Since Covid, as those who have been following my posts know, I have been learning about what makes a healthy gut, and why it is important to us (emotionally, mentally and physically) to have a healthy microbiome. There are different ways to approach this discussion. I want to be careful because I am well aware that a lot of us are dealing with anxiety and depression, and we just want answers, not philosophy or more information to sort through. Most of us do not have time to cherry pick. Most of us (including moi [mwa]) usually just make do with whatever works that we are already doing until something sproings. But with the holidays here, diet is a huge factor in how we are going to feel over the next few weeks after binging on sugar etc. Bad diet is going to make us feel bad - literally.
Then I found this Science Bite article about how laboratory mice with healthy guts love to exercise because their guts are producing dopamine. (see below)
We all have issues. Life these days, even on a good day, can be like standing in the surf. Life hits us with waves, one after the other. We do the best we can. (I will return in a minute to the wave-metaphor.) What I have discovered about gut health is exciting for me because eating for the gut microbiome gets results very quickly. Unless we are dealing with a chronic digestive condition, or an autoimmune condition, we can change how we respond to the waves of life, almost overnight (literally in a few days). It behooves us to do our own research and be our own health coaches in a way, but the information that is out there is very accessible now. The best way to figure out which sources to credit is to cross-reference. For example, you might hear that sauerkraut is a great fermented food source, but then someone else is saying the same thing except make sure it is organic and the kind that requires refrigeration. (Check.) We need to keep building our knowledge base, at our own speed, but don't plateau, because how the microbiome works and how to feed it is cutting edge science.
Americans like short answers and they / we often choose convenience over actually changing a bad or unhealthy habit. But eating for the microbiome isn't about popping probiotics and prebiotics and postbiotics necessarily. It is about life-style and diet!
Point is, with a healthy gut, when the waves of life come in, when our gut is healthy, instead of getting knocked down and pummeled by turbulence, we ride them in. I am speaking from personal experience. When we eat for our gut, our gut functions as our personal apothecary, prescribing what our bodies need, not just our physical bodies but our emotional bodies.
This is where I am asking you to follow where I am going with this: Would you like to exercise more? Would you like to actually enjoy exercising more? Would you like to be happier or feel less stressed without taking drugs?
Read the first study in this list of articles. I wouldn't bother with the others.
(Also, here is a friendly holiday tip: When a plate of cookies appears on the table, eat one and savor it, praise the one who baked them. But just one. Your gut will thank you.)
This is the link for the Science Bites site:
Here is the link for the article:
