Dr. Kyle Warren
Meghan Feir Walker
When your body has been bruised and battered from battling Lyme disease, the last thing you need is to lose the gift of good sleep in the process. Unfortunately, Lyme disease insomnia and poor sleep quality are additional weapons in the arsenal of these bacterial foes. Sleep issues are commonly the result of Lyme bacteria attacking the nervous system and causing damage throughout the body.
In this article, we will discuss the causes and symptoms of poor sleep and ways to improve sleep quality. This can be a vicious cycle that keeps you ill if not corrected, and is an extremely important and often overlooked portion of your healing process!
How Lyme disease affects sleep
Many patients worry that poor sleep will impact their Lyme recovery and overall health.
While it’s true that sleeping badly can affect every aspect of life, you can still recover from Lyme. In fact, when a patient has Lyme, it is often the cause of their poor sleep in the first place.
A large percentage of Lyme patients are affected by various sleep issues, and I consistently see the following sleep-related symptoms.
Symptoms of Lyme disease insomnia and sleep:
- Trouble falling asleep or not sleeping most of the night (insomnia)
- Frequently waking up
- Trouble falling and staying asleep because of pain and inflammation
- Waking up and feeling just as tired as the night before
- Waking up too early and not being able to get back to sleep
- Wired but tired: Many Lyme patients feel exhausted but still struggle to sleep
- Not entering deep REM sleep
- Frequently having to get up and use the bathroom
- Disrupted circadian rhythms
Lyme disease can, amongst other things, play a huge role in these varied types of sleep problems.
This four-year study from Belgium is the best I’ve found for including and tracking neurological symptoms Lyme can cause. Lyme disease wreaks havoc on the nervous system, so it’s not surprising that it can greatly impact sleep quality. Along with other symptoms, this study tracks a few major sleep disturbances attributed to this disease, including difficulty falling asleep, not getting good quality sleep, and not feeling rested after sleeping.
While the acknowledgment that Lyme can cause these symptoms is good, this study doesn’t provide answers on how to improve these symptoms.
Quality sleep is essential for Lyme disease recovery, but you can still get better
Sleep problems hit most of my Lyme patients, greatly affecting their lives.
When you can’t sleep well, you have a shorter fuse and feel more irritable. Your symptoms will also become more intense. A lack of sleep decreases performance, inhibits immune system function, causes more pain, inflammation, and fatigue, and worsens brain function and cognitive issues.
When you can’t enter or stay in deep REM sleep, your energy depletes and you don’t feel mentally sharp. Entering REM sleep every night is essential for repairing tissue and processing information. It helps regulate your mood and supports your memory and ability to learn.
Many people believe you can’t get better from Lyme unless you’re sleeping well, but Lyme is often the cause of your sleep disturbances in the first place. Despite what people think, I’m here to tell you: It’s totally possible to get better from these infections, even when your sleep quality is severely lacking.
As difficult as it is, it’s important to minimize your anxiety over sleep as much as possible. Although getting by on little sleep affects every function in your body and increases symptom severity, stressing about your sleep issues will only worsen your sleep quality.
When you are recovering from Lyme, sleep is essential in rebuilding the damage that’s been done, but you can get over Lyme, even with sleep issues. We want to do what we can to help improve your rest now, but the primary time to rebuild the damage that’s been done is after you’ve taken care of the infection.
Attempting to resolve these problems without first addressing the root cause rarely works. However, while you may not get rid of all your sleep issues without addressing the Lyme, there are still certain ways you can encourage a more restful night.
Common causes of Lyme disease insomnia
Symptoms of any kind often have multiple potential causes. The same applies to the symptoms caused by Lyme disease. Insomnia and sleep problems can have causes coming from various directions.
Physical causes
Chronic pain
Lyme can directly impact nerves and create pain and inflammation. This can lead to joint and muscle pain, aches, stiffness, and weird neurological sensations (such as feeling like someone just slathered Vicks VapoRub on you). Sleep problems are often a downstream effect of Lyme attacking the nervous system and causing pain and discomfort through nerve inflammation.
Pain sends a neurological signal to the brain with a large megaphone, telling your body to stay awake. Because of this, almost everyone with chronic pain will also encounter sleep problems.
Sleep issues: Brought to you by Lyme co-infections
Infected ticks can carry a whole host of infections—not just Lyme. In fact, 93% of the time, people with Lyme disease are simultaneously fighting other types of tick-borne infections, like Bartonella, Babesia, and many others.
Out of the many infections ticks can transmit, each can cause different types of discomfort and pain, making it difficult to sleep well. Take Babesia, for instance.
Babesia is a close cousin of malaria (they’re an evil family) and is a common accompanying co-infection to Lyme. This parasitic infection often causes night sweats that resemble hot flashes in women. When you’re experiencing night sweats, chills, and clamminess, it’s almost impossible to get comfortable enough to fall and stay asleep. Ask almost any woman over the age of 55 and they can tell you about the horrors of hot flashes.
Bladder irritation and urgency
Lyme can also cause bladder irritation, causing frequent trips to the bathroom. This makes road trips and weird bathroom situations the dread of many Lyme patients.
This bladder irritation can be caused by inflammation and imbalanced antidiuretic hormones (ADH) (that are often imbalanced due to the inflammation).
When you have to urinate multiple times a night, you can say goodbye to entering or staying in REM sleep for very long.
