The gut is one of the most important organs in the body, so keeping it healthy is crucial to our overall wellbeing. Learning to look after your gut has huge benefits.
The gut has the power to impact everything, from our mood to immunity and weight, so it’s vital to give it the love and attention it deserves. As well as having its own ‘brain’, which contains 150 million nerve cells, the gut is also home to trillions of bacteria that play a vital role in providing essential nutrients, tuning the immune system and even altering the function of the brain and other distant parts of the body.
The gut can influence our mental health and mood, due to a direct link between the gut and the brain, called the gut-brain axis.
As Love Your Gut Week approaches (Sept 19th-25th), Jo Travers, registered dietitian has shared her top six tips to help everyone look after their gut health:
- a) Support Your Immunity;
- b) Eat 30 plant points a week, as a varied gut microbiota is associated with better health and to keep the bacteria thriving, you need to feed them well. To up your intake of plant-based foods, try adopting new habits such as swapping to whole meal pasta when cooking, adding an extra portion of veg to your plate or snacking on nuts and seeds.
- c) Get enough sleep – depriving ourselves of sleep, can disrupt the communication between our gut and brain.
- d) Manage stress – Stress, physical or psychological, triggers a chain reaction in the body, including the production of the stress hormone cortisol, which can cause dysregulation of the communication pathways between the gut and the brain;
- e) Get into nature – coming into contract with the great outdoors is enough to influence our gut bacteria;
- f) Keep track of what you eat and drink – keeping a food and symptoms diary, where you can keep note of the food and drink you consume, alongside symptoms, and then share this with your GP or dietitian, who will be able to help identify any triggers.
For further information on Love Your Gut Week, as well as access to helpful resources and delicious doctor-developed recipes, visit www.loveyourgut.com
