Tag: gut health

Recipe for success: 7 ways to improve your gut and mental well being

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Are you ready to embark on a transformative journey towards optimal well-being? If you’re eager to feel your absolute best, you’re in the right place! In this blog post, we’re about to unveil seven incredibly effective strategies to improve your gut and mental well-being.

From dietary advice to physical activities, consider this your comprehensive guide to achieving a healthier, happier you! So, let’s dive right in and explore the recipe for success when it comes to nurturing your gut and your mind.

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The gut-brain connection

Now, many of you have heard me speak about this before, which is how powerful the gut-brain connection really is. What we are fueling our body with, what we’re putting in day in and day out, is directly affecting our brain, thoughts, emotions, and the ability to regulate our nervous system. It is directly affecting our gut. 

This beautiful relationship is something that we can optimize through some of our daily habits, our choices, and recognizing what are the things that are going to help our overall emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

7 ways to improve your gut and mental well being

1. Optimizing digestion

Consider taking three diaphragmatic breaths right before you eat. This is because when we bring blood flow to the autonomic nervous system and the digestive tract during our meals, we optimize our digestive capabilities.

If you’re multitasking, like looking at your computer, checking our phone, or while eating, this increases cortisol levels and diverts blood flow away from the digestive tract, slowing down our digestive process. So, if we can take at least three breaths before we eat, or even more, we bring ourselves to a parasympathetic state, promoting ‘rest and digest.’

In addition to that, chewing your food 20 to 30 times can significantly help with the mechanical breakdown of food. This process begins in our mouth, where our saliva releases enzymes to break down the food. 

Chewing also signals the body to prepare for digestion, optimizing the production of bile, pancreatic enzymes, and hydrochloric acid. This way, we can break down the food into very fine particles before it reaches the small intestine. 

2. Balancing your nervous system

There are so many ways to balance your nervous system, and if you follow any of our videos and our content, you’ll realize that there are endless possibilities. So much of it is about finding what most resonates with you. It could be anything from diaphragmatic breathing, walking, getting out into nature, doing specific vagus nerve exercises, dancing, engaging in authentic movement, or somatic movement where you can freely express your emotions. It could even be as simple as talking to a friend.

There are lots of ways to balance your nervous system, but it starts with recognizing which nervous system state you’re in. Are you in a state of safety and connection, are you in fight or flight, or are you in a freeze state? Once you can identify your current state, you can then choose what you can do to become more resilient and bring yourself back to that state of safety and connection, allowing you to better navigate life’s challenges.

3. Movement and exercise 

This can actually help with the diversity in our microbiome, which can ultimately be very protective against conditions like colon cancer and gastrointestinal diseases. Making movement a priority in your life is crucial. This could mean walking, lifting, or running, but it’s important to think about exercise and movement in a specific way.

In my world, they’re a little different because we want to think about moving all day long. Our bodies crave movement, and that’s what we need for a healthy nervous system and a healthy gut. If we can view movement as a gift that we’re nourishing and appreciating, and exercise as a way to push our bodies outside of their comfort zones, taking them a bit past what they’re used to so they can adapt, change, grow, and evolve.

4. Probiotic and prebiotic-rich foods

The way to think of this is that if you are relatively healthy, without any obvious digestive issues, it’s likely easy for you to incorporate probiotic-rich foods. These include items like kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, and foods with active live cultures, and perhaps even a probiotic supplement.

Now, if you have gut issues and you’re not sure what they are, it can be especially beneficial to consider a stool test to identify the specific issues. Many people with gut problems find that probiotics are not well tolerated, especially if there’s something going on in the small intestine like SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). In such cases, probiotics might not be the first step to take.

However, when we think about general health and well-being, including mental health, probiotic-rich foods are great. When considering psychobiotics, which are specific strains related to mental health, lactobacillus and bifidobacterium are the two most common strains you’ll find in a probiotic supplement. These strains can be particularly beneficial for mental health, and there has been a lot of promising research on them.

Additionally, we want to think about prebiotic foods, such as bananas, garlic, and onions. These foods can be thought of as the fiber sources that probiotics feed on.

