Know 7 ways to improve your gut health

Poor gut health may cause abdominal pain, nausea, acid reflux, gas, fatigue, and other health complications.

Table of Content.

• What is gut health?

• Why is it essential to have a healthy gut?

• Signs of Poor Gut Health.

• Ways to improve your gut health.

What is gut health?

There has been an increasing awareness about gut health globally in recent years. It is one of the most looked-for topics across the internet. While people are trying to know about factors that cause an unhealthy gut and ways to improve gut health, it is essential to understand what is gut and how it functions.

The gut represents a group of organs that includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, liver, large intestine, and small intestine. The gut is our digestive tract. Our gut plays a pivotal role in the digestion of food and the way our body functions.

Why is it essential to have a healthy gut?

Our gut is the foundation of the basic functioning of our body. It aids in below essential processes:

• Digestion of food.

• Absorption of nutrients.

• Aids in the functioning of the immune system.

• Regulates generation of important hormones.

• Helps in the processing of metabolic waste and the removal of toxins.

In case our gut is not functioning normally, it may lead to multiple complications.

An unhealthy gut may impact the immunity, digestive, and excretory systems. It can cause chronic illness, fatigue, and inflammation throughout the body.

You may experience constipation, gastrocolic, constant acid reflux, and joint pain in poor gut health. In severe cases, poor gut health may even cause brain fog.

According to recent research, there is a direct relationship between our gut and our brain. So if your gut is not working, your brain, too, is struggling to function normally.

Signs of Poor Gut Health.

It is pivotal to maintain a healthy gut to have a healthy life. Therefore, you should know five important signs indicating an unhealthy gut.

1. Upset Stomach: One of the major signs of an unhealthy gut is discomfort in your stomach, experiencing frequent bloating, heartburn, and constipation. This indicates that your gut is having difficulty to process the food and eliminate the waste from the body.

2. Intolerant to certain Foods: You may develop intolerance to certain food types due to the presence of poor-quality gut bacteria. Being intolerant to food can be an early warning to improve gut health.

3. Trouble Sleeping: Most mood-related and sleep-related hormones are produced in the gut. Therefore, a person with poor gut health may face difficulty in getting sleep, which may even lead to insomnia.

4. Extreme food cravings: Having too much sugar in the diet leads to the generation of bad bacteria, which may make you crave to have sweeter and sugar-based food. This is a clear sign of poor gut.

5. Migraines and Autoimmune disease: Poor gut health causes headaches and nausea. Since our gut plays a major role in regulating our immunity, people suffering from poor gut health are at high risk of getting autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid issues, and type 1 diabetes.

You must consult a doctor in case you are experiencing any of the above symptoms or any other discomfort.

7 ways to improve your gut health.

A poor diet that lacks nutrition, stressful schedules, and long-term use of antacids and antibiotics may cause a leaky gut. A situation where there is an unhealthy balance between the good and bad bacteria in our gut.

Here are seven simple tips that you can follow to have a healthy gut.

1. Reduce sugar in your diet: High sugar intake has been associated with multiple health issues. You must restrict your sugar intake, as increased sugar in your diet may cause an imbalance between the gut’s good and bad bacteria. You must prefer eating naturally sweet foods like fruits.

2. Increase the greens in your diet: A diet that includes more vegetables and fibre is good for our gut health. It not only aids in the digestive process but is full of nutrition required for our gut to function well.

3. Include prebiotic fibre: The good bacteria feed on prebiotic fibre. Therefore, you must include food that is a source of prebiotic fibre, like banana, garlic, onion, asparagus, and whole grains.

4. Add Fermented food to your daily diet: Probiotic in our diet strengthens and improves our gut health. Fermented food is rich in probiotics. You must have more fermented food. Include fermented vegetables in your diet and fermented food like idli, dosa, curds etc.

5. Sufficient sleep: Having an undisturbed sleep of at least 8 hours helps manage stress and provides your body time to heal and recover. It is vital to have sound sleep as it aids good gut health.

6. Avoid taking antacids and antibiotics frequently: You must ensure that you are not putting unnecessary antibiotics and antacids in your body. This damages the gut environment and is harmful to our immune system.

7. Stay physically active: Increased physical activity helps us manage a healthy weight and helps in improving our gut health.

Improving your gut health can enhance your health and help prevent multiple health issues. By eating appropriately and making necessary lifestyle changes to your routine, you can improve and maintain a good gut health.