FIX MY BELLY

Gut Health Hacks

In April 2020, studies showed that about 40% of the world's population had some sort of a gastrointestinal disorder. (Source)

In a more dated study (from 2013), a study showed that more than 50% of Americans were living with non-optimal gastrointestinal symptoms.

If you're on this website, you probably do have some digestive issues that you're looking to resolve and treat but make no mistake - whether they've been acknowledge it or not, many people are dealing with intestinal issues.

That said, if you're reading this website, your problems are likely on the more extreme side -- you probably have more intense symptoms with your gut. If you're in this group, there are certain gut health hacks you want to keep with you.

Now, if you look up gut health hacks, most sources will give mostly generic advice such as to increase water intake and increase your fibre intake. This isn't "wrong" but the problem with this advice is that it applies to everyone and doesn’t necessarily pertain to people with digestive health issues.

We are going to specifically look at gut health hacks in 3 categories: mental, physical and diet.

Mental

Use Optimism and Gratitude

Suffering from a digestive/gut health problem isn't fun. And it's also not fair that this happened to you. After all, why you?

While we don't always like to hear the old cliché of "things could be worse," taking this approach sometimes helps us to look at things in our own subjective perspective.

If you take a look, you'll notice that many people suffer from various types of illnesses.

The idea is not to diminish your suffering and pain. And it's certainly not to compare your illness with someone else's but rather, to understand that in the grand scheme of pain and suffering in the world, you are not alone.

Also, logically, being a pessimist isn't going to help in any realm of life -- whether you suffer from anything or not, so why be it?

This isn't always easy because your illness can take a serious toll on your mental energy. However, you have to do your best to remain positive. If you're ever going to find treatment, it won't be because you were being a cynic.

A side benefit to more positive thinking is that it should improve your stress levels which helps keep your digestive system in line.

Reframe Your Thinking

This follows up on the the point above on optimism and gratitude above. If you are able to develop a postiive atittude, you can reframe your illnesses as a challenge or a code to crack.

This will require serious mental toughness because you will not allow yourself to be brought down. In fact, you want the world to know that you were able to accomplish things in spite of your suffering.

Keep Learning

This follows the points above. If you remain positive and start seeing your gut health problem as a challenge, you're going to want to keep learning to find the answer.

Will it always be easy? No.

Many people may simply have a gluten or dairy issues, however, if they shrug these off as incurable or "IBS" and never learn about celiac disease or lactose intolerance, they're living with daily problems for no reason!

Talk to a Friend

At the end of the day, we're all human.

While you can be positive, adopt a stronger mental outlook, and learn. The goal for this post isn't to be robotic. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You should have a high-level system, but also seek as much social support.

Talking to your friends and family can help lower your stress, improve your mood, rejuvenate, and relax.

In addition, you may be able to learn more about your gut health by asking your friend about his/her habits:

Hey, do you feel X when you eat Y food?
How many times a day do you go to the bathroom? What if you ate X?
Do you ever get X symptom? What's that like?

Find a Physical/Virtual Community

The goal of Fix My Belly is to help people will their digestive health. And somehow, you were able to find this website.

If you find something on here which helps you, you might tell someone about it, which might help him or her, who might tell another person, so on and so forth. What this will do is add value to the collective group of people who suffer from these problems.

Similarly, by exchanging information with one another, we may find commonalities for what's working and what isn't.

This can help inspire, educate, help, and heal.

If you don't have a network of people who have these issues, you can find them online/virtually.

Physical

Walking

Generally speaking, walking is one of the safest and most natural forms of exercise. Our ancestors were on their feet.

For anyone with gut health problems, you'll definitely want to ensure that you are moving.

Walking has the following benefits:

Lowers stress
Has a positive cardiovascular impact
Improves gut motility

Incorporating More Exercise

The reason that walking is recommended for all is because it can apply to the vast majority of able-bodied people.

In truth, you should be getting more exercise than just walking. This can include:

Running
Cycling
Strength training (weight-lifting)
Dancing

Your physical activities depend on the severity of your symptoms. Some people are able to manage running, where others cannot because it's too taxing on their bodies and can cause inflammation. For these people, sticking to more lower-intensity forms of exercise, such as weight-lifting at a light-pace may be more ideal.

Our Guide to Leaky Gut showed the various exercise options.

Find what works best for you and your body.

Stretching

Depending on the type of digestive problem you have, it may be helpful to adding stretches and/or relaxation techniques to your life.