5. Anti-inflammatory foods

We should also consider factors like Omega-3s, increasing our intake through fatty fish, as well as foods like walnuts and flax seeds. Simultaneously, it might be beneficial to decrease some of our Omega-6s, which can be found in higher-fat foods, such as seed oils that are often present in packaged foods. The goal here is to optimize our intake of anti-inflammatory nutrients.

Anti-inflammatory nutrients can be thought of as Omega-3s, but also include phytonutrient-rich foods. A great way to approach this is to incorporate a variety of colorful foods into your diet. Think of all the different colors – reds, blues, yellows, etc. Each color provides different nutrients that can help support our biochemistry and promote overall health.

6. Fiber-rich environment

Fiber is incredibly important for maintaining a healthy microbiome. We should aim for at least 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day, although the specific amount can depend on your diet and individual needs. What’s crucial is obtaining fiber from various sources. In this context, diversity in fiber sources is more important than simply meeting a daily fiber goal. It’s this diversity that helps beneficial bacteria thrive in your gut.

7. Specific nutrients

To get a bit more specific about certain nutrients, we can aim for foods rich in tryptophan, which is a precursor for serotonin, often referred to as our “happiness hormone.” These foods can include items like turkey and eggs.

Additionally, we can focus on tyrosine, a precursor for dopamine, which can be found in foods like meat or almonds. It’s important to recognize that specific nutrients like these play essential roles in neurotransmitter production, including serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. Proteins serve as the building blocks for these neurotransmitters, making a protein-rich diet a crucial aspect of maintaining their balance and functionality.

The Bottom Line

These are just seven of many strategies, but I hope they give you a good sense of the various possibilities we have to optimize the relationship between the gut and the brain.

If you found this information helpful, please like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, The Movement Paradigm, for weekly tips on mindset, nutrition, and movement. If you’d like to learn more about how we can assist you on your journey, please don’t hesitate to reach out for a discovery session. We look forward to helping you on your path to wellness.

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Pelvic floor–Gut Connection

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Did you know that your pelvic floor is directly linked to your gut health? Let’s talk about that important connection today.

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The connection between the gut and pelvic floor

Our gut is the opening from the mouth to the anus. Whether you are experiencing chronic constipation, diarrhea, or even a specific condition, like SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), leaky gut, SIFO (small intestinal fungal overgrowth), or large intestinal fungal overgrowth—all of these conditions are going to have a direct influence on your pelvic floor function. Conversely, any type of pelvic floor dysfunction will influence your gut health.

For example, if you have a tight pelvic floor, otherwise known as a hypertonic pelvic floor, it will likely contribute to chronic constipation. There are three key connections:

Ways the gut and pelvic floor are connected

1. Sphincters

The first connection includes the pelvic floor sphincters, an internal sphincter and external sphincter.

Think of the internal sphincter as our communication system, which signals to the brain that it is time to have a bowel movement. When we have chronic constipation, for instance, it affects the sphincter and thus disrupts this communication system. Therefore, we ultimately have to retrain our bowel habits to improve this communication.

We also have an external sphincter, which can be stimulated by mere wiping. If we are having excessive wiping when having a bowel movement, it will stimulate that sphincter to drop stool down through the rectum. The more that we do this, the more we are creating miscommunication and ultimately having to wipe more. This can commonly be associated with someone who has looser stools, potentially has dysbiosis or leaky gut, and is chronically wiping when they’re going to the bathroom to ensure they’re clean.

2. Pressure management

The next connection is essentially pushing, or we can also call this poor pressure management.

We want to think about pressure management for everything related to bowel movement and the pelvic floor. If you’ve ever gone to the bathroom, whether it was looser stools or firmer stools, and you are pushing or bearing down to release, you know exactly what I am referring to.  Unfortunately, this involves poor pressure management in our core and definitely within our pelvic floor. This can cause pelvic floor dysfunction.

It is important to manage pressure properly, and the exercise you can do is called “Belly big, belly hard.” When you feel like you’re about to have a bowel movement and you have the desire to push, try making a closed fist, breath in, and then blow into your fist with your cheeks puffing out for three seconds. Now, pull your fist away and keep breathing. You should feel like you’re able to excrete in a very natural and relaxed manner. We need the pelvic floor to relax to have a bowel movement.

