Why are we becoming more aware of a ‘healthy gut and healthy brain’ being so closely connected? This article looks to find out why. When you hear the words, “You are what you eat,” it hits home for a reason. On a mental note, consider this: You have consumed a load of processed foods, sugary drinks, and glazed donuts. After a few hours, when you are in the post-fed state or absorptive state, you feel cranky and just “Not in the mood” to go about your activities. Sounds familiar, right? It turns out what you eat has a huge role in deciding what you feel and how you take things. The food and the nutrients you consume radiate on the outside.

What’s Gut Health?

Gut health is determined by a lot of different factors, including the food you consume, the integrity of the inner mucosal linings, and gut microbiota, among many other things. Let’s understand these factors a bit.

Foods Consumed

The foods you consume play an important part in deciding your gut and, eventually, brain health. It is self-explanatory as the nutrients you consume will help your body get nourished. Vitamin E, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and essential elements like magnesium all help to boost mental health. It is, therefore, highly important to give importance to what you eat as it affects your brain health. On the other hand, processed foods, sugary foods and drinks, and caffeinated beverages all affect your mental health in a negative way.

Integrity of Mucosal Linings

Mucosal linings are there all over the GI to protect the sensitive organs responsible for digesting food. When these are damaged, our organs get affected, hindering the absorption of nutrients. Moreover, we are put at risk of developing conditions such as peptic ulcers, etc. Protective features for the mucosal linings include not overeating, taking care of the spices and alcohols you take in your routine, and other elements such as reduced use of caffeine, aspirin, and NSAIDs.

These are some of the things that help in maintaining better mucosal lining integrity. As a result, you will have better nutrients absorbed. Vitamins that are vital for your brain health, such as vitamin B12 and vitamin D, are better absorbed in the intestines this way, leading to better brain health.

Gut Microbiota

This comes as perhaps among the key players in deciding the mental health of a person. If you are a person with bacterial overgrowth in your bowel, such as seen in Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), you are likely to get mood swings and anxiety. This is because research now indicates having disturbed microflora balance leads to poor mental health.

Also, the friendly bacteria in our gut create short-chain fatty acids that are helpful in improving our mental health. These also save us from getting troubling chronic mental health conditions such as depression, which develops into Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

All of these factors point towards gut health. Also, the gut-brain connection correlates with these factors, as described with examples. You will come to know that, in fact, your brain will be in its best state, considering you are careful about all these factors as described above. The same goes for your gut health – when you are doing exercises, meditation, and yoga, for example, you are better able to find better gut health as well. This goes like a two-way street: You take care of your gut health, and your brain is taken care of, and vice versa. It all explains why you simply cannot ignore one aspect, for both these factors are the sides of the same coin. If you want to regulate your gut health for better brain health, you have to understand how important gut health is for your overall wellbeing and look to gut testing to find out about your current situation. More about this below.

Know About your Gut Health – Is my gut healthy?

If you want to improve your gut health, primarily the thing you need to do is to know how healthy your gut is. Only then are you able to devise a well-thought-out plan. By knowing how much work you require to optimize your digestion, you are better able to decide for yourself the factors you need to achieve your health goals.

One of the ways you can know for sure is to go for gut testing kicks. These are designed to help you analyze where you are at and what exactly you need to do in order to overcome any hurdles you are facing as you are working to optimize your gut-brain connection or simply improving your gut health for mental health. Read more below about how we can do this.

Do you have a healthy gut and healthy brain? Take the test to find out.

With an aim to bring accessible and workable nutrition to our customers, we have come up with certain questions arranged in a strategic manner to help you determine where you are at your gut health scale and how your mental health is getting affected by your gut health status. This test is also a good explanation for helping you see the gut-brain connection – how you can truly scan what is needed for a healthy brain and a healthy GI tract.

You will be asked a series of questions, with each having additional info for you in an attempt to educate you about how the gut-brain connection is kept maintained by your efforts. You will see how simple lifestyle modifications and how including certain nutrients in your routine can truly help address your issues regarding your health.

To know more, you can check out our website and see Gut Health Quiz. You will be notified about all the details you need to get the optimum gut health you want – that way, you are able to check out your personalized health needs instead of depending on a generalised route that may or may not appeal to your own needs concerning nutrition.

Final Words

Gut health and mental health are deeply interconnected, and while science is on its way to investigate further the relationship between the two, it is wise for us to work to optimize our gut health for mental health at the earliest. Tools like gut testing can help us carve out the path for health ideal for us.

If you need help getting back into shape then you can book an online 1-1 coaching consultation by visiting our contact page here.