Meet Your Gut, Your Second Brain ⋆ Laura London Fitness

What Does Your Gut Have To Do With Your Mood?

A healthy gut is essential to a healthy body. Did you know you’re your body had two “Brains” one that we all know about in our head and the other is our GUT. Yes, our gut.

Your GUT is an amazing, intelligent part of your body, it is also known as your second brain. If you want the scientific version is it called the Enteric Nervous System, or the ENS.

Think about the phrases go with your GUT, or trust your GUT instincts. You gut has over 1 milllion neurons, it records experiences and responds to emotions. The gut’s brain is also known to play a major role in human happiness and misery.

What I am trying to tell you is your GUT already knows what foods are good for you and what you should be eating, which means so do you! You just need to tune into it and listen.

“PROBIOTICS ARE A MUST FOR DIGESTIVE HEALTH”

Taking antibiotics, not digesting food properly, and stress all lead to a gut that is off balance. Antibiotics kill not only the bad bacteria but all the good bacteria too.

When we are in an optimal state of health we should have about 80 to 85 percent friendly bacteria in our digestive tract. The years of taking medication, eating processed and a diet of mainly of cooked food all lead to an overbalance of unfriendly bacteria in our system. When this happens we get all sorts of symptoms, gas bloating, indigestion, skin eruptions, lack of energy, digestive issues and many other symptoms.

PROBIOTICS CAN HELP TO RESTORE OUR BALANCE AND ENERGY

BENEFITS OF PROBIOTICS:

Improved digestion
Improved liver function
Improved energy
Improve the absorption of nutrients from food & vitamins
Helps eliminate gas and bloating

I highly recommend adding in probiotics to your diet everyday. In the form of supplements and fermented foods.

Fermented foods are full of living enzymes that have a beneficial effect on our overall health.

I enjoy a fermented drink called Kombucha or Kevita, which you can buy in the health food stores and some groceries stores now carry it.

Supplements are another way to add them in. Always look for high quality supplements without added chemicals. Really start to read labels and realize what you are putting in your body.

Your gut, aka “inside your belly”, has been proven to be your bodies literal “second brain”. For years, the medical world has been trying to figure out what causes our moods to change and what causes common problems that most of us face like stress, anxiety, and even depression.

These are common problems, and we know they are linked to serotonin, but did you know that 95% of serotonin isn’t even produced in the brain? Serotonin is actually produced in the gut.

What we put inside of our bellies is directly related to our emotional health. Our gut consists of bacteria and we need that bacteria to have a healthy balance or the rest of us will not be balanced including our mood.

Your gut and your brain work together, so if one is out of balance the other will be also.

Have you ever had an upset stomach because your mind was stressed? Well, think about it, if it works one way it works both ways. There have been many scientific studies that have linked mood problems to gut problems and vice versa.

PROBIOTIC FOODS

YOGURT
KOMBUCHA
MISO
SAUERKRAUT
KIMCHI
KEIFER
FERMENTED COCONUT WATER
TEMPH

Is your gut balanced with 85% good bacteria and 15% bad bacteria? That is the recipe for a healthy gut and a healthy mood. The best way to make sure your body has healthy bacteria for your gut is to feed your gut healthy bacteria. Some symptoms of an unhealthy gut include gas, bloating, nausea, sugar cravings, and more.

With all the crazy food marketing, millions of diets and some very crazy diet advice we have lost contact with our own body. We need to zone into our GUT and start to listen to it and our own inner voice.

In nature animals always listen to their gut intuitively, they know exactly what to eat and what not to eat. How does an animal know which berries are good for them and which are poisonous? There is no book or manual to tell them, they listen to their GUT.

It’s time to tune back in to your own gut, time to make that mind body connection!