When your gut is out of wack, you might notice your mood, skin, and energy feeling terrible. To heal the gut, there are simple and natural steps that you can take. This article will take a deep dive into how to heal your gut naturally, the importance of probiotics and prebiotics, and background on the gut microbiome.
What is the gut?
According to Hopkins Nutrition, the brain in your gut is called the “enteric nervous system (ENS). And it’s not so little. The ENS is two thin layers of more than 100 million nerve cells lining your gastrointestinal tract from the esophagus to rectum.”
The role of the gut in our body is “controlling digestion, from swallowing to the release of enzymes that break down food to the control of blood flow that helps with nutrient absorption to elimination” according to Jay Pasricha, M.B.B.S., M.D.
When you start to notice gut issues like brain fog, IBS, bugs, and poor mental health, there is an overall irritation in the gastrointestinal system, which may start to send signals to the central nervous system (CNS) that trigger mood changes as per source.
So with that in mind, our two “brains” talk to each other (i.e. the brain in our skull and our gut).
How do you know when your gut needs to be healed?
You might have poor gut health if you experience acne or skin problems, suffer from food intolerances, ride a roller coaster of mood swings, have unstable blood sugar levels, suffer from mental health issues, or have digestive problems resulting in IBS.
11 Steps to Take to Heal Your Gut Naturally
Our guts help to maintain adequate brain function and healthy immune systems. The nutrients in the food that we consume have been passed down through our bloodstream to the gut.
As a result, studies show that the foods we choose to eat are effective in healing the gut and promoting optimal digestion.
Here’s what you should do when it comes to healing your gut naturally.
1. Cut out processed sugar.
It’s time to re-building the microbiome. The most efficient way is to reduce the number of foods and ingredients that turn into sugars, sweeteners, sugar, and inflammatory foods.
Try to cut out all processed sugar if possible. Don’t replace it with more fake sugars like diet soda, Splenda, monk fruit, etc. Fruits are fine but eat them whole (or blend them whole in smoothies). Note that fruits will spike your blood sugar and could cause an imbalance in your hormones.
2. Try a 24-hour juice cleanse fast to essentially “reset” your gut bacteria.
Both good and bad gut bacteria will die off and you can rebuild it from scratch when trying a juice cleanse. When you choose to do a juice cleanse, you will reset the body and feed the gut highly nutritious juices. If you want to make juice with your blender or need a great juice recipe, try this link!
3. Consume a diet of dark leafy greens.
Studies have shown that eating mostly dark green plants, some raw some cooked, as wide a variety as possible increases microbiome diversity.
According to this article, as the number of good bacteria in your gut microbiome increases, they limit the ability of less desirable bacteria from reproducing and colonizing your digestive tract.
4. Lemon water.
Drink warm lemon water in the morning to get my digestive system started and aid in digestion (½ to a whole lemon mixed with warm water and honey to help sweeten it).
Alternatively, things like ginger tea, marshmallow root, and slippery elm can soothe the gut.
5. Consume fermented foods.
When food is undergoing fermentation, bacteria can produce vitamins and metabolites to support the gut. In other words, fermented foods help with food digestion to improve the health of the gut flora.
Support the microbiome with foods like kombucha, fermented kimchi, etc.
6. Increase sun exposure and exercise!
Going for a walk in the sun or increasing your time in the sun will boost the good bacteria that is in your microbiome.
Additionally, increased sun exposure will increase vitamin D levels! A win-win.
7. Try probiotics
According to NCBI, “Probiotics may manipulate intestinal microbial communities and suppress the growth of pathogens by inducing the host’s production of β-defensin and IgA. Probiotics may be able to fortify the intestinal barrier by maintaining tight junctions and inducing mucin production.”
When buying the supplement from of a probiotic, it is important to look for live strains, otherwise the probiotic is essentially worthless.
A dead giveaway of a probiotic with live strains is if the packaging requires the bottle to be refrigerated.
We love this probiotic brand – it has 3,000+ reviews on amazon, live strains, and it is required to be refrigerated.
8. Drink tea
We love this tea that is made to reverse leaky gut symptoms. The ingredients are incredibly clean and promote gut health.
Here are the ingredients for reference! Organic Licorice (root), Organic Cinnamon (bark), Organic Marshmallow (root), Organic Chamomile (flower), and Organic Rose Hip (petals).
9. Indulge in collagen
Clinically studied eggshell membrane collagen peptides bring you hair, joint, and nail benefits (some noticeable in as little as 3 days), and team up with probiotics to promote healthy digestive function.
This brand has an amazing college powder with added probiotics! You can’t beat that.
10. Consume warming bone broth
According to this article, Bone broth is full of glycine to decrease inflammation in your gut and improve the tissues that line your gut. It also contains gut-healing gelatin. Gelatin helps you digest food by increasing hormones and gastric juices in your gut. Bone broth is full of glutamine and proline.
Try this broth made from grass-fed beef in New Zealand.
11. Try prebiotics
Prebiotics nourish the gut flora and promote the growth of good bacteria in your gut. In other words, prebiotics act as the food for your gut’s healthy bacteria.
Prebiotics basically fuel the probiotics. For that reason, it is efficient to take a supplement that has both prebiotics and probiotics with live strains.
We love Ora Organics Probiotics, which is a vegan supplement that has 6 probiotic strains.
Alternatively foods that have prebiotics include garlic, onion, cabbage, and oats.
Gut Health FAQ
If you want a quick fix, we would recommend cutting out processed and refined sugar. When sugar is heavily processed, it negatively affects the intestines, can lead to leaky gut and brain fog, and of course skin issues.
I personally cut out processed sugar cold turkey and noticed a world of a difference in my skin. It takes a few days to see the results, but after the sugar is out of your body, then you will be amazed.
Instead of using refined sugar or consuming processed foods with hidden ingredients such as sugar, try consuming natural sweeteners like bananas, date syrup, or other fruits.
It is different for everyone and depends on how damaged your gut currently is.
According to Health Line, “The gut microbiome plays a very important role in your health by helping control digestion and benefiting your immune system and many other aspects of health.”
Gut bacteria are single-cell bacteria of foreign DNA, that interact with the food we have chewed and broken down with stomach acid. It breaks down the food into more basic compounds that are easily absorbed into the walls of the intestines