3. Bowel mechanics

Finally, the last pelvic floor-gut connection is your bowel mechanics. This will go hand in hand with pressure management, so the Squatty Potty, for example, is a great way to improve your squat mechanics. You can also just elevate your feet, which will allow the stool to move easily into the rectum to be ultimately evacuated.

It’s important to optimize squat mechanics and biomechanics, to optimize pressure management, and to think about the role of your sphincter’s communication with your brain to positively influence your bowel habits and pelvic floor function.

This is just scratching the surface of all of the different connections between these two, but hopefully, it gives you an appreciation that if you have any kind of bowel issue, you absolutely need to address your pelvic floor and vice versa.

They go hand in hand, so if you really want to take the time to work with a professional, please make sure you reach out to us. We’d be more than happy to help you in your journey virtually or in person and really begin to uncover what issues may be affecting you on either side of things.

So, if you found this helpful, give it a like, give it a share. If you’d like to reach out to us for an appointment, please do that as well. Schedule your appointment here: https://p.bttr.to/3Qu7wRd.

Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, The Movement Paradigm, for weekly tips on

mindset, nutrition, and movement.

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Vagus Nerve Hack | Ileocecal Valve Release | Visceral Release

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

If you are experiencing any kind of gut issues like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, SIBO, leaky gut, or even upper GI issues like GERD then you should give this vagus nerve hack a try, the ileocecal valve release.

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What is the ileocecal valve?

The ileocecal valve connects the small intestine to the large intestine and prevents any backflow of nutrients and undigested food into the small intestine. The large intestine is where we have most of our beneficial bacteria. So, we don’t want to have a backflow of toxic material moving into the small intestine where it is not supposed to be. This can cause a whole host of issues such as SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The small intestine is where we’re supposed to be absorbing the nutrients from our food. Issues around this ileocecal valve can typically cause a lot of tenderness around the area.

How does the vagus nerve fit into this?

The vagus nerve modulates digestion through the migrating motor complex. This migrating motor complex is located in our small intestine and helps to move things through towards the large intestine. It can also affect the ileocecal valve. In essence, the vagus nerve influences our small intestine and ileocecal valve. 

How do you perform the release? 

While lying down, find your hip bone. Then, orient yourself to your belly button. From those hip bones, move 1/3 of the way up towards your belly button and that is called McBurney’s point. When you get to that area, sink your fingers nice and easily into the tissue. First, assess to see if it is tender? Does it feel restrictive? Once you’ve assessed the tissue on your bare skin, gently compress the tissue inward and then traction the tissue up towards the belly button. Try to hold gently anywhere from two to four minutes. You may feel a decrease in tenderness and/or some motility. Sounds are common and normal. This is a great technique to do right before bed. Try to perform on a daily basis for eight weeks. 

Need help? Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

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Leaky Gut: The Root of Chronic Disease

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Did you know that leaky gut otherwise known as intestinal permeability has been researched for nearly 30 years and is one of the leading causes of chronic disease?

You may be wondering what is leaky gut? We have an epithelial lining of the gut mucosa which functions as a protective barrier. Simply put, it helps to get the good things in and keep the bad things out. 

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In this lining, we have tight junctions. These tight junctions are regulated by a protein called Zonulin and some other proteins. 

In a healthy gut, the tight junctions allow the nutrients to be absorbed by the small intestine but keep the toxins, pathogens, viruses, and bacteria’s out. 

When we have a leaky gut, these tight junctions are altered. Therefore, the pathogens, viruses, bacteria, and so on get into the bloodstream. Once this happens, our immune system is activated.  

Think of our immune system as the detection of strangers and dangers. Once these antigens from the bacteria are crossing into the bloodstream, then our B cells are activated which can in turn attack the body. That is why a leaky gut can cause knee osteoarthritis. It is creating this systemic inflammatory response. It can cause pain, swelling, and inflammation, whether that is localized to a joint or body part or more systemic. This is also what leads to autoimmune disease.

