4 tips to help your gut be happier 😊 that have nothing to do with food!

Your gut drives everything.

The gut isn’t called the second brain for no reason.
It drives many body processes! Immunity, digestion, mood. the gut and the brain have a big relationship.

They talk via the superhighway called the Vagus nerve.

Rather watch a video instead of read?

Mood, nutrient absorption, weight (even though I don’t focus on weight loss as a first line of defence in my coaching, the GLOBAL WOMAN CONVERSATION is about weight), immunity, and B vitamins.

The gut seems to drive everything, even your skin.

We have little ecosystems everywhere, and the skin is no exception.

There is lots of information out there to help with gut health in terms of what to eat (fibre, fluid, fat) and what not to eat.

What about some information to help your gut WITHOUT FOOD? With so much food and weight focus in the world, women develop a fear of food. And while your gut does need diversity of fibre to feed its neighbourhood, fear, which is stress, is the worse thing for your gut

Here are 4 tips to help your gut be happier 😊 that have nothing to do with food!

But first a little nerd trivia:

Gastrointestinal supplement sales reached $2.96 billion in 2018, and are projected by Nutrition Business journal to reach $3.98 billion by 2021. (1)

This says a LOT about the health of our collective guts! It also says a lot about how we love to BUY things to QUICKLY AND EASILY reach a “better” health status.

Don’t get me wrong, I do cycles of probiotics, and feed myself prebiotic food. But, here’s more to gut health than capsules and kale.

Over in my home, we aren’t just interested in our own microbiome. My daughter works in a health food store for pets, and owners are balancing their dog and cat guts, as a way to prevent future disease, help their pets live long and healthy, and prevent big vet bills!

I mentioned that stress can have a negative impact on your gut, and fear of what to eat creates stress too.

1. reframe stress

How we think is key to how we react.

We can’t avoid stress. Our bodies REACT to the notifications on our phone, or bad news, even bad days, and too many “to do’s” on our lists.

Our bodies also react to stress around food. Our body doesn’t know the difference between true threats to survival, and perceived threats.

If you have fear of eating certain foods, well, your body just sees that as stress.

It shuts off digestion.

You’ve heard of it, the fight or flight response. That’s the stress mechanism in the body.

Even with low level stress, our bodies stay primed and prepped to run. The nervous system secretes signals that tell your endocrine system to get ready, danger is here and you need to flee.

This affects our digestion, because when we are stressed, the brain will STOP proper digestion. This is why are what we absorb, not just what we eat.

When we are relaxed, blood goes to the digestive system, digestive enzymes are turned on, and the body can receive nutrients.

WHEN WE STRESS OVER FOOD CHOICES, THIS ALSO TURNS DIGESTION OFF!

If this sounds like you, you may like my Fullness Guide. I created it to help you with the HOW of your eating, before you worry about the WHAT of your eating. If we can’t understand HOW, or even WHY we eat, then choosing what to eat is full of conflict.

When we are stressed and anxious, we also lose saliva. Ever had to run a meeting and have dry mouth? This will be addressed tip #3.

Anxiety turns on the fight or flight response, and this makes out mouth dry. The mouth is the gut gateway. There is more than one microbiome in there. Without saliva, the collective microbiome becomes imbalanced. Also, without saliva, we can’t start digesting our food.

In my Fullness Guide, I share 4 steps that help you look at how you eat, so that you can make some conscious choices around your food. That means that you may choose brownies over broccoli, and be ok with it.

When we are relaxed around food, we can digest better, and the nutrients can be absorbed through the small intestine.

Let’s face it, when we are relaxed, we enjoy food AND the company we keep MORE. The last time you had a dinner with friends or a loved one, and you thought about the pile of work you had to do, were you all zen?

Probably not. Stress affects so much in our bodies from nutrient absorption to bone density. We need to keep our bones dense in menopause and post menopause. Stress doesn’t help.

The next time you feel stressed, ask yourself:

What is in my control and what is not?

Let go of the stuff you can’t change.

2. When something threatens you, BREATHE

use the tips below to work through this moment.

In the guide, I have you take a few deep breaths to signal the brain to relax before a meal. This also helps you create a pause before you meal to relax, but also to tune in.

You can use breathing at any time to:

• Tune in to your feelings ( I am angry, and I feel like eating) and into your hunger.

• Be grateful. This puts you in a relaxed state. Look for the lesson in what is happening. What can you learn from this?

• Remind yourself that this IS temporary. It just doesn’t feel like it.

• Find someone supportive.

• Change your surroundings. Go outside.

• Put on music to change your state. Have a dance party for one. Activity you love helps with stress too.

Stress affects our hormones, sleep, relationships, happiness and well being. You can’t get away from stress, but you can look at it in a different light.
Using breathing techniques will help your body and mind find calm.

When we are in that rest and digest phase, we can think clearer, and focus on the present, not work, the future or the past.

Eating healthy food is only half the story of good nutrition. Being in the ideal state to digest and assimilate is the other half - Marc David, author of the Slow Down Diet and founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

3. Optimize your spit.

I assure you, optimizing your spit,
your salivary flow is NOT wonky.

It’s necessary.

Make sure you have optimal saliva. As we age, our salivary glands decrease their function. We also may be on medications. There are hundreds of medications that dry our mouth out.

Salivary glands decrease function through the night.

You’re supposed to be sleeping not chewing.

Your saliva contains salivary enzymes, like amylase, which digests starch, to get pre-digestions started in your mouth. The mouth is the beginning of the gut, remember? Keeping your gums healthy is also important, as swollen bleeding gums are also a permeable membrane, just like your gut. Your immune system can’t keep up with everything that needs attention.

By taking a breath and pausing before you eat, you can signal the brain that you are about to eat. You can use your senses, and smell you food. Ever smell a lemon? Your cheeks start squirting saliva, in anticipation of the taste. Next time you eat, notice if your SALIVA is FLOWING. Taking in the smells of your food helps your brain signal digestion. It also makes it easier to swallow your food, because, well … SPIT lubricates the mouth.

People on medications have dry mouth, even if they don’t notice it, and will use water during meals. This does not help digestion.

4. Eat slow. Not to eat less, to digest.

The goal of mindful eating should not be to eat less. It is to feel satisfied. To harmonize your food relationship.

Although I’ve said that Mindful Eating is so much more than eating slower, slowness IS a component of that practice and an IMPORTANT one. When we slow down and chew, we gulp less air. This can lead to less discomfort, bloating and TOOTS. We are also pulverizing our food so we can get the most nutrients out of it.

The slowness increases presence with your food. When we are aware, when we are THERE with our meal, we can enjoy all the tastes, flavours and smells. Or we can recognize that we DON’T enjoy what is on front of us and and choose something different.

How would that feel? To leave your meal, and choose something different?

Menopause is a stressful time for many of us, sandwiched between kids, career and care of parents. We deserve, YOU deserve, to take care of yourself, your gut and your happiness.

And you deserve to feed yourself, and feed yourself well.

If you’re interested in learning more about an UNdiet approach, please come and join The Fullness Community right here :) I compile all kinds of recipes and resources for you to lead your fullest midlife.

I also offer a free Mindful Eating Chat as well, to get you started, or to reframe thoughts around body, or food. You can contact me anytime.

After all, we are what we need to give ourselves permission to lead full lives. We can’t do that if our days are filled with stress,

Be Well, and Happy,

Tanya

Sloan, A. Elizabeth, and Catherine Adams Hutt. "Getting Ahead of the Curve: Digestive Health (Gen 2): The microbiome and prebiotics have gained mainstream attention." Nutraceuticals World, May 2019, p. 18+. Gale Academic Onefile.