Gut health plays an important role in your overall health. The cleaner the gut the cleaner your overall health is. Your gut’s “brain” is known as the enteric nervous system. This system is home to 100 million neurons within your intestinal wall. Neurons transmit important information throughout your body. They also control digestion and send updates to the brain. While the enteric nervous system initiates and sustains digestion on its own, signals from the brain, such as stress and anxiety, can have dramatic effects on how well it works. In addition, the brain receives chemical messages from the gut, which can affect your mood and emotions.
Not only does your gut have a brain but also an immune system. Roughly 60-70 percent of your immune system lives in your gut. A great way to protects your gut immune system from infection and diseases are through an abundance of healthy bacteria. To keep harmful bacteria from overthrowing your gut, healthy bacteria needs to thrive and cover your gut wall keeping it strong and healthy. Keep your gut healthy and strong by following the easy and simple gut health tips below.
Gut Health Tips
- Eat Organic Foods-A diet consisting of a variety of organic foods will increase the diversity of bacteria in the gut. There are hundreds of species of bacteria that live in the gut. Each species plays a different role in your health and requires different nutrients for growth. Try to eat most foods organic to decrease the amount of chemicals, pesticides, and insecticides that enter your body.
- Eat Veggies-Especially the greens. Green vegetables lower stomach acidity helping the body to digest foods and absorb minerals that we may be deficient in. Minerals help the body to neutralize and to repair and to recover from stress.
- Eat Fat-Good fats from nuts, seeds, and avocados will help burn fat, lower insulin levels, and slow down digestion. Allowing the body to breakdown foods slower and longer to maximize absorption.
- Add Fiber-Fiber found in flaxseed, legumes, beans and vegetables can’t be digested by the body, but can be digested by certain bacteria in the gut. Fiber can help slow the digestion system down letting the gut absorb more nutrients improving overall health.
- Fermented Foods-Fermented foods, particularly plain, natural yogurt, can benefit the gut by enhancing its function and reducing the abundance of disease-causing bacteria in the intestines.
- Limit Sugar-When you consume processed, sugar-laden, refined foods, you’re giving bad bacteria an all-you-can-eat buffet. By limiting sugars, the bad bacteria starve and dies off cleaning up the gut.
- Drink Clean Water– Your gut needs water to keep bacteria and waste moving through your digestive system, which will help prevent constipation and bloating. When you’re dehydrated, these issues can throw off the balance of bacteria in your gut and lead to inflammation.
- Add Supplements-Prebiotics are foods that promote growth of beneficial microbes in the gut. Prebiotics such as dandelion greens, artichokes, bananas can promote the growth of many healthy bacteria in the gut which improves immune function. Probiotics are live microorganism, usually bacteria, which exert a specific health benefit when consumed. Probiotics such as kefir, miso, sauerkraut, and kimchi can improve how certain gut bacteria functions.
- Sleep and Fast-Let the gut rest and empty. As the body rest, the stomach will eliminate the food into storage or waste and move into fasting. A fasting healthy gut lets the body return to normal and be ready to start all over again the next day.
- Reduce Stress-Chronic high levels of stress are hard on your whole body especially your gut. When you experience chronic stress, our brain goes into fight or flight mode, causing your digestion and blood flow in the gut to slow down, the muscles that push along waste and bacteria to freeze up, and the secretions for digestion to decrease. All these stress responses equal a poorly functioning gut!
A Healthy Gut is a Happy Gut!!! Nourish your gut with nutritional foods.