So what are some causes of leaky gut? 

–       Food triggers

–       Food sensitivities

–       Stress

–       Imbalance of the bacteria or bacterial overgrowth

–       Intestinal inflammation

–       Poor digestive sufficiency  (enzymes, low HCL, etc) 

–       Toxins

–       Nutrient deficiencies

–       Medications 

–       Many disease states

This ultimately can contribute to more food sensitivities, malabsorption, and uptake of lipopolysaccharide, which is an endotoxin. This is something that can cause significant disruption in the body. 

What to do if you’re not feeling your best

Whether you don’t feel your best or you’re dealing with some kind of chronic health condition, please know that this could be a possibility for you. Your first step is to reach out to a professional to be properly evaluated and treated. There is testing available, however is not always the most reliable.  We are happy to help you and would love to see you virtually or in person, so please reach out for any assistance. 

Leaky gut can be the root of so many chronic diseases whether it’s elevated cholesterol, osteoarthritis, or autoimmune disease. All of these things are related to systemic inflammation. Ninety percent of all chronic disease is linked to systemic or excessive inflammation. Please make sure that you are not just treating your symptoms and taking more medications which further contributes to intestinal permeability. Rather, seek the root cause. 

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

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How Your Vagus Nerve Affects Your Gut Health

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Optimal vagus nerve function drives your digestion, assimilation, and elimination. Let’s discuss all the reasons and benefits as to why optimizing your vagus nerve function will help with your gut health.

We first want to remember that the vagus nerve is 80% of our parasympathetic nervous system. Think of this as our ‘rest and digest system.’ For us to have optimal digestion, we have to be in a calm and safe state.

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As we remember from the anatomy of the vagus nerve, it exits the brainstem, innervates muscles of the face, throat, and branches into the ear. It innervated the SA node of our heart and most importantly, it innervates our entire digestive tract. That is why it is so imperative that when we see gut motility and health issues, we want to look more closely at the vagus nerve.

For example, if someone is experiencing chronic stress or trauma, this may contribute to poor gastric motility and enzyme activity that ultimately leads to gut health issues.

8 Ways Vagus Nerve Is Involved In Your Digestion

We are going to discuss eight different ways that the vagus nerve is involved in your digestion. 

1) Upregulates Breakdown of Solids

The vagus nerve upregulates your mechanical breakdown of solid food. This is important because most of us are eating solid foods of course unless you have some kind of medical condition that warrants you to eat softer foods.

Being able to break down our food before it enters the entire digestive tract is important. Otherwise, we can have a whole host of symptoms from reflux, to bloating, flatulence, and so on. 

2) Stimulates Secretion of Saliva 

When food enters our mouth, that is our first step in the digestive process. We have our salivary glands that release salivary enzymes. This is helping to break down the food before it enters the esophagus. 

3) Stimulates Release of Digestive Enzymes and Bile

It stimulates your digestive enzymes coming from your pancreas as well as bile from your liver. These are very important in breaking down the food appropriately so it can continue to pass from the esophagus to the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine to be ultimately excreted. 

4) Allows for Accommodation of Food in Stomach

Optimal vagal tone allows for the proper accommodation of the food in the stomach. This is where hydrochloric acid and pepsin help to break down the food even further, especially our protein. 

5) Slows Gastric Emptying

This is important because we do not want the food to pass through the system too fast. Slow emptying will make sure we are getting proper absorption of the nutrients from the food that we are eating. 

6) Coordinates Motility of Intestines

When food comes into the small intestine, that is where we are absorbing our nutrients. Then the food has to pass through to the large intestine and ultimately excreted via the rectum.

Our migrating motor complex is very critical in the small intestine, which creates a wave-like action to help move the food through to the large intestine; this is an essential function that is dependent on the vagus nerve.

7) Decreases Inflammation and Intestinal Permeability  

Intestinal permeability is also referred to as leaky gut. When we do not have proper function of the vagus nerve, proper motility, and proper assimilation of the nutrients, these tight junctions in the epithelial lining of the gut lose their integrity.