Based on the majority of your symptoms, here's some stretches to try:

Bloating

Child's Pose

Get down on your knees
Sit back down on your ankles and
bend forward
Stretch your arms in front of you
Hold this stretch for about 10-15 seconds

Constipation

Bridge

Lay down on your back and bend your knees
Push up from your hips and glutes while maintaining a straight back and thinking of your mid-region (abs)
Hold for 10 seconds

Cat-Cow

Get down on all fours (hands and knees) and keep your back straight
Round your back and bring down your head, lift your core and back (imagine someone picking you up from the back of your shirt)
Next do the opposite - arch your back, bring your head up and look ahead
Repeat the process 6-8 times

Diarrhea

If you have diarrhea, it's probably wise to steer clear of too many physical stretches. You may also be depleted of energy so slightly taxing your body slightly (even if for stretching) may not be ideal. In these cases, it may be best to relax and meditate.

If possible, sleeping may also be helpful as it helps your body heal.

Sleep

Having optimal sleep is generally a good idea but it can be especially helpful for your gut health.

Here's a few ways sleep can be beneficial for you:

Your body heals during sleep -
Can be especially useful during diarrhea
Poor sleep can aggravate digestive problems
You'll eat more if you don't sleep well

While sleeping well is crucial, you want to be careful that you're not oversleeping. In addition to many problems, this can lead to constipation.

Use a Bidet

Perhaps a little surprising.

Depending on where you live, bidets may be regularly used, or they may be unconventional.

In the western world, they are still quite uncommon.

However, if you have gut health issues and bathroom troubles, here's a few ways that a bidet may benefit you:

Less toilet paper wiping - if your digestive issues cause you to go to the bathroom more often, the excessive use of toilet papers may cause some skin irritation or damage over time

More hygienic - by using water to ensure you're clean after using the toilet, you further reduce bacteria around the area

Diet/Food

Finding YOUR Diet

This is the most obvious one.

Your gut health problem is unique to YOU. Sure, it's possible that your symptoms may be 90% in common with someone, but it'll never be identical. You'll need to do the work to listen to your body on what works for you.

Our guide to leaky gut goes over a few popular diet plans for people with gut problems.

They key is just trial and error with the goal of minimizing as many symptoms as possible.

Know Your "Safe" Foods

This will be different for everyone but once you find the diet that works for you, you'll also find that there are "certain" foods which you can use when you're experiencing symptoms or a flare-up. This can also be used in cases when you have to travel or attend social events.

As stated before, everyone is different. Generally, safe foods are things like eggs, meats (as least processed as possible and without much seasoning), and some vegetables. However, your leaky gut safe food may be a particular herb.

Cut Out The Unnecessary Junk

Whether you have gut health issues or not, it's generally good advice to minimize junk and unprocessed food as much possible. There isn't much more to this.

Should you become a robot and remove all fun from your life?

No, but you'll need to figure out which foods are causing issues and when you should and shouldn’t indulge.

Eat at Similar Times with Similar Portions

Eating at different times with drastically varying portions is a recipe for disaster.

You want to try to eat at a similar time every day. You want to give your body enough time to digest and know when it expect a fresh batch of food coming down! In addition to food, you will allow your body to also have a similar time for going to the bathroom.

Also, while it may not always be possible, you want to try and have similar portions. The goal here is that you’re allowing your stomach to understand your eating patterns and letting your body run like a well-oiled machine. It should also prevent you from over-eating because this is also not good for digestion.

Look at Supplementation

First, you'll always want to get your diet right.

From here, depending on the type of issues you suffer from, you may find supplements for leaky gut helpful.

Our top supplements guide show cases a thorough list of the most beneficial supplements, which vary case-by-case. However, the most common ones include l-glutamine, and probiotics.

The Gut Health Process

In this post, we showed 15 different gut health hacks.

However, it's important to note that these are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are very much intertwined - everything with the human body always is!

The process shown below illustrates the continuum. It doesn't matter how you look at the chart, the 3 elements are very much always working together.

This can mean:

If your attitude is positive (mental), you're more likely to increase your walking (physical), which typically leads to eating better (diet/food)
If you're sleeping well (physical), you generally don't over-eat (diet/food), which reduces brain fog (mental)
If you eat well (diet/food), you are generally more productive and hence happier (mental), which leads to going to the gym (physical)

gut health hacks — Health is always interconnected and your gut is no different.

References

Walter, K. (2021, February 4). Nearly 40% of adults suffer from a functional gastrointestinal disorder. HCPLive. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from https://www.hcplive.com/view/40-percent-adults-functional-gastrointestinal-disorder