With so much noise in the world, It’s hard to listen to your gut. Except when you’ve got diarrhoea. Then it’s the only thing on your mind. We take it for granted, until we can’t. However, more and more we discover that the mind and your gut are closely connected. And that your ‘gut instinct’ is maybe more important than we’ve previously thought.
How many times have you second doubted yourself only to find the thing, the thought, the IDEA you failed to act on… was actually quite brilliant? Ignoring your gut instinct means the regret of- I should’ve done. Shudder. Or worse, worrying too long over a decision has literally made you sick….
The key then is to get quiet and listen… Easier said than done, I know. We’ve all gotten so wound up before a trip away, racing around the house to get things organised, not taking a minute to bless yourself (as they used to say..) and BOOM 💥 you lose your mind on one of the kids who’s decided to make himself a last minute jam sammie, leaving a trail of crumbs on the JUST CLEANED COUNTER…! No wonder your stomach is in knots and your mind creating yet another “Why I’m a Crap Mother List”.
IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD (THAT’S A GOOD THING ACTUALLY)
Sometimes you just need to breathe and ask yourself in a calm moment- WHY am I feeling this way…? Often naming the feeling, for example, “I am losing my 💩 because I am afraid of flying…”, may help alleviate the size of the feeling, and then a further acknowledgement to yourself that it’s okay to feel the feeling… and to let it go… How meditation fixed my fear of flying - Headspace
This is not to say that your stomach issues are imagined and therefore inconsequential.
What you are feeling is very real. But you CAN do something about it.
Crohn's disease and other irritable bowel symptoms range from minor to life altering. While complex medical conditions require careful attention from your healthcare provider, it’s important to curate some tools for self care. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, can help unravel the racing mind. Niamh Connolly About – Transform CBT has a beautiful Instagram page with wonderfully useful resources for alleviating the worry wart in us all. Yet, even CBT can be too, well, wordy. So MEDITATION, and YOGA can help distance yourself from the feelings, creating space for calm, allowing your gut to relax so you can too. fabÜ R&R RELAX - fabuwellness is a lovely supplement to take before bed to allow restful sleep, restoring your balance for the day ahead- another great tool for calm.
The Second Brain Is In Your Stomach
A lot has been discovered connecting the link between the gut and the brain. In fact, Dr Michael Gershon wrote a whole book with this as a title The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine: Gershon, Michael In it he says, “The ugly gut is more intellectual than the heart and may have a greater capacity for “feeling”. It is the only organ that contains an intrinsic nervous system that is able to mediate reflexes in the complete absence of input from the brain or spinal cord.”
Listen, I know I might be out-nerding even myself here, but this book just might be the most elegant one written on your poop chute ever. Yeah, I said it. Dr Gershon reveals that our gut is actually a remnant of our primitive brain and where 95% of your serotonin is made. Your happiness depends on your bowel health. No shit Sherlock… That’s why it’s so important to mind what you eat and how you eat. And to understand that if you feed your body well, it will perform better.
Your Microbiome- Your Body’s Garden Needs Water and Fertilizer
You’d have to be under a rock not to have heard about probiotics. Everyone’s taking them. Green powders abound in the bro culture, health influencers are adding them to their coffee along with butter…. (Coffee itself is a great probiotic actually Long-Term Coffee Consumption is Associated with Fecal Microbial Composition in Humans - PMC )
But why do we need probiotics? And what are pre-biotics?
Well prebiotics are the juicy snacks your gut bacteria need to consume. However, if your gut bacteria are in short supply, as often happens after a dose of antibiotics, you will need to replenish them so they can do all the delicious work of breaking down your food. The new fabÜ GUT CULTURE - fabuwellness helps keep YOU and your gut happy. It’s formulated with chaga mushrooms Chaga Mushroom Benefits - Immunity and Gut Health - Erbology and both pro and prebiotics. We like to multi-task here.
Happy Gut, Happy Self
Replenishing our gut flora shows significant promise not only for your daily constitutional, but also for improving your mood A randomized controlled trial to test the effect of multispecies probiotics on cognitive reactivity to sad mood There have also been several inroads into the prevention of chronic UTI’s The role of probiotics in women with recurrent urinary tract infections - PMC by incorporating probiotics into your day.
KISS- or Keep It Simple Stupid
The last thing Fabuwellness wants to do is put more things onto your plate. If we can help you feel better with a simple plan for better gut health, we’ll be happy. Sometimes less is more (unless it’s veggies- we need more of those!). If we were to write three things for better gut health it would be:
1: Eat well
2: Sleep better
3: Feel FABÜ-lous!
Now that’s a prescription we can all do with!