This allows pathogens, toxins, undigested food, and bacteria to move through the bloodstream igniting the immune system causing an inflammatory response. This can cause a whole host of chronic health conditions. 

8) Increase Satiety

If you have optimal vagus nerve function and tone, you’ll be able to easily recognize when you are hungry and when you are full. When this is disrupted and you have a low vagal tone, often you will see this is difficult to determine. You may eat too much or you may not eat enough. This is a simple, but important, concept in terms of weight loss and overall health and performance. 

As you can see, the vagus nerve has a tremendous impact on our digestive system. It is innervating the entire digestive tract.

If you are experiencing chronic stress, low vagal tone, frustration, anger, worry, anxiety, or you’re in a freeze state, your gut health can be deeply affected. Many gut issues such as the leaky gut, IBS, and SIBO  are linked to some of the above. It is important to think of this from a global, integrated perspective.

In order to improve our gut health, we also have to improve our vagus nerve function. Please make sure you check out all my videos on vagus nerve hacks, so you can begin to regulate your own nervous system. 

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

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How To Do An Elimination Diet

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you suffer from chronic allergies, eczema, or even some digestive issues that seem to be continually unresolved?

You’ve tried everything from topical creams for your skin, supplements, and more, but you just can’t seem to get to the underlying root cause of why you’re having a specific health condition. Perhaps you’re suffering from some other kind of health condition or autoimmune disease? Maybe you are suffering from MS, Parkinson’s, or other chronic health conditions, even things like diabetes and high cholesterol?

Performing an elimination diet, or even a modified elimination diet, can be a very powerful tool in uncovering some of the potential food triggers. Food triggers can be commonly overlooked as a potential driver for these specific health issues, so stay tuned for how to perform that. The elimination diet has been used for decades by allergists, functional medicine practitioners, and dietitians. 

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How To Do An Elimination Diet

Ninety percent of all chronic health conditions are associated with excessive or persistent inflammation. Food is one of our five potential inflammatory triggers. Here are the steps to an elimination diet.

1) Identify Current Potentially Inflammatory Foods

Let’s first identify what the potentially inflammatory foods are. These can be things such as gluten, dairy, corn, soy, peanuts, alcohol, sugar, processed meats, red meat, alcohol, shellfish, coffee, and/or chocolate. All of these things can be potentially inflammatory for you, but that doesn’t mean that every one of them is.

When you’re thinking about performing an elimination diet, the first step is to evaluate how many of those foods you’re eating daily. Now please note that there are other categories of foods. These include oxalates, histamines, nightshades, and even grains that all could be inflammatory for the individual person.

2) Prepare for Elimination

Now that you’ve identified how many of those foods you’re eating on a regular basis, the next step would be to begin to slowly transition out of some of those foods and into other anti-inflammatory foods.

Rather than just purely eliminating these foods, we want to think about optimizing our health with phytonutrient and antioxidant-rich foods. To prepare for the elimination diet, you should pick a start date, so that you have it on your calendar and you know exactly when you’re going to be starting this particular journey. 

3) Elimination

The elimination diet is performed for three weeks. That means you’re eliminating all of these foods for an entire three-week period, so that means 100% elimination of these foods.

4) Reintroduce

After you have performed the three-week elimination diet, now it is time to reintroduce. You will reintroduce one food at a time. You will reintroduce that food twice in one day. For example, if you were having dairy you would have yogurt in the morning and perhaps cheese at night. Then you would wait three full days after that, without having any more dairy or any of the other foods you’ve eliminated.

You’ll track all of your symptoms: digestive issues, sleep issues, urinary issues, skin issues, joint muscle pain, and any other symptom that comes up. This will tell you if any of these foods are an issue for you. It is important to recognize your symptoms don’t necessarily have to be immediately after you eat the food. 

What To Do After Performing An Elimination Diet

Now that you’ve performed the elimination diet and reintroduction process, you can begin to continue with one food at a time. This way, you can identify which food triggers you might have. What are the things that are causing your skin issues? What are the things that are causing your digestive system, and so on?

Now, there’s always a root cause beyond that. If you find yourself having many food triggers and you’re almost sensitive to all of them, then there’s most likely an underlying issue. That is something that is still going to need to be resolved because your immune system is hyperreactive.

