How Gut Bacteria Influence Sleep

What if the bacteria in your gut are actually helping to regulate your nightly sleep?

It sounds strange, but there is a constant biochemical dialogue between your intestines and your brain.

Under normal conditions, small amounts of bacterial products from your gut leak into your system.

Your immune cells, called macrophages, digest these pieces and release chemicals that promote non-REM

sleep. However, when you're sleep-deprived, your gut becomes more permeable,

allowing even more of these bacterial products to escape into your lymph nodes.

This creates a "feedforward" loop where your body senses these invaders and triggers an inflammatory

response that forces your brain into a state of sleepiness. Your sleep-wake cycle is more connected