Sleep, "a barometer of health" for a SIBO sufferer | 5 minute read

Suffering anxiety and beset by a sense of loss, Paul J’s indigestion became chronic and his sleep fell apart.

“If your sleep is good, you can handle anything but if it gets down to 10% everything starts to crumble.” 

Are digestive issues and sleep disturbance part of the same spectrum? Paul J, a Zeez Pebble user, believes his experiences support the idea that the brain, stomach and nervous system are intimately connected. He has suffered long term digestive issues for which he has never got an entirely satisfactory diagnosis. IBS is the tag of convenience that in his case, manifested as an upset stomach that would flare into something more acute whenever he felt stressed or pressured.

There was stress in plenty. Having worked some years in Financial IT, Paul gave it all up to become a professional photographer, specialising in food and drink. He was highly successful. Then, five years ago, he underwent three life-changing setbacks in as many months, and gave up the photography business. ‘All the stuff that goes with running your own show was too much,” he recalls.

With stress came acute digestive issues accompanied by disrupted sleep. With sleeplessness, panic attacks kicked in and so the fearsome circle was complete.

Paul finally got a diagnosis of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, (SIBO), which affects the body much like malnutrition, starving it of key nutrients. There are treatment plans and in his case, it was to turn the tables on the overgrowth and starve it by withdrawing certain foods. Having received his diagnosis, Paul began one of many exclusion diets, cutting out food groups such as dairy (which is not easy as so much prepared food contains milk) and other triggers such as ginger puree (heavily used as a flavour enhancer in food). Who knew! For some time, exclusion diets became the norm.

Paul strongly believes that in his case, stomach disorders and poor sleep are part of the same health picture. He has always found that when digestion is good, he sleeps better. To put it succinctly, sleep is the barometer of health. Anyone who has set out to improve their biome or self-treat IBS will know that it is a complicated picture, with good results followed by relapses when exclusion diets are wound down. These diets are challenging to follow in a world full of food choices. And you might think that cutting down on alcohol would be useful when suffering sleeplessness, but not so in Paul’s case. “When I stopped alcohol, my sleep got worse.” For him, the low point was the beginning of 2021, when he lived through a month of around three hours’ sleep per night. Unsurprisingly, this impacted his concentration and anxiety levels, hence his assertion at the head of this piece, that when your sleep is good, you can handle anything but when it goes downhill, life crumbles.

He had taken control of his diet, but did his introduction to the Zeez Pebble help this long-term sleep issue?

Paul started using the Zeez Pebble last summer (2021) and his sleep began to improve from the start. As someone who sees health and mental wellbeing holistically, Paul feels that using the Zeez supports the wider mechanism of his mind. Sleep recovery has been slow but sure - and measurable. Pre-Zeez, there was a six month period when he couldn’t read a book or a magazine. He has now read 13 books this year alone (time of writing, May 2022). He is on course to read more this year than in the whole of the last five years. He is doing more in life now, he says, and with his energy levels restored, he’s planning to take up the reins of a new career, with ambitions to move north and open a bookshop.

Here is the recovery timeline in Paul’s own words:

“Before I got my pebble I’d maybe get a few ok-ish nights sleep in a week then it could be a week or two before I got an ok-ish night. I could also go for weeks getting up in the middle of the night typically around 3:30 am and needing to go to the toilet. Some nights I’d maybe sleep for an hour at a time and then wake for 30-40 minutes before maybe getting another hour. It felt like I was getting 4-5 hours sleep on a good night and as little as 2-3 hours on a bad night. These broken sleep patterns had been going on for 4-5 years. 
 
“What I’ve noticed over the last few months with my Zeez Pebble was that initially I was still having disturbed sleep but was getting back to sleep quicker. Then I noticed the frequency of waking reduced. I’m now at the point where I go to bed close to 11pm and sleep through to around 6:35 am. I think I might have only had to get up once in the last month to go to the toilet, which is an amazing turn-around. I was also dealing with a lot of nightmares and occasional nocturnal panic attacks. The intensity of my dreams has reduced significantly as well and these are no longer making me wake in a state of panic. 
 
“I’m more focussed and my mood has been greatly improved. The levels of anxiety and depression I’ve felt over the last four years have almost gone completely. It’s quite unbelievable! It definitely feels like a turning point in my recovery from my various health issues and the chronic insomnia that I’ve experienced for the last 4-5 years. (Zeez is) . . . a truly life changing product.​"

On the food front, Paul is now back to eating what he wants - including chocolate biscuits, the rationale being that he and his partner drink so much tea! Eating what he wants in reason, getting twenty to thirty food types in a week, are part of his holistic approach to wellbeing. As he says, he eats “More like a human being now”, and has stopped all the supplements. His biome is as good as it ever has been and his sleep, thanks to these lifestyle changes and the Zeez Pebble, is that of a healthy adult.

We wish Paul all the best with his goal of opening a book shop ‘somewhere in the North’.