Gut Wellbeing – The importance of Gut wellbeing and 5 threats to it and 5 natural remedies
The health of your gut is paramount to wellbeing and brain health. There is a direct connection between the gut and the brain, a two way information and health highway that needs to be well maintained to keep you on the road. In this blog I will explain the importance of gut wellbeing, tell you five things that threaten gut wellbeing and five natural ways to protect it.
It takes guts!
There are a hundred trillion microbes in your gut and they along with their genetic material are called the gut microbiome. These microscopic life forms have more power over your brain than you may have imagined, they influence its function moment to moment! These microbes are fundamental to gut wellbeing.
Powerful guts
Not only that, your gut microbiome is responsible for sixty percent of your immunity and ninety percent of your serotonin and thirty other key neurotransmitters are produced in the gut! Even Hippocrates, without all the modern technology, knew that all disease and all health begins in the guts. Your gut microbiome affects your adrenal, thyroid and immune health. So if you have problems with your thyroid, adrenal glands (stress) and immune system you need to sort out your gut wellbeing!
Gut diversity
In order to have a healthy gut microbiome, you need over forty percent bacterial diversity. All our sanitised living and plastic foods are killing off our gut diversity and dialing down our gut brain axis from a fast speed freeway to a B road! Added to those is our constant exposure to electro pollution, which is stressing us to the max, wiping out our gut microbiome and demolishing our gut wellbeing.
Guts explained
The organs which make up our gut consist of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, colon and rectum. The gut lining is just one cell thick, this is known as the epithelium and is pivotal to survival and wellbeing! Who knew this tiny little cellular wall would be so intrinsic to health and wellbeing.
The cells of the epithelium are connected in what’s referred to as a tight junction, anything threatening that connection causes leaky guts and compromises gut wellbeing. ;-(
5 serious threats to gut wellbeing
These are the main threats to the wellbeing of our gut wellbeing and gut lining, which create harmful microbe imbalances.
1) Inappropriate eating, yes all that shit you know you shouldn’t be eating is so much more damaging that just a few inches on the hips! Gluten is a major cause of intestinal permeability, aka leaky gut. Sugar’s bad because it feeds yeast causing certain microbes to produce toxins that damage the gut lining.
2) Exposure to toxic chemicals, a hidden big one being GMO foods, which carry all sorts of noxious pesticides. But I include anything you come into contact with, whether through smell or touch.
3) NSAIDs, yeah those over the counter painkillers are lethal to the integrity of the gut lining! So look for more natural painkillers, or better still treat the underlying cause!
4) Proton pump inhibitors, which are those medicines which block acid reflux, again hugely popular and devastating to gut wellbeing and the gut lining.
5) Antibiotics wipe out your gut microorganisms, some never recover, especially if you’re given them just after birth! Everytime I used them I used to get thrush, this was because they wiped out all the good stuff and the candida yeast was given an open invitation to procreate like gremlins after midnight. No one ever told me that was why this happened! So I took more medication to control the thrush…vicious circle of doom on my gut wellbeing!
Leaky gut
Having leaky gut is very common because of our synthetic life styles. What happens is that certain proteins like gluten, casein and other toxins cause inflammation and start leaking through our gut lining into our bloodstreams. These toxins then get circulated around the body, like an inflammation death star, causing everything they touch to become inflamed compromising body wide wellbeing.
Scary medical facts
A lot of medical research has and is taking place to further explore the intrinsic link between the gut and the brain axis and the impact gut wellbeing has on our overall wellness. Here are some scary medical facts to cogitate upon…believe what feels intuitively correct and discard what doesn’t.
Leaky gut is the cause of Autoimmune diseases such as thyroid (Hashimoto’s disease), adrenal, type one diabetes and joint pain.
Depression, which is an inflammatory disorder which may only slightly be improved by using SSRI Antidepressants in that they carry a slight anti-inflammatory action. By treating the inflammation you can treat the depression!
5 Natural ways to improve gut wellbeing
So, what can you do to naturally improve your gut wellbeing that doesn’t compromise the rest of your wellbeing.
1) Find healthy ways to manage your stress levels and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, dialing down your sympathetic nervous system to a moan instead of a screech.
2) Eat well, avoiding GMO and gluten. Try nourishing bone broths, Mega Vitamin Dosing, liquorice root, an adaptogen herb, speeds the healing of ulcers, peppermint essential oil in warm water for IBS, chamomile tea aids digestion and PMS, raw goat’s milk kefir is a natural probiotic, fermented cabbage – kimchi is a natural probiotic (if you’re histamine intolerant like me then just use a probiotic supplement).
3) Get a pet, having a cat reduces your allergies by forty eight percent and a dog by fifty four percent down to the wonderful microbes they introduce to our guts.
4) Swim in the sea, this is the largest body of microbes on the planet. And, if you can’t face a swim in the sea, walking by it or touching it will suffice.
5) Eat local, you want to be eating your local soil on your local vegetables and consuming your local pollen in your local honey.
Final word
So now you know how important gut wellbeing is, what threatens it and which natural remedies you can use to protect it. If you suspect that your gut wellbeing could do with some improvement, book yourself a 360 Bespoke Wellbeing Consultation and I can sort you out.
Should you wish to learn more about how your body works and how to protect your own immunity and wellbeing naturally, I run an excellent workshop on Total Body Healing. Where I can promise you will learn so much valuable information and truly appreciate how to self care.
If you would like to learn more about eating seasonally and locally, I run a workshop on Wild Superfoods. Which has the advantage of showing you what you can forage for free, growing in the natural world around you.
And finally, if you like learning about self health, I run a series of essential oil workshops designed to help you live a natural, autonomous life managing your own wellbeing.
