HH382-Stress & Gut Health: How Do They Influence Each Other?

Welcome back to another episode of health hacks as I continue talking about gut health, and today I'm going to be talking about the impact of stress on our gut health. And this series started back at Episode 484 we are now at episode 490 so if you haven't heard the previous episodes, you might want to go back and check them out. So as I have mentioned in earlier episodes, chronic stress does negatively impact our gut health, because when we are in the state of chronic stress, we are not in our rest and digest state, which is the state that we need to be in in order for us to be able to properly digest our meals. Not only that, chronic stress actually creates an imbalance in our microbiome by killing off the good bacteria and allowing for our bad bacteria to take over. And it can also result in increasing leaky gut. And that is a can be a cause for autoimmune diseases, which obviously we don't want to go down that path, and because when we are eating in a state of chronic stress, we are slowing down our digestive system from even being able to function properly, because our body isn't producing salivary enzymes, digestive enzymes, stomach acid, to break down our food properly, because our body is in the chronic stress state, and it is not in the rest and digest state, and it is only in the rest and digest state where it will create or make those enzymes for us To be able to digest our food properly. So what happens is it takes longer for our food to make its way through our entire digestive system, and that ends up literally causing the food to be fermenting and get becoming putrid inside our gut, and creating a nasty environment inside our gut, which none of us want, and it just perpetuates the problem of having an unhealthy gut. And speaking of perpetuating the problem, we can end up in a vicious cycle, because stress worsens our gut health, as I've just explained, and poor gut health increases stress and anxiety. So it's increasing stress on our body. It's increasing the risk of food sensitivities. It's reducing our ability to produce good amounts of serotonin and dopamine are feel good and motivational neurotransmitters, and so focusing on stress is really critical to optimizing our gut health. So how do we do that? Well, something that I love to teach all of my clients is called 557, breathing because you can do this before each and every meal to drop yourself out of that stress state and into your rest and digest state and actually be turning digestion on. So I've done a whole health hack episode on this way back at the beginning. It's episode number 18. If you want to go back to Episode 18 and watch it, I explain exactly how and why this breathing technique is so important to do before eating, and why it's so effective, and it's something that you can literally do anywhere. It's not just for before eating. You can do it driving in the car. You can do it sitting at your desk. Anytime you feel your stress levels rising, you can tap into your breath to get yourself out of chronic stress state and into your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest state. There's also additional things that you can be doing to choose to turn on digestion before eating in order to support your gut health, such as having a glass of lemon water, eight ounces of water with the juice of half a lemon, throw in a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a sprinkle of some cayenne pepper for some heat, because your gut needs heat in order to break down the food. And so by putting that in ahead of time, it's letting your brain and your body know food is coming, and it starts to switch on digestion ahead of time. So between focusing on ways that you know to reduce stress, and again, I've also done entire series on stress. If you want to learn more about that, you can go back to episodes 445 through to 456 to tap into the information on stress and reducing your stress, and focus on turning on your digestive system before you start eating. That is going to help you be able to better manage the health of your gut. Not in the stressed out world that we live in today. And if you would like more support with that, if you're concerned about your gut health and you'd like to do some testing, we've got lab tests that you can do here, and do them in the comfort of your own home, and get the results so that we know exactly where the imbalances are in your gut, and what we need to then do in order to bring your gut back into balance and focus. Focusing on stress is always going to be a key part of that. So if you'd like to know more, reach out. Melissa at your guided health journey.com.