Our practitioner Lee gives you some insight into digestive health. Delving into what issues you may need to address, and how you can rectify them. Digestive health is a much bigger issue than we understand. The food that we are ingesting on a daily basis may not seem harmful to our health, however this just isn’t true. As a practitioner I see there is no escape from the repercussions of an unhealthy diet on the individual and the ecology of the planet. A healthy diet is a diverse diet, changing with the local landscape and seasons. This diversity in turn supports our surroundings and also builds a healthy internal bacterial environment known as the microbiome.

The microbiome is needed for the digestion and assimilation of the nutrients in the body. It is said humans are 90% bacteria and 10% human. We are a tiny earth, holding countless life forms inside of us, that everything you see around can be reflected inside of you. This is the fundamentals of Chinese medicine and now is being observed in western medicine too.

Easily recognisable signs of poor digestive health and microbiome include: Food sensitivity to certain foods, bloating, gas, reflux, weight gain, inflammation and skin disorders to name a few. Other signs that may not be recognised as digestive disorders include: fatigue, depression, anxiety, frustration/irritability and poor sleep. Mood and sleep are affected by our diet /lifestyle because 90% of our serotonin (a neurotransmitter for happiness and sleep) is created in our digestive system.

4 key factors to identify if your digestive system & microbiome has undergone harm throughout your life:

• C-section Birth without seeding the baby, which is swabbing the baby with microorganisms of the mother’s vagina, which would normally happen in a natural birth. Alternatively if you are having a c section ask your doctor to seed baby to promote a good microbiome of the baby
• Not receiving breast milk as a child; breast milk is full of pre and probiotics designed to establish a healthy gut flora that will last the baby for life.
• Antibiotics: As they are sometimes necessary for serious threatening conditions, antibiotics are destructive to harmful bacteria but also good bacteria, which may not be useful solution as some complications i.e. acne may just need the microbiome restored.
• Stress: especially chronic long term stress, causes inflammation and toxins in the body feeding the bad bacteria and harming the good bacteria. 24 hours of stress is equivalent 1000 years of stress on the microbiome as there lifespan is short as 25 minutes.

The Four R’s to restoring the Digestive system.

Remove: To remove harmful foods and parasites from the digestive tract. Things that should be removed artificial sweeteners, environmental toxins, preservatives, additives, eggs, gluten, soy or dairy (this is a delicate phase and should seek the aid of a practitioner)

Replace: Replace stomach acid in your body by having apple cider vinegar after meals. Stomach acid (Hydrochloric acid) is vital for the breakdown/absorption of essential vitamins and minerals such b6, folate, calcium and iron, as well as destroying harmful bacteria. Common causes to a deficiency is stomach acid is stress and eating without appreciating or focus on food.

Reinoculate : Supporting the growth of the healthy bacteria in our stomach we have two important avenues. Prebiotics are foods that feed the good bacteria, super foods for prebiotics are asparagus, carrots, garlic, artichoke, leeks, onions, radish and tomato. Probiotics are the actual types of bacteria themselves. They are found in naturally fermented foods such as the probiotic superfoods raw organic kimchi, sauerkraut and kefir.

Repair: Repair the gut wall and intestinal lining by reducing inflammation with herbs such as turmeric. Restore gut integrity by remineralising the body with organic grass fed beef bone marrow broth and replenish the crucial lining of the intestinal walls with the prebiotics super foods mentioned above.
 

Key points to Dealing with stress

Stress and poor digestive health are so strongly connected, that either one will influence the other greatly. However there are many ways to identify your stresses and deal with them.

A big first step is to start by slowing down your life. There are two common nervous systems states, the parasympathetic (rest and digestion) and sympathetic (fight or flight). It is important that we stay in our rest and digest state when eating. An effective way to get your body in the right state is with breathing. Before eating if we breath in for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, and exhale for 8 counts we encourage the body into the parasympathetic state, repeat this for a short period until you relax. I often find after three breaths I am ready to eat.

Another tip is mindful eating. Take the time to eat not only because it’s better for your digestion but chewing your food thoroughly gives you reduced levels of cortisol and helps relieve stress too!

To support the rest and digest system, remove caffeine from your diet. A consequence of caffeine is keeping our body in an active state, when it needs to rest and digest. Being too active will also compromise hydrochloric acid production too.

After immediate stress is dealt with, it’s important to look at other stress factors. Making room for your life and slowing down is important. Start to clear the clutter of your life so you can do that list of things you’ve been wanting to but have put aside.

If your life and mind is messy, your digestive health is messy too. Often it’s best to start small. Maybe it’s cleaning your desk, or doing some washing, some old paper work, anything at all you have been putting off. Just start doing it, you will notice the stress will soon begin to wash away.