In my opinion, it is also one of the simplest things that you could do. It gives you complete control and ownership over what you’re putting in your body and what is appropriate for you.

You can use this Food Reintroduction Tracker below:

Food Reintroduction Symptoms Tracker_v2

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

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Chew Your Food To Heal Your Gut

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5 STEPS TO HEAL YOUR GUT

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you experience food sensitivities and triggers? Perhaps you might have been told that you have a leaky gut or SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)?

Maybe you just have chronic inflammation or a health condition and you’re not sure where to start with healing your gut? But, you know how important it is to heal your gut. So let’s dive into how you could do that.

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Our food supply has changed so much since the end of World War II and our agricultural industry is very different than it used to be. We have many more GMOs, herbicides, and pesticides that are used in our food. We also have much more processed food, and therefore that has greatly impacted the health of our microbiome.

In addition to that, we have more stress, more sugar, more antibiotics, a lack of sleep, and lots of caffeine. All of these things are attributing to systemic inflammation and poor gut health. Just one round of antibiotics can shift your microbiome forever.

5 R Approach to Heal Your Gut

1) Remove

We want to remove any potential triggers. This could look very different for each person but here are some examples. This could be doing an elimination diet to remove potentially inflammatory foods. It could also be a modified elimination, like removing gluten and dairy. It could include antibiotics, anti-microbials, or antifungals to eliminate some kind of infection like SIBO or yeast overgrowth.

Removing stressors if you are maintaining a high-stress lifestyle can be very important in your healing.  You can’t remove the stress of course, but you can begin to manage and reduce the stressors in your life.

Ideally, you want to have a health professional to help you during this process. They can assist you with looking at all things that are happening in your life: sleep, stress, movement, relationships, and social aspects.

2) Replace

 Now that we removed all of these potential triggers, you’ll want to replace them with proper nutrients and anti-inflammatory food, and phytonutrients. Maximize your fruits and vegetables, olive oil, and healthy fats, for example. This can also include supplementation as well.

As we get older our digestive enzyme activity begins to decrease. That can be one factor in some gut issues. Using supplementation to support you during this time can be very beneficial because many times you’re not absorbing the nutrients as you should, especially in the case of leaky gut or intestinal permeability.

The protective barrier of the epithelial lining in our gut becomes less protective and then pathogens can come into our bloodstream causing an immune reaction. When you have SIBO, you’re not absorbing the nutrients in the small intestine like you should be. These are just a few reasons why we might need supplementation.

3) Reinoculate

This can be with probiotics. Bifidobacterium and lactobacillus are two of the primary strains that could be very beneficial in contributing to this anti-inflammatory effect and increasing the diversity of the bacteria of the microbiome. You can supplement and then you can also work towards increasing fermented foods regularly in your diet. If you’re not able to consume a small amount regularly, ideally daily, then it may be best to supplement in addition to that. If you’re able to eat it on a regular basis, then that’s the best approach.

4) Repair

Specific nutrients, as well as medicinal herbs, have been very beneficial in healing the gut lining. Things like glutamine, 14 grams per day, have been very beneficial in healing the epithelial lining of the gut. Also, things like licorice, vitamin D, omegas, and much more can be given to begin to help repair the gut.

5) Rebalance

This is where you want to look at all the aspects of your life critically and make the appropriate lifestyle shifts to bring your body back into its most optimal state of wellbeing. 

You want to remember that this approach could look very different for each person. The timeline can look very different for each person as well.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

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Chew Your Food To Heal Your Gut

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Chew Your Food To Heal Your Gut

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you experience bloating, digestive issues, constipation, diarrhea, and/or just don’t feel right after a meal? Did you know how important chewing is in your digestive process and how it could help heal your gut?

In order for us to have proper digestion, we have to be in a parasympathetic state; think rest and digest. If we are in a fight or flight mode, for example, our blood flow is moving away from our digestive system.

Rather watch or listen than read?

