Candida: What is it? What does it have to do with my sleep and how do I get rid of it?
With Candida: What is it?
we are going to look at Candida. What is it? What does it have to do with sleep and how do you get rid of it?
I've just had a client, and he reported that a doctor said that Candida is everywhere. It's never a problem and don't take it seriously. I believe it is a good topic to talk about because I can see huge differences among people, who have a Candida problem and those who don't.
What is Candida?
Candida is a strain of yeast that you have in your body and in specific amounts, it's totally normal. It's what we should have, but it has a tendency to take over, especially if your immune system is already compromised and that brings along all sorts of problems.
How do you know that you have Candida?
If you have a terrible case of Candida the side effects are
headaches
fatigue
brain fog
weight loss
allergies
fungi in your nails
a really white coating on your tongue
vaginal yeast infections.
You can get it tested with an IGG test, either with a blood or a stool test. I usually do it in a stool test. That is one reason to do it. If you have a suspicion that you have Candida, do a spit test. It is not as reliable, but you can do it at home. Take a glass of water and where your water breaks with the oxygen, you spit in there and if your spit is going down to the bottom and it has these long thready kind of tangles, then there is suspicion that you have Candida. Then it might be a good idea to invest in getting a Candida test done.
What does this have to do with sleep?
Your body can produce Candida, in order to protect itself against heavy metals like mercury for example. It’s always good to have yourself checked out because there can be a reason for Candida to be there, as it truly wants to do you some good. The problem though is that it is a living organism and it’s active at night. Since it should only be there in limited amounts, not too much of it, it is going to create inflammation because your body wants to get rid of the access. The inflammation is raising cortisol levels and cortisol is a stimulant. It's something that will wake you up or if you wake up in between sleep cycles it is going to keep you awake. It's not something that we want. We want high cortisol levels during the day, but we definitely don't want to have them at nighttime. Another side effect of cortisol is that it's going to lower your melatonin. That is why it is going to affect your sleep.
Another reason why you don’t want to have an overload of Candida is that it can get out of control really, really, really quickly. It will take away oxygen in your intestine and replace it with fermentation, which is a great food source for cancer.
If you're prone to that or if you just want to make sure that you're never even going to support your body creating it, then try to really not have Candida or to get rid of it. As a friend of mine, Christa Orecchio, who I interviewed for my summit last year said, it's actually worse than having nail polish remover in your stomach. I found that metaphor to be a huge wake-up call.
How do you get rid of it?
The first step you should take is to avoid sugar! Candida loves sugar. It thrives on it and will take over when it gets sugar. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of Candida is that you will have cravings for sugar and carbs, ‘sugary carbs’ like pasta, white rice, white bread, and baguette. It can be difficult to cut out sugar and I always recommended doing it at a detox. Do it step by step.
Here's how to replace it:
40% of your meals should be a high-quality animal protein
40% should be non-starchy vegetables
20% of good fats and complex carbohydrates.
That's the way you should ideally have your food distributed, while you are on a Candida diet.
You can also include spices, such as
Ceylon cinnamon (good for balancing your blood sugar levels and lower bad cholesterol)
Turmeric and Ginger (great anti-inflammatories)
Once you've done your diet, there are a couple of supplements that I suggest. The first thing that I always start with is a biofilm disruptor. Biofilm is basically protecting Candida. It's like a shield that is even protecting it from antibiotics. If you have a biofilm disruptive first, you're setting it free, so that it can be detected by things that might not be as aggressive as antibiotics. I would never use antibiotics with Candida.
You can use a biofilm disruptor by Kirkman. There's also one by Bio-Botanical Research, which is excellent and because that is going to set free not only Candida but most likely also bad bacteria or parasites, using bentonite clay to catch that, is a very good idea. You reduce your detox effect in that way. Now, you want to go in with supplements to get rid of your Candida specifically.
I use Candida Now, by the brand called Now. Myself, I do a cure every six months because I'm prone to it. I'm going to give you the strict protocol that was suggested to me.
Use your biofilm disruptor for two weeks.
Do a 16-day antifungal rotation. The reason why we do these rotations is because we don't want to Candida to get used to it. We change it every four days. Have two of them and then you change them every four days.
First should be one that is olive leaf extract, which is great for the immune system, but also great to get rid of Candida. The second one should be Pau d'arco tea. It's a rind powder. Pau d'arco tea is great and works better than capsules and it's not only a great antibacterial but also an antiviral. Four days later you add in Oregano oil, which is the most potent antibiotic, antiviral that we have in nature. So that would be real rotation. After that, you can use caprylic acid, undecanoic acid or grapefruit seed extract for the next four days.
This process should be repeated at least twice and 32 days in total. After this, you can continue with a great probiotic just to make sure that Candida is in check and you can add a lot more fiber to your diet as well.
