Leaky Gut and Stress: Keep Calm and Love your Guts
This has to be one of the most common modern age issues going around. Leaky gut, IBS, bloating, irregular bowels, whatever you want to call it, most of us experience it at some point. There are a million and one diets, words of advice, foods to eat, foods not to eat, foods to eat regularly and less often and the list goes on. But the fact of the matter is, is that everyone's gut is so unique and has a different combination of reasons as to why it’s complaining to them constantly.
For some of us it's a combination of foods we might be sensitive to, or cyclical hormonal balances / imbalances, it might be stress and anxiety or the glass of wine we had last night… or it might be a combination of a few of these things, which is why it can be so difficult to pinpoint!
There are some clear generalisations we can make as to how we can reduce our risk of IBS. Many of these we already know for example, soaking your legumes for 8 hours or more before cooking, staying away from gluten or other food sensitivities you might have, or eating fermented foods a few times a week.
All of those are most likely going to help and can be tried to see if they work for you. However, one of the most likely culprits that often flies under the radar is stress and / or anxiety. We have thousands of things we stress about in our days, work, study, feeding the pets, house chores, do I look bloated? Is this food good for me? I didn’t get to exercise this morning! Whatever it is you stress about in your day is causing your nervous system to act in fight-or-flight or sympathetic drive. This means that your body is directing blood and energy to your muscles, your breath is shallow, your mind racing or blank and foggy and you are absolutely not digesting your food effectively…. In fact your body pulls resources away from your gut when you’re in this state. What this results in is partially digested food which is fermented in the wrong places by the wrong bacteria, causing gas and bloating. Additionally, the wrong bacteria being bed means we off-balance our microbiome and we get build up of toxins from the wrong bacteria in our digestive tract, these toxins cause inflammation in the lining of our intestines and leak out into the surrounding areas causing other matter from our gut to leak more easily along with them. The cascade of inflammation that occurs in this process is like a spiral of causing more IBS causing more inflammation etc.
It’s impossible to have a single prescription for stress, it all depends so much on the individual again, but a few tips and tricks to follow:
Most of us can use an extra boost of magnesium and vitamin B6 in our days to keep our nervous system happy.
Try deep breathing intentionally or “Box Breathing” (google for instructions) - breathing exercises directly influence your nervous system and initiate regulating a parasympathetic or “rest and digest” state.
Just take at least 5 minutes out of your day to do a small meditation or breath work.
Eat when you’re relaxed and chew your food completely
Drink enough water - for most people that's at least 2L of water per day.
Go for a slow walk
Pat a friendly animal
Be mindful and notice your surroundings
Get some sun! Vitamin D is important!
Exercise regularly
A word on eating disorders: it is easy in the world to want to look a certain way. That means if we experience bloating and other IBS symptoms we can easily feel uncomfortable and try to control our food to an unhealthy extent. Whether that's the quantity in consume or how “healthy” it is, it’s important to try not to become to fanatical about these things - the more you stress about it the worse your symptoms will become - so try and stay relaxed while eating a balanced diet, treat yourself sometimes and don’t overthink it!
This is all about finding what works for you, you don’t have to adopt every diet and piece of advice to make this work, just experiment, try to stay calm and drink enough water and your body will thank you.
