Gutted.

For 36 hours this weekend, I felt tired, restless and moody.? My thoughts were pessimistic and unproductive.

Could it actually have been caused by my gut health?? My gut seems to be in a sub-optimal state… maybe even outright poor.?

And no surprise — because 4 days ago, I took at 17-hour flight back to the San Francisco Bay Area, without sleeping; and after landing at 9 am, I stayed awake for sit-down meetings the entire day. ?

So… poor sleep, lack of physical movement (exercise), airplane food (and wine) and a massive disruption to my circadian rhythm.?

As a product of Asian parenting, I hear these words echo in my head: “Don’t blame anything but yourself!”? … implying that my mood, and my thoughts, had no other origin than an obscure sense of ‘self’.

But this morning I wondered — what if there was indeed, nothing wrong?? Nothing wrong with ‘myself’.? Nothing wrong with what’s going on in life and work.

Of course!? Nothing had changed materially in the last 36 hours, or even the last 4 days.? In fact, I would even say, that things have progressed in multiple areas of my life and work.? And yet — I experienced a sense of dismay. ?

So today I took a much closer look at the obvious and subtle impact of what is known as the Gut-Brain Axis.

I focused on two things:

• Deepened my understanding of how to restore and improve gut health.?
• Examined the subtle ways, and more crucially — moments in life, when a sub-optimal gut state can possibly cause a vicious cycle of pessimistic-thinking and counterproductive responses.

Side-note — I enjoyed naming this article (‘Gutted’).? Even though there’s no ‘hook’; and such titles are likely to result in poor click-through rates.

Why ‘Gutted’?

• Well, because the entire article is about Gut Health.? But also…
• To feel ‘Gutted’ — is to feel extremely sad or disappointed about something.? And this article is about a sense of dismay and pessimism that I’ve experienced in the past 36 hours.
• When something is ‘Gutted’ — it means that internal fixtures and fittings have been removed… and that something is stripped down to its basic structural elements.? In this case — it refers to my work of examining gut health and its intricate influence over us.