5 Easy Ways to Take Care of Your Gut Health
Generally, a healthy gut is full of bacteria, both good and bad, numbering around 100 trillion. As long as there are more good bacteria than bad, you’ll feel fine. The bacteria help with our metabolism and digestion and break down what we can’t ourselves.
We often don’t think about our gut bacteria unless we are sick or stressed. An overgrowth of the bad bacteria, too much bacteria going further up your digestive tract, and complete elimination of bacteria by antibiotics can all cause you to feel unwell. It’s important to take care of your gut health during these periods, but also just as important during the other times in your life. Here are five simple ways to nurture your gut health.
- Avoid Refined, Processed Foods – Eating simple carbohydrates like bread and cereals can satisfy your hunger, but it doesn’t help the beneficial bacteria that live in your gut. In fact, they may cause inflammation. Simple changes like swapping your morning toast or bagel for protein and fruit or a green smoothie can be great. Remember that the bacteria love a variety, so be sure to switch up your options and include whole grains and healthy fats and protein.
- Explore Fermented Foods – Foods that have been naturally fermented such as kimchi, kefir and sauerkraut are easy for your body to digest and provide a ton of good probiotic bacteria. Fermented foods also have more bioavailable nutrients than the original item does non-fermented.
- Eat Prebiotics – Prebiotics are found in the fibrous, indigestible material in vegetables and other products such as artichokes, asparagus, onions, oats, and rye that bacteria eat. Prebiotics are more suited for daily use than probiotics, but there must already be good bacteria in the gut to get the benefits.
- Don’t Take Unnecessary Antibiotics – While antibiotics are necessary at times, they tend to be overprescribed. If you’re worried about taking them, ask your doctor or natural health practitioner if there are alternatives. If not, try to go with the shortest treatment period.
- Avoid Stress – Avoiding stress is quite difficult with everything going on in our lives, and it can be quite hard on your body. Stress can interfere with digestion, cause inflammation, and throw off the balance of bacteria in your gut.
Keeping your body healthy from the inside out is essential and starting with simple everyday tips to help will provide lasting benefits. When you enroll in our holistic nutritionist program at Edison Institute of Nutrition, we’ll help you understand how each of your body’s systems work and what you can do to support them. Our classes are available online for the convenience of our students.
We are recognized internationally and offer our online nutrition courses around the world. If you’d like to learn more about any of our programs, call us today at . You may also contact us online.