Psychological causes
Having a chronic illness like Lyme will inevitably cause more stress. After all, it can greatly affect every area of life. Because of this, Lyme often causes depression, anxiety, and mood swings, which impact sleep.
Medications
Certain antibiotics, stimulants, pain relievers, and other medications can cause sleep disruptions.
If your medications are disrupting your sleep, you should consult your doctor and consider adjusting medication, timing, or dosage.
Strategies to improve sleep quality with Lyme disease
In my practice, these fundamental lifestyle tips have improved the sleep quality of many of my patients.
Diet and supplement support
From a diet, lifestyle, and supplement perspective, there are several things you can do to help improve your sleep.
We consistently use two supplements in our office to improve our patients' sleep: magnesium threonate and ashwagandha.
Along with its many other benefits, magnesium is excellent for calming the body down, which makes it easier to fall asleep. We could talk about the benefits of magnesium for hours.
While all forms of magnesium will help your nerves, we specifically like magnesium threonate for improving sleep. Taking magnesium threonate before bed is useful because it enters the nervous system the most efficiently of any form of magnesium.
Ashwagandha is another supplement we find extremely useful for Lyme cases. When I hear patients say they feel “overwhelmed,” I often reach for ashwagandha because it can help support energy levels and thyroid, stress, and sleep hormones. It also helps balance the immune system, which is another huge bonus.
This adaptogenic herb is another calming agent that can help people who feel “wired, but tired.” If you have anxiety and/or neuropathy or other over-excited nerves, as is the case with insomnia, ashwagandha can help calm these nerves while supporting your adrenals.
Reducing stress by balancing blood sugar
Reducing stress on the body can relieve insomnia and other sleep issues, and the way you eat plays a major role.
One of the most physiologically stressful things is having unbalanced blood sugar. The absolute worst is when your blood sugar levels look like a ball in a pinball machine.
When your blood sugar continually spikes and crashes, your adrenals and stress hormones are constantly trying to rescue you. Ping-ponging blood sugar levels are a disaster for your sleep.
To help balance blood sugar, here’s what I tell my patients to try:
- Eat three healthy meals a day and two snacks
- Never eat carbohydrates by themselves; always pair carbs with protein or fat
- Remove most processed food and simple sugars from your diet
If you're constantly drinking sugary drinks, eating sugary foods, spiking your blood sugar, and ping-ponging it up and down, your health and sleep will suffer.
Avoiding blue light before bed
I know it’s hard to skip watching TV at night. I know it’s hard not to scroll endlessly through Amazon and Instagram in bed. However, avoiding screen time and other sources of blue light an hour or two before sleep is crucial for supporting your circadian rhythms. Blue light tells your brain to stay awake, making it difficult for your brain to rest at the right times.
Avoiding blue light is a lot easier said than done. It takes a heaping helping of self-control to effectively avoid blue light after a certain point in the evening.
While you may not want to reenact the 1800s, carrying a single candle around your home at night, a little intentionality can go a long way in supporting your natural sleep cycle.
Stress-reduction techniques
As you already know, stress is a part of life. I know it gets annoying when doctors tell you to minimize or manage stress better, but there’s a reason we repeatedly tell you this.
Here’s why we sound like a broken record: Chronic stress creates even more inflammation and worsens sleep.
While you may not be able to train your 3-year-old to act sensibly, and you might not be able to escape your angry boss (who may also be your 3-year-old), some stress-reducing techniques can help relieve some tension.
Prayer, meditation, deep breathing, stretching, light exercise, sitting in nature, reading, gratitude journaling, and stress-free hobbies are all great ways to help your brain feel safer and more relaxed.
Medication options for Lyme-related insomnia
Sleep aids may be necessary for extreme circumstances. While your doctor can prescribe sleep-aid medications, they're not ideal and don't give you the same quality of natural sleep.
Any sleep aid taken should be discussed with your healthcare provider.
Reclaim your restful night's sleep
Whether Lyme is creating chronic pain and neuropathy, Babesia is causing night sweats and temperature issues, or some other problem is going on, there are multiple reasons why sleep can be affected for Lyme patients.
Getting good, restorative sleep definitely helps your body recover faster, but most of your sleep problems won’t fully resolve until the infections are eradicated. The ultimate solution is to remove the cause(s) of the problem, which, in this case, is Lyme disease and/or other co-infections.
However, balancing blood sugar, turning off screens, and using basic supplements like magnesium threonate and ashwagandha can improve your chances of getting a good night’s rest as you continue battling these infections.
Each individual needs a tailored approach, and running accurate tests, eradicating Lyme, co-infections, and other sources of your sleep problems, supporting your immune system, and repairing your body is the best solution for long-term relief.
Schedule your free 15-minute consultation
At Restorative Health Solutions, we offer individualized care and can help create a plan tailored to your symptoms and infections.
If Lyme disease and/or co-infections are disrupting your sleep and daily life, Restorative Health Solutions is here to help. Schedule a consultation with Dr. Warren to explore a personalized plan for better sleep and a smoother path to recovery.
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Sources
Geebelen, L., Lernout, T., Devleesschauwer, B. et al. Non-specific symptoms and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome in patients with Lyme borreliosis: a prospective cohort study in Belgium (2016–2020). BMC Infect Dis 22, 756 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-022-07686-8
