Too Tired to Rest

“The energy we want to put into our lives is rooted in our moments of rest“ - Dr. Zach Bush

My summary of Module Six: ‘Rest’ from The Journey of Intrinsic Health

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What do you think of when you think of the concept of rest?

Sleep? Meditation? Relaxation? Vacation? 

Turns out rest is a multifaceted effort that begins long before your head hits the pillow.

In fact, true rest and a good healthy sleep starts with a healthy gut.

Unfortunately, as I’ve shared from other modules in this course, our gut lining are damaged every single day, primarily through the food we eat - more specifically, through the Glyphosate that is now in almost all our food (and air + water).

When we damage the gut lining (the boundary of our guts) we end up with downstream effects in the brain - specifically damage in the blood brain barrier (the boundary of our brain). 

Interestingly, when you start to heal your gut - through less toxic food choices and exposure to more diverse ecosystems - you end up with better sleep and better short term memory.

Or in other words, poor sleep and brain fog (among many other conditions) are often actually symptoms of gut dysfunction.

You may have noticed that we often get our best rest on weekends after being on a hike or at the beach or on holidays.

People often attribute this to being in the sun, which certainly does help - but it’s more likely that you have much greater microbiome diversity after being exposed to more nature.

Ghrelin? 

Have you ever heard of the hormone ghrelin? Me either.

Turns out that when it comes to rest and our appetite, it’s probably the most important hormone in the body.

Ghrelin, which is primarily made in your stomach, signals and influences your appetite, hunger, and fat storage. It also plays a role in glucose metabolism and energy homeostasis.

Ghrelin - among other growth hormones such as cortisol, testosterone, estrogen - is programmed to ‘turn on’ or spike in the morning, usually an hour or so before waking, and then three other times each day — around 10-11am, 5-6pm and around 11pm-midnight. 

If ghrelin ‘spikes’ and we don’t eat by say 9:30am-ish, the ghrelin levels hit a threshold that signals to your body that you are now in a state of famine.

In a response, the body turns on stress hormones that signal to your brain that you need to focus solely on getting food.

You probably know this feeling - it’s moment when you feel like you are ‘starving’ in the morning. 

If you eat at this point you will likely be consuming your food in a state of stress as the body believes it is entering a state of famine.

What’s important about this is that when you eat influences how your body will use and store those calories.

You don’t want to be eating in a neurologic state of scarcity, as the body will store them as fat.

If we eat in a patterned relationship to ghrelin throughout the day, we keep stress levels low and keep ourselves in parasympathetic state and therefore the food we eat is utilised as calories for fuel (vs being stored as fat in the liver). 

Unsurprisingly, there is a relationship between how many times we’ve turned on stress hormones during the day and our quality of sleep that night.

Eating in a healthy relationship to the ghrelin hormone (i.e. within an hour or so of it ’spiking’) will optimise your food intake, food storage and energy levels.

What about fasting? 

Fasting (particularly intermittent fasting) has become quite popular these days.

Basically, if we wait out the hormonal surge that happens during mid morning, ghrelin will quite quickly return to baseline. 

In other words, if we skip breakfast and train ourselves not to consume food in the midst of that stress response that follows (and allow ghrelin to return to baseline) then we can eat lunch before the lunchtime stress hormones turn on and therefore offer a period of rest to the gut and immune system.  

The secret of the 18-hour fast is to go past the morning hunger stress pattern and eat at an unstressed part of the day. Ideally around noon or later. 

Intermittent fasting is incredibly helpful to allow a period of rest for the gut.

It’s important to note that it’s not recommended to do intermittent fasting for longer than 2 weeks at a time. 

And while doing it, it’s best to focus on anaerobic activity such as strength building and resistance training.

18 hours ain’t enough

Unfortunately our environment is so toxic now that we cannot avoid injury and damage in the gut lining and therefore our immune function is constantly compromised.

Our bodies (and guts) simply get very little (if any) chance to rest.

The good news is that longer term fasts of 3 - 7 days allow a massive reset to the immune system.

During these longer fast periods, the cells are able to release unneeded, energetically demanding, genetic information. 

This is incredibly restorative to our cells, and therefore our overall well being. 

Interestingly, it also turns out that if you fast for a full 24 hours ghrelin turns off permanently until you eat again/restart calorie intake. 

What that tells us is that the body is designed to give you rest in times of famine - it literally stops the stress response.

The body also gets better and better at mobilising existing resources from the body - this helps ‘clear out the junk’, rejuvenate our cells, and reset our immune system. 

For a healthy person, it’s recommended that you do a long fast at least once a year.

Bed time

It’s important to give yourself some space to find silence before you sleep.

This allows us to let go of the stress and stories of the day and prepare the body for a night of rest. 

Reducing bright fluorescent lighting (use lamps or candles instead) and limiting screen time are both super important here - particularly phones in bed. 

It’s also worth checking out Andrew Huberman’s work on sunlight exposure (particularly within the first 30 mins of waking) to really help set your circadian rhythm for the day and optimise your hormonal function for a good night’s rest. He’s done quite a few podcasts on this topic which are definitely worth a listen.