When it comes to Gut Health, most people believe that your gut health is only to do with your ability to digest your food.
However, did you know that your gut health doesn’t just affect your digestive system? It can actually have a significant impact on all aspects of your health and wellbeing, your immune system, skin and even your central nervous system.
This is all down to the make-up of your microbiome, the collection of living micro-organisms that colonise the human body. Your microbiome is something you’re born with, but you’re able to change it with dietary and lifestyle adjustments.
This Sunday 29th May happens to be World Gut Health Day.
There is growing recognition of the role our gut plays in maintaining our overall health and well being. More importantly, there is also growing recognition of how our lifestyle is negatively impacting power health. The food we eat is negatively impacting our metabolism leading to problems such as obesity, fatty liver, diabetes and even cancer. And our metabolism lives in our gut.
Getting to Know Your Gut
Stay in tune with your gut health and look out for any signs that it’s not completely happy. These signs could include regular bloating, constipation or diarrhoea, feeling constantly fatigued, and even irritated skin. This could also include Brain Fog – difficulty in focusing on specific tasks and procrastinating. Eating a diet that’s very high in sugar could make some of these symptoms worse, so see if reducing your intake has an impact.
“There are only two things that determine the quality of your life: What you put in your Mouth and What you put in Your Mind.” – Dr Arun Dhir
How to Improve Gut Health
Your Gut is like your inner Garden of Life. We have to ensure we take good care of it and protect it from being taken over by weeds.
There are a number of other ways you can try to improve your gut health, including:
Lowering your stress levels: because your gut health is so closely linked with your brain, heightened emotions can affect your stomach. Keep stress at bay by incorporating yoga into your exercise routine, or learn some breathing exercises to help keep your anxiety levels in check
Eating more fibre or fermented foods: fibre-rich foods and fermented foods such as kimchi are great sources of good bacteria for your gut and could help to keep your microbiome diverse and healthy
Staying hydrated: drinking plenty of water is just as important for keeping your gut healthy as eating the right foods
Checking if you have a food intolerance: if the health of your gut is getting in the way of your day-to-day life, it’s a good idea to find out if there’s something else going on with your digestive system
Trying a microbiome supplement: gut health supplements contain live bacteria to help diversify your microbiome further
If you have enjoyed this topic, you might also like to learn about our new Gut Regen Program
The GUT is our own internal garden that can give us the beautiful ‘flowers’ of lasting health and vitality. If we neglect to take control and exercise discipline, the ‘weeds’ of mental and physical ailments will take over in time.
The Choice is Yours, and the Moment to Act is Now!
Book your FREE 10-minute discovery call with one of our Gut Health Experts!
Besides having a busy private practice at Melbourne Gastro Surgery – Centre for Weight Loss, Dr Arun is an active member of the ANZ Association of Gastro-Oesophageal surgeons (ANZGOSA), ANZ Society of Metabolic and Obesity Surgery (OSSANZ) and Australian College of Nutrition and Environmental Medicine (ACNEM).
Dr Arun is also a senior lecturer (University of Melbourne) and yoga and meditation teacher, with a strong interest in the mind-body-gut connection. He regularly writes and speaks about gut health, gut microbiome, obesity, gastrointestinal surgery and healing. Arun’s published works include Happy Gut Healthy Weight (Balboa Press 2018), Creating a New You – Health Journal (Metagenics 2019), and Your Mess Has a Message (2021).
