Healthy Gut Challenge

Do you ever get that sense in your stomach that something bad is about to happen? Or maybe you had butterflies before a job interview or hot date? Well these are just examples of your microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis?having a good chinwag amongst each other - and it’s quite a conversation as the human?body?contains more than?40 Trillion Microorganisms, outnumbering our human cells by 10 to 1 and making up to 3% of our body weight!

With so many voices involved, this chat gets pretty loud once we experience stress - in particular Social Stress. A 2018 study published in Behavioural Brain Research indicated that social stress alters the gut microbiota (“the community”) and this can trigger or worsen mental illness in people. This study involved placing pairs of hamsters into stress-inducing scenarios and examining any alterations in their gut microbiota. They also looked if things were different if the stressful scenario was a “win” or a “loss”.

Hamsters were selected for this social stress study, because just like people, they have strong social hierarchies when paired with other animals and the males will quickly begin to compete with other males to establish who is dominant.?The researchers hypothesised that the less dominant (losing) males would experience MORE stress, but they were surprised to discover that similar significant changes in the gut were observed in both sets of animals.

“We found that even a single exposure to social stress causes a change in the gut microbiota, similar to what is seen following (much more severe) physical stressors, and this change gets bigger following repeated exposures.

Interestingly, we found that social stress, regardless of who won, led to similar overall changes in the microbiota, although the particular bacteria that were impacted were somewhat different in winners and losers. It might be that the impact of social stress was somewhat greater for the subordinate animals, but we can’t say that strongly.” said Dr. Kim Huhman, Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience at Georgia State.

More research is required to explore social stress consequences in humans, but this article follows up my previous about Listening to your Body, encouraging you to do a Quick Body Scan at least once per day, helping you to regulate your stress levels. Ignoring the signs your body tells you is a high risk strategy for life, so make sure you aim to keep a good balance between Stress (both good & bad types) & Recovery.

This week’s challenge is to take good care of your gut by doing these three things:

(i) Firstly, make sure to spend at least 15 minutes to yourself everyday and do something you enjoy doing.

(ii) Secondly, say NO to a few things in your diary this week and create a little more freedom and a little less stress. Protect your time carefully.

(iii) Thirdly, feed your gut this week by going a bit more crazy on fruit & vegetables to boost your dietary fibre. Some high fibre foods that are really good for your gut bacteria are:

• raspberries
• artichokes
• green peas
• broccoli
• chickpeas
• lentils
• beans
• whole grains
• bananas
• apples

If you would like to examine your stress & recovery balance, click here ?? Let’s Get Started

Have a great week. Keep up all your good habits.

#HealthyHabits

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Sources:?

Social Stress Leads To Changes In Gut Bacteria, Georgia State Study Finds

9 Ways to Improve Your Gut Bacteria, Based on Science