you don't have to live with it like we can figure it out. And so there are quite a few things that can lead to either trouble falling asleep or waking up in the night. such as what we've talked about blood sugar and cortisol, but also a pathogen in the gut. And if estrogen and progesterone are low, there's so many things that affect sleep. And so I just want people to know that you don't have to live with this forever. We can test and find out what's going on and figure it out.

Magic Barclay: 17:52

Great. Now, Martha, we love freebies here. So what can you offer the listeners and where can they find it?

Martha Booth: 18:01

So I have a, what's causing your insomnia assessment where I have eight different categories and you can check off to see if you have symptoms in those categories. So things like cortisol and, gut issues and things like that. So that is on my website, the complete sleep solution. com.

Magic Barclay: 18:22

Great. So the website is the complete sleep solution. com. People can find you on Facebook and Instagram at complete sleep solution. And you also have a Facebook group. Tell us

Martha Booth: 18:37

about that. Yeah. So my Facebook group is sleep and insomnia help for adults. And so you can find lots of information in there similar to what I'm talking about here, but in more depth, if you're interested.

Magic Barclay: 18:50

Fantastic. This has been such a great episode. I really appreciate it. And for the listeners, you know, a few episodes back, we were talking about sleep with another guest and I think, you know, this is just so important. This is why I'm bringing you this information because a good, healthy, restful sleep can help you with all the processes within your body. And, you know, we often discount. The need for really healthy sleep. Now, moving forward in a magical life, we have more great guests coming to you. We will be delving more into the functional health realm. As you know, I love bringing you that information. Listeners. Thank you so much for your time. Go forth and create your magical life.