Is There a Correlation between Sleep and Stomach Health?

I don´t think I´ve ever read about any medical research suggesting such a thing, but I suspect that there is a correlation between getting enough sleep and stomach health. This, of course, is just based on my own personal experience. It seems to me that I generally only have stomach problems right after I´ve gone a night or two without getting enough sleep. Surprisingly, that appears to have more to do with it than the kinds of food I eat.

When I was a kid, I always hated to go to bed – and hated to get up. I guess most children are like that. However, for me, this attitude carried over into adulthood. I try to set a strict bedtime for myself (especially when I know I have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to work the next morning), but I tend to resist it when that time comes. I can always find ´better´ things do, like watching a ballgame, surfing the Internet, writing articles/blog posts, or enhancing my websites. These activities often result in my not getting to bed until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m.

This lack of discipline is something that will likely prove very costly to me in the long run. But even in the short term, I´m paying for it with stomach problems like mild nausea and diarrhea. And they tend to hang on until I come to my senses and get several nights of adequate sleep. But since I never seem to learn my lesson, this cycle is repeated over and over again.