You know that gut feeling? Make it a healthy one! Here are 16 strategies to heal your gut and keep it healthy!
You’ve probably heard about the great importance of probiotics or good bacteria. However, most people fail to realize just how significant these friendly little bugs are to our immune system, inflammatory levels, digestion, nutrient status, and essentially every part of our health and functioning! The unfortunate thing is that maintaining a highly efficient, happy gut in today’s modern world can be a continual challenge. Between nutrient-deficient foods, highly-processed foods that are low in fiber and nutrition, bad fats, contaminated water, stress, medications, and many other forms of toxic stress, the balance of good to bad bacteria can get quite out of whack!
When the level of good bacteria is sub-optimal, we harm our gut and its ability to function properly. Our gut is vital to sustaining life; through proper digestion, the body uses nutrients to get energy, and much more. If it’s damaged or not functioning well, we can become quite sick! The importance of healing the gut and maintaining an efficiently functioning gut cannot be understated! Some key ways of healing a damaged gut are outlined below and can serve to benefit any person, no matter the degree of gut damage.
Sleep
First, good quality sleep is essential to a properly functioning, happy & healthy gut. Lack of sleep can disrupt the body’s ability to heal and function optimally. Make sure you’re getting a minimum of seven hours of restful sleep each night. For those who struggle to fall asleep or to have restful sleep, try at least ten minutes of meditation prior to getting into bed. This helps calm the mind and prepare it for rest.
Go to Sleep Smoothie
Next time you’re worried about your gut and sleep, try out go to sleep smoothie. It’s delicious and will help you sleep soundly!
Red More: Go to Sleep Smoothie
Enhance Your Digestion
Making sure that you’re implementing foods and supplements to naturally boost digestion can put less stress on your system and allow it to function well. Some simple strategies to enhance your digestion include drinking lemon water upon awakening, taking a shot of apple cider vinegar before meals, and eliminating toxic foods and medications.
Eat Supportive Foods
Foods go a long way in preventing gut damage and healing existing damage. Make sure to incorporate daily foods that heal and boost the functioning of the gut. Make sure to eat plenty of food-based fiber, natural fats such as coconut oil and avocado, fermented or cultured foods, and traditional unsweetened kombucha tea.
Avoid the Worst Offenders
Soda drinks, alcohol, processed juices, energy drinks, sugary coffee and teas and many other types of processed drinks, as well as highly processed, synthetic foods and ingredients (including white sugar and flour), wreak havoc on our good bacteria and our digestive system. Make sure to avoid all unnatural, whole foods.
Supplement When Needed
Sometimes when healing and boosting the gut, certain supplements like Sunwarrior’s illumin8, can help with the digestive process. Some of these supplements include a strong (natural) probiotic and digestive enzymes.
Hydration
When we’re dehydrated, we make it much more difficult for the body to function optimally and to properly circulate nutrients as well as to flush out debris. We should rely on clean water as much as possible for our hydration needs, though herbal tea, kombucha tea, and other natural beverages can also be a good choice.
Stress Management
When we’re stressed, our good bacteria are affected in a negative way. While we can’t always avoid stress, we can work to manage it and be in control of it by implementing stress-reducing methods such as meditation, yoga, exercise, laughter, hobbies, and other such practices.
The best way to care for the gut is to eat and live as close to nature as possible, making sure to get an abundance of the good nutrients and avoiding or minimizing as much as possible the synthetic, toxic elements that cause harm.
