I’m happy to share what I feel is the best way to improve your overall health. When I learned that the gut affects the way we think, feel, how much energy we have, and our immune system I was fascinated and I became obsessed with learning about more. I’ve since listened to interviews with doctors, naturopaths and other health experts who’ve shared their best gut health tips and advice. In this post I’ve compiled what I intuit is the most important of those tips as well as what’s worked for me.

How to Heal Your Gut

1. Pre and Probiotics

Probiotics are good bacteria for the gut. We can get them through food or by taking a supplement. Prebiotics are food for probiotics. They are what probiotics feed on to thrive and survive in our gut. Both help balance bacteria so that the bad bacteria doesn’t outnumber the good.

Taking a supplement is an easy way to check the box. However getting these diverse bacteria through food is the best way. Sometimes it’s hard to do that which is why taking a supplement is so helpful.

Not all pro and prebiotics are created equally. One that works for my body may not work for someone else’s. However, here’s a list of some that are highly recommended by different health experts.

• Hyperbiotics
• Seed
• Just Thrive

2. Feed Your Bacteria by Eating a Variety of Different Veggies

It’s good to break out of routines and alternate between different types of vegetables every week. I personally like to switch out what I eat weekly. For example spinach used to be my go to for greens, now I make sure I alternate each week between kale, broccoli sprouts, arugula, and so on.

3. Visit a Doctor to Check for Hidden Infections

I felt like I was having a light bulb moment when I found out about this one. A doctor expressed how someone could be doing everything “right” and still see no progress if there’s a hidden infection. We can have infections in different areas of our body even if we don’t feel pain or discomfort in that area. Until we fix that infection, nothing we do to heal our gut is going to work.

Seeing a doctor for a stool test to identify possible infections can help with this.

*I would try the other things first and use this one as a last resort if things don’t improve.

4. Practice Mindfulness and Exercise to Manage Stress

Stress can trigger gut issues and meditation and mindfulness practices can soothe it. What I like to do is have morning and night routines geared towards relaxation, and peace plus at least 10 minutes of rigorous exercise . On days I can’t get to the gym, I like doing a short yoga or pilates class on YouTube.

Some other things I like to do is yoga, breathing exercises, prayer, reading my Bible, journaling, aromatherapy using essential oils, unplugging from technology, taking a long relaxing bath or shower, gratitude list and listening to ocean waves as I fall asleep.

One doctor talked about stress being like a wrecking ball similar to hidden infections. Even if we do everything right it won’t help until stress is being taken care of.

5. Take a Digestive Enzyme

Digestive enzymes help the body break down foods and absorb nutrients. When our gut is out of whack we may think we’re eating healthy and giving our body what it needs but if we’re not able to properly digest and absorb nutrients we can go deficient in things and even worse, things can sit in the gut and rot.

Taking a digestive enzyme before eating a meal can be very helpful with breaking down food.

6. Eat Good Foods for the Gut

Some of the best foods to eat for your gut are fermented foods like sauerkraut and pickles also yogurt, foods rich in omega-3‘s like wild salmon, miso, kombucha, onions, tomatoes, garlic, leeks, asparagus and artichokes.

Things to Avoid:

Alcohol, fried foods, processed food, dairy and stress.

I hope these tips are helpful! xx

*I’m not a doctor, please consult with yours for all things dealing with your health.