Chewing is one of the things that actually helps calm the nervous system. That is one important aspect of why we want to chew our food very well before digesting it. The saliva that is produced in the salivary glands produces digestive enzymes, and these enzymes help break down the food in the mouth, and as it moves into the esophagus.

The first enzyme is called lingual lipase which helps break down our fats. The second is amylase which helps break down our starches. And the third is called lysozyme, which is an antibacterial enzyme. This is important for preventing dental cavities and other infections in the gums.

The more chewing that we do, the more salivary enzymes are released. This influences not only our autonomic nervous system because we need these specific cranial nerves for chewing and swallowing, but it’s also influencing the enteric nervous system, which is our gut. That is, in fact, its own nervous system.

So when this is happening, we’re getting an increase in smooth muscle contraction, intestinal secretions, the release of some of these enteric hormones, and dilation of blood vessels. It is very powerful when we begin the process of chewing thoroughly. 

5 Things You Can Do To Maximize Chewing

What are five different things you can do to maximize your chewing, and digestive process?

1) Breathe

Before you sit down to eat, try taking at least three diaphragmatic breaths. You want to think of calming your nervous system, bringing blood flow to this area, and bringing yourself to this parasympathetic state so that you can enhance your digestive process. 

2) Allow for at Least 30 Minutes of Meal Time

Give yourself plenty of time to be able to sit down, eat your meal, and enjoy the experience rather than rushing your meal. This will also prevent you from overeating because you’re giving your body enough time to tell the brain that you are full. 

3) Non-judgement

This is a mindfulness practice, but it’s also important for digestion. When we’re judging ourselves, our food, and the environment, unfortunately, we are typically not totally present, and we’re not being mindful of our food. That often takes us out of that parasympathetic state. So, encouraging a positive eating experience lends itself to optimal digestion. 

4) Avoid Water Before Meals

Drinking water before meals can dilute the stomach acids, so it optimizes our natural enzymatic activity. 

5) Chew 20-30 Times

Chew your food at least 20 to 30 times. In our Ayurvedic medicine, chewing at least 30 times has been extremely beneficial.

 If you’re thinking about healing your gut, start with chewing your food.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

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Is your anxiety or depression coming from your gut?

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Is your anxiety and/or depression coming from your gut? So many people are suffering from anxiety and/or depression, so it’s important to look at the connections between the gut and the brain, and the gut’s influence on mood and behavior. This is an important aspect of looking at mental health and addressing some underlying physical causes. 

The gut-brain connection is fascinating, and it is essentially our bidirectional communication between our gut and brain. It has multiple pathways, including the hormonal, immune system, and nervous systems. For the purpose of today, let’s focus on two aspects: the hormonal and nervous systems.

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The hormonal connection is based on neurotransmitters which are essentially chemical messengers; we also refer to them as hormones. They are signaling from the gut to the brain and the brain to the gut. We have 90% of our serotonin, which is our hormone that provides feelings of happiness, located in our gut. 50% is the dopamine in our gut, which is our feel-good hormone. We also have GABA, gamma amino butyric acid, which decreases feelings of stress and anxiety. All of these are located in our gut! Therefore, gut issues, infections, inflammatory diets can influence our mood and behavior. 

Our gut bacteria form these neurotransmitters, so different strains of bacteria will influence these different neurotransmitters. For example, Streptococcus and Enterococcus produce serotonin. Escherichia produces norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. Bacillus species also produce norepinephrine and dopamine. Bifidobacterium produces GABA. Lactobacillus species influence our acetylcholine, which is important for relaxation response, and GABA. 

The nervous system pathways of the gut-brain connection, on the other hand,  primarily exist through the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve originates from the brainstem; it’s the 10th cranial nerve, and it’s actually a pair of nerves. It innervates muscles of the face, throat, heart, respiration, digestion, and our entire elimination track. It is one of the most important nerves of our digestive system. Therefore, we are influencing this gut-to-brain connection when we are either stimulating the gut from a viscera and/or probiotics or vagus nerve stimulation exercises such as breathing. 

