How to Keep your Gut Healthy
As you may or may not have heard the gut is now considered the second brain.
It primarily helps us to digest food but its also a major sensory organ for the entire body, I’m sure you’ve heard of a “gut feeling” or how when were stressed our stomach can feel like it’s in knots. Taking care of your digestive system is a big part of our overall health, when we eat and act properly it can eliminate or reduce bloating, gas and pain (which also helps you look slimmer), absorb nutrients, dispose of waste more efficiently and most importantly it will make you feel better!
Here are some tips on how to keep your gut in check.
Drink your water warm.
Drinking water warm stimulates the gastrointestinal tract and peristalsis (the muscle contraction that’s moves your food through the intestines) cold water acts as a shock to the system and slows down digestion.
Don’t hold your stomach in.
This is a big one, especially for women. Last year a natural path told me about the importance of letting your stomach hang out, especially after you’ve eaten but more or less you should only be engaging your core muscles when exercising or doing an activity that requires you to do so (i.e. elimination) When your constantly pulling your muscles in your decreasing the amount of space available to your internal organs, she cautions that this can majorly disrupt your digestion and causes chronic bloating and constipation.
Take a probiotic
In my experience eating yogurt just doesn’t cut it, for optimal digestive health your probiotic should contain at least 50 billion cultures and be taken daily.
Have 3 meals a day, and fast for 12 hours at night.
Have a meal then allow your self the time to process it, digestion is a lot of work and if your eating non stop you never give your system the chance to cleanse itself. This is also why many experts advise going (at least) 12 hours between dinner and breakfast.
Drink lots of water
Lack of water contributes to constipation, staying hydrates keeps your elimination soft and easy to pass… just another reasons to drink your H20,