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3 Gut Health Secrets Every BossBabe Should Know
*originally shared on The BossBabe Société Magazine.
A rising trend in the health and wellness industries is talk about our mind/gut connection. The state of your gut health (think inflamed or sugar cravings) has a direct impact on the decisions you make, feeling happy, and could put you on the path to burnout at an accelerated rate.
We all know what it feels like to sit at our desks and mentally feel stuck. But what if I told you this could happen far less often just by improving your gut health?
Before you take action to increase your belly’s feel good vibes, you should know these three gut health secrets first:
1. Your brain and stomach are directly linked
In the walls of your stomach lies our enteric nervous system (ENS), which controls digestion. It is in this lining that also connects our ENS to nerve endings in the spinal cord, which sends messages directly to our brain.
If the state of your gut health is off, your brain won’t always get the right messages. Which can lead you to feel more stressed, frustrated, tired, and unhappy.
2. Your stomach houses your microbiome
Your microbiome is an ecosystem inside your stomach that contains bacteria – good or bad. Have you ever eaten yogurt or sipped a really good kombucha and felt a little happy buzz? That’s because both of these contain probiotics, which provide your stomach with good bacteria. Good bacteria in your stomach makes you feel happier, lowers inflammation, and fights off sugar cravings!
When our stomach has an overgrowth of bad bacteria (which feeds on sugar), and not enough of the good stuff, we don’t feel happy or healthy.
A quick way to know the state of your gut health is to remember this – if your mood is off, your microbiome is off (PMS mood swings included!).
3. You could have a leaky gut
With the rise of inflammation, which can stem from food sensitivities, chemical loaded products you might use for cleaning or makeup, poor diet, and taking things like Tylenol, birth control, and antibiotics, can cause tears in your gut lining. These tears allow food particles and toxins to pass through into your bloodstream – which shouldn’t happen!
BossBabes take action! Here are two easy ways to improve your gut health for a happier mood and sound business decisions:
1. Eat Probiotic & Prebiotic Foods
Probiotic foods provide good bacteria to your stomach like yogurt, kefir, kombucha, and fermentated foods like kimchi and sauerkraut. Prebotic foods carry the good bacteria to your stomach like ground flaxseed, garlic, onions, unripe bananas, asparagus, and even dark chocolate!
2. Reseal Your Gut
If you’re experiencing a leaky gut, you gotta reseal the lining! Sip on bone broth, add collagen to a smoothie or soup, and supplement with a good probiotic.
Now that your gut health is in tip top shape, use these other hormone hacks to change your life.