Improve Your Gut Health & Digestion
Gut health and digestion are largely a hugely underrated and under prioritised area of health and wellbeing. Whilst having poor digestion can be extremely uncomfortable, the effects of poor digestion extend far beyond discomfort when it comes to our health and wellbeing.
The gut and digestive system is responsible for the digestion and absorption of nutrients from foods. Meaning that the energy you receive from the foods you consume, replies on a healthy functioning gut.
But it doesn’t stop there. The gut is also home to the production of various hormones, including 95% of the hormone, serotonin. Seratonin has multiple roles and fucntions within the body'; from assisting digestion and appetite, to influence on mood regualtion, memory, sexuality, and attention span. (Berger, Gray, Roth, 2018)
This means that if our gut is not functioning as it should, this effects our health wider than simply digestive discomfort; influencing mood, mental health, mental clarity.
So, knowing how important gut function is to our overall health and wellbeing, here’s 5 things you can focus on to improve yours:
Increase the variety in your diet
A healthy gut microbiome thrives off of variety. How many times have you cut food groups out on your latest diet/eating trend, to find reintroducing them causes incredible discomfort? Ensuring we maintain variety in our diet is key to a healthy functioning gut.
So start by ensuring you’re including plenty of different foods in your diet, and not actively avoiding food groups. Try not to rotate the same foods each day (meal plan style), and expose your gut to diversity.
Actively increase your plant based food intake
The latest evidence tells us that for a thriving gut microbiome, we should aim for 30 different plant based foods per week. This includes fruits/vegetables, but also legumes, beans, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. Having an abundance approach to plant based variety is key to expanding your exposure to these foods.
Increase fibre and fermented food intake
A high fibre diet, as well as the inclusion of fermented foods is shown to support s healthy functioning gut and digestive system. As fibre is indigestible to the human gut, this supports foods passing through the gut at a steady rate, allowing nutrients to be absorbed, and stools to pass comfortably.
Fermented foods support and increase in good bacteria within the gut, additionally supporting gut function. You can increase intake of these foods by aiming for an increase in fruit and vegetables (as previously), whole grain options, as well as dairy. (Feng Y, Duan Y, Xu Z, Lyu N, Liu F, Liang S, Zhu B. 2019)
Consume your food mindfully
In today’s busy society, it’s easy to constantly eat on the go, in a rush.. In order to adequately digest food, our body should be in a para sympathetic state (also known as the ‘rest and digest’ state). When food hits the stomach in a stress state, this can impede digestion, and cause discomfort and bloating.
Aim to consume your meals in a designated eating place, undistracted, and slowly.
Assess your stress levels and sleep pattern
Similarly to mindful eating, elevated stress levels and poor sleep can keep our body in a sympathetic state, known as fight or flight. The 2 way communication between the brain and the gut; known as the gut brain axis, can mean that elevated tress responses within the brain, can also impact our gut function. This can sometimes be caused by poor physical and psychological recovery if sleep is also reduced or of poor quality, or if day to day stress is poorly managed, keeping cortisol levels elevated, impairing the adsorption of micronutrients, and increasing levels of inflammation.
Managing day to day stress, as well as ensuring sleep is well regulated, is key to supporting a healthy functioning gut, and general wellbeing.
How many of these do you feel you could work on?
Charly x
References:
Berger M, Gray JA, Roth BL. The expanded biology of serotonin. Annu Rev Med. 2009;60:355-66. doi: 10.1146/annurev.med.60.042307.110802. PMID: 19630576; PMCID: PMC5864293.
Feng Y, Duan Y, Xu Z, Lyu N, Liu F, Liang S, Zhu B. An examination of data from the American Gut Project reveals that the dominance of the genus Bifidobacterium is associated with the diversity and robustness of the gut microbiota. Microbiologyopen. 2019 Dec;8(12):e939. doi: 10.1002/mbo3.939. Epub 2019 Sep 30. PMID: 31568677; PMCID: PMC6925156.
Cherpak CE. Mindful Eating: A Review Of How The Stress-Digestion-Mindfulness Triad May Modulate And Improve Gastrointestinal And Digestive Function. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2019 Aug;18(4):48-53. PMID: 32549835; PMCID: PMC7219460.