It is imperative that we begin to look more closely at these powerful connections and that we look beyond the genetic and environmental components to see why someone may be experiencing anxiety and depression or other mental health issues. Things such as leaky gut, SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), systemic inflammation, inflammatory foods, and the standard American diet will undoubtedly influence these neurotransmitters and the vagus nerve. This attributes to changes in our serotonin, dopamine, and GABA levels, thereby impacting our mood and behavior. 

What can you do about it? Find a functional medicine provider to help you navigate the physical causes of anxiety and depression. You could also start with testing: leaky gut, SIBO, stool testing to look at your microbiome. 

You can also start by making small changes. Focus on eating an anti-inflammatory diet, optimizing your sleep, and working on stress reduction connections.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

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What Should You Eat For Chronic Pain? | Nutrition for Chronic Pain

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you suffer from chronic pain? Perhaps you’ve had pain for greater than three months, and you’re not sure how you can support nutritionally? Fortunately, there is so much high-quality evidence to support how diet therapy can make a profound difference in chronic pain.

Chronic pain is associated with pro-inflammatory states which are linked to peripheral and central sensitization. This is when the brain perceives that there’s pain, and even a heightened sense of pain with very little stimuli, yet there is no tissue damage.

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Additionally, the mitochondria, which is essentially the powerhouse of our cells, are also associated with chronic pain. The damage to the mitochondria can be driven by how we eat. Consuming pro-inflammatory foods, such as the Standard American Diet—the Western Diet—which is rich in sugary foods, alcohol, processed meats, and enriched grains, can contribute to inflammation and even damage the mitochondria. Therefore, with the Standard American Diet, there becomes an imbalance between our essential fatty acids, which we need for optimal health, and pro-inflammatory markers. That’s where a specific diet therapy comes in.

The first thing we want to do is address the inflammatory markers. The Mediterranean diet is one of the best and well-researched diets that has been shown to decrease inflammation. Think of a diet comprised of fish, legumes, olive oil, low in grains, and high in vegetables – also referred to as an anti-inflammatory diet.

5 ways that you address your chronic pain through diet

1) Decreasing Inflammation

The best way to do this is through an elimination diet. Eliminate the potentially pro-inflammatory foods for at least three weeks and then slowly reintroduce them, one at a time. These include gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, coffee, tea, corn, soy, processed meats, red meat, chocolate, tea, coffee, and shellfish. If you don’t want to do a full elimination diet, you can do a modified version—eliminate gluten and dairy, for example. These two definitely can play a role in inflammation, and specifically chronic pain. If you’re eating a lot of sugar, this is also a great place to start. Sugar is a massive pro-inflammatory agent, so decreasing sugar in your diet would be very beneficial.

 2) Calorie Reduction

When we are consuming fewer calories than required by our basal metabolic rate, then we can not only increase our brain’s ability to generate new neurons by decreasing free radicals, but we can also increase ATP, the energy source of the cells, and we can increase our number of mitochondria. These all could play a huge role in inflammation and pain.

3) Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting, an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating, can help turn on genes that help cells survive by reducing inflammation. There are many different ways to include intermittent fasting in your life. Fasting from seven o’clock at night until seven o’clock in the morning would be a 12-hour fast. You can slowly increase that to a 16 hour fast, or you can do 24-hour fast two days a week. There are many options to suit your lifestyle and it is strongly recommended to start slowly.

4) Specific Nutrient Supplementation

Omega 3’s, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin B-12, and magnesium have all been shown to impact chronic pain. There are other nutrients that also help specifically with chronic pelvic pain, such as vitamin E, B1, and B3. 

5) Gut Health

Seventy percent of your immune system is in your gut. If there is an inflammation issue, we should start in the gut. So, do you need to include prebiotics, probiotics, or do you need a specific gut health protocol? If you are not managing gut health properly, then you are not managing chronic pain and inflammation well, either. 

These are just a few of the ways that we can use diet to influence chronic pain.  When we have that central sensitization of the nervous systems, our brain still perceives that there’s pain, yet there is likely no tissue damage. Our nervous system is heightened, and we can begin to associate chronic pain with pro-inflammatory markers. We can use diet to decrease inflammation and optimize our micronutrient, antioxidant, and phytonutrient profile to begin to bring our body back into a state of balance and healing. 

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

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