Why you’re sick all the time
Are you and your family sick all the time? Do you feel like you recover from one illness only to get sick the following week? Does it take you longer to get over illness than others around you?
What if I told you that your gut health directly effects your immune health! That’s right! 75-80% of your immune health is in your gut. If your gut health is poor, then your immune system will most likely also be poor.
What is gut Health?
Gut health is the health status of your microbiome, of which the vast majority resides in your gut. Your microbiome is home to billions of beneficial bacteria. A great way to think of your microbiome is as a complex ecosystem where billions of microbes (bacterial, fungal, and viral) interact with one another. These microbes have an extensive effect on our health. It has been said that as much as 90% of disease can be traced back to your gut.
What does good gut health look like?
Ok, so, gut health matters a lot, but what does it mean exactly to have good gut health? As mentioned above your microbiome is a complex system of microbes working together in a little community. At its core good gut health means this community or ecosystem of microbes is optimally balanced.
When our gut health is optimally balanced, we experience less illness, better digestion, more energy, decreased systemic inflammation, and over all better health and wellness. Conversely a gut in distress can display a wide variety of symptoms such as, frequent illness, digestion issues, systemic inflammation, gas and bloating, constipation or diarrhea, rashes or other skin problems, fatigue, headaches or migraines, and so on. Worried your gut might be in distress? Check out my gut health reset protocol here.
What affects our gut health?
There are many things that can deplete our microbes or cause them to be out of balance.
1) Anti-biotics
Anti-biotics are the single biggest killer of your gut microbiome. By nature, anti-biotics, kill bacterial infections, unfortunately they kill both bad and good bacteria indiscriminately. Obviously, in a life-threatening situation anti-biotics may be necessary, but in many cases, they are used too readily when they are not truly needed. Avoid anti-biotics unless they are truly needed. Do your own research and consult your naturally minded doctor to know when you actually need anti-biotics or when natural home remedies will suffice.
2) Diet
Our diet plays a crucial role in the health of our microbiome. Real, whole foods, that are free from pesticides and herbicides provide a variety of nutrients, phytonutrients, and enzymes to feed our microbiome. Whereas a diet heavy in processed foods, sugar and starches, and toxic food-like chemicals will do nothing to support your microbiome and will in fact lead to an overgrowth of bad bacteria throwing your microbiome out of balance. In addition to eating whole, nutrient dense foods, eating fermented foods like sour dough, yogurt, kefir, kombucha, and sauerkraut will repopulate the beneficial bacteria. Prebiotic foods like greens and raw cacao will also help feed the good bacteria.
3) Stress
Stress has a profound effect on many aspects of our health and it’s no different with gut health. Living a low stress lifestyle and knowing how to manage stress is crucial to your overall health. Incidentally poor gut health can actually affect stress levels creating this vicious cycle. Stress leads to poor gut health, poor gut health contributes to more stress, which circles back to worsening gut health and so on.
4) Toxic Exsposure
We are exposed to a variety of toxins every day. Even the most naturally minded person who actively avoids toxins cannot escape them all. The water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe are full of them. Then of course there are toxins in the everyday products like household cleaners, personal care items, plastics, cookware and so much more. These toxins are harmful to our health in a number of ways, one of which is they are damaging to the gut affecting the delicate balance of our microbiome. Additionally, our gut is one of our detox pathways, if it is overburdened by toxins, it will not function well.
In Summary
To recap, gut health will have a big impact on your health and wellness and your ability to stay healthy. While there are other factors to avoiding illness like time spent outdoors, adequate nutrition, quality supplements, proper hand washing, and getting enough sleep; good gut health will make all the difference. If you’re tired of you and your family being sick all the time or of illnesses lasting forever, I highly encourage everyone to consider the status of their gut health. Good gut health is not a magic cure-all, nor will it keep you from getting sick 100% of the time, but it will improve your overall health and wellness and help you build a strong immune system.