By Given the tick of approval by a gastroenterologist
It’s not uncommon to read how closely our gut status is linked to mental health. If you suffer from a regular gut or gastrointestinal upset, you can appreciate just how much of an impact. One wrong move can throw your day into emotional chaos — not to mention pain, gas, wind, and generally feeling under the weather. It isn’t very good, and I do NOT eat to avoid this around people in my office or any public setting. These situations can be very stressful. I love how Will Bulsiewicz, a leading gastroenterologist and well-known gut health specialist — doesn’t believe in magical powders, pills and super elixirs. Instead, he encourages eating healthy, organic whole food, especially this one smoothie I will share with you today. I tried this experiment for 30 days during the start of 2022. I felt so good, improved my iron levels, and increased my healing and recovery capacity after a hysterectomy — I haven’t stopped my morning smoothie mixes.Here is the original post I uploaded back in February: My 30-day Smoothie Breakfast Challenge — 5 Health Benefits that ResultedSmoothies have become my treasured post-workout breakfast with many benefitsmedium.com My next challenge is to see if I can pull it all off through the cold of winter and still gain the benefits of this beautiful and potent mix. It’s no surprise I’m now addicted — who wouldn’t be?
Here is to docs recommended smoothie just in case you want to try it:
- A handful of spinach
- Any wild berries
- Organic nut milk
- One banana
- flax seeds
- Blend into creamy goodness and enjoy.
For added creaminess, freeze all your fruits and veggies, then add water to blend into a nice thick smoothie bowl. This smoothie has 16 grams of fibre and will get you closer to hitting your recommended daily amount. Why is looking after your gut so important and feeding it the good stuff to keep it healthy? Your gastrointestinal system has its own ‘brain’, the Enteric Nervous System, constantly communicating with the nervous system. This finely attuned and intertwined system influences our moods, mental health and cognition. Anxiety is believed to ease through using a probiotic supplement and eating the standard FODMAP diet. These small changes can help regulate your gut microbiome and slowly reduce symptoms. Adding some fermented foods increases good bacteria. Having different forms of good bacteria in your gut is vital, as they help produce mood-regulating neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. The best way to increase those good guys, I keep mentioning, is to increase your consumption of different sources of veggies and take a good quality probiotic. Having a tub of yogurt per day can add to gut-healthy bacteria infusion. Stress is also a standard part of any busy person’s life — and it could start from the simplest things, such as deadlines, assignments and perhaps negative feedback from a colleague. Today, I had a moment of stress — and it seemed like one instance after another, from a less than ideal mark on an assignment and a colleague pressuring me to do something for them — despite my inability to fit them in. These occurrences can move you in a negative direction, and it’s been shown that taking regular probiotics helps make us a lot more resilient to stress. I think that’s good, simple and realistic advice to take on board and start actioning it daily.
Key takeaways
How can you reduce the adverse effects of an unhealthy gut microbiome? Your best bet is to eat healthy — and try different techniques that ease stress, anxiety and depression. You cannot ignore your reaction to an event or a person’s energy. No one tells you to feel a certain way — it’s something that you take on yourself. So, how do you eliminate that? Working on your gut health is a start, but working on your mindset is essential. In my own experience, this is a daily grind for me — and missing one step sets the downward spiral faster than I realise. In other words, you must discover what works best for your mindset and do that every day.
Some ideas to get you started:
- Exercise
- Relaxation techniques
- Walking
- Listening to your favourite music or positive audiobooks and any video material you can find
- You are doing things you enjoy every single day.
We all have to work, look after our family, have cutthroat deadlines, and sometimes rush about like headless chickens. I believe how you react to everything will either increase your happiness levels or set it into the gutter. It’s always a work in progress for me, and I’m sure I’m not alone on that one.
Please sign up via my link if you want to read more articles like this or start writing your own. I’d love to see you on the other side. ???????? Sign up here for your medium subscription. I get a portion of your monthly fee at no extra cost to you, and it will go a long way in supporting me as a writer.