Improve Gut Health
Prevent Anxiety

Transcription

Hello everybody. This is Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place in Redding, California. Today's video is about gut health and stress, and anxiety. Believe it or not, the health of our intestines and digestive system affects our ability to cope with stress and anxiety. Sometimes you have stress in your life, and you can't avoid having this certain level of stress, but we can affect how our body copes with it and deals with that stress, and part of that is by having a healthy gut. We know that gut health is linked to releasing stress hormones like cortisol. When stress hormones like cortisol are needed, they can help us regulate and modify our stress response and also help with anxiety-like behavior. Now, you hear a lot about cortisol being a stress hormone. There are long-term consequences if your cortisol levels are constantly high all the time, but there are times when our body needs cortisol to help deal with stress and anxiety, and there are ways that we can help keep our gut healthy that help our body have a normal stress response when we're dealing with stress.

And some of those things that we can do to help keep our gut healthy so that when we're dealing with stress, we're able to cope a little bit better is by having foods that have probiotics in them. You can always take a probiotic, but a lot of the times when you buy capsules, probiotic capsules and stuff like that, a lot of the time, the probiotics that are in those capsules, by the time you take them, are anywhere from 80% to 90% of the way already just dead by being in that capsule, that's not the normal environment that they live in. So I like to recommend to my patients to do things like let's eat foods that we know are living foods that have those probiotics in them, and there are a few things that I always recommend.

Number one would be Kefir. Kefir is like cultured milk, and it's similar to yogurt. The probiotics in Kefir tend to be very, very potent, very strong. There are a lot of places in our community where you can buy Kefir that is just ready to go. One brand that is easy to find at Safeway or Holiday Market, or any of the local markets is Nancy's Kefir. Nancy's Kefir is actually peer-reviewed. It's actually been studied to show a very positive effect on re-populating our gut and intestines with healthy probiotics, so much so that there are actually medical providers who are in gastrointestinal that understand the value of Nancy's Kefir and recommend it to people on a regular basis. I know here also locally at Sprouts, Sprouts carries a raw kefir that you can purchase yourself. At home, I took it a step further. You can actually order your own kefir grains, and you can make Kefir at home yourself every day. That's one of the things that I do for part of my overall health and well-being. I've noticed a significant improvement, not just in my gut health, but in my immune system, because I regularly consume Kefir, which is part of my morning smoothie after my workout.

I make my smoothie, and I put Kefir in it every single day. So if you're ever interested in that option, I can always talk to you about how you can go about getting those kefir grains so that you can just be making it every single day. It'll keep making Kefir every day for you. It's the gift that keeps on giving, so to speak. Another living food that you can consume that has probiotics in it is kombucha. Kombucha is a cultured tea. I prefer GT's Kombucha. I want you to have raw, living food, and I want the probiotic to be alive when you consume it. So that is where you get the most bang for your buck. And GT's Kombucha is available everywhere in our community, and Trader Joe's has it; Holiday Markets, Safeway, Sprouts, Orchard Nutrition, you name it, is at every single store now, it's very easy to come by.

And even just having four ounces of that every so often, it is a tea. I will caution you that there is some black tea and green tea in there, I wouldn't recommend drinking this in the evening, but I usually will have a little bit of kombucha with my lunch just as a little extra probiotic and enzyme benefit to me with my lunch meal. So that's another option to be considering. And one of the other living foods that I try to consume pretty consistently is raw Sauerkraut. Raw Sauerkraut, obviously, just fermented cabbage creates a lot of probiotics for you, and again, this is something you're seeing more and more stores carry raw forms of Sauerkraut. You can even get a big raw organic sauerkraut tub at Costco now. They definitely carry raw Sauerkraut at Orchard Nutrition Holiday Market.

So there are options for you on this, these are really great things to be consuming that just add to the probiotics in your intestines every single day, keeping not only your gut health better for stress, but I know this is not part of this video, but it's good for us to understand about 80% of our immune system exists in our gut, so keeping our gut healthy is a great way for us to stay healthy overall. The other thing I talk to patients about is switching more to a whole foods diet, not eating a lot of processed stuff, staying away from pasta, bread, a lot of crackers, and just food that is just empty calories, quite frankly. That's what it is; empty calories don't give you any nutritional benefits.

So I try to eat vegetables, fruits, healthy meats, locally raised eggs, and obviously my Kefir. I eat a ton of veggies as part of my diet, but just remember that, hey, let's stick with that menu, let's go off of things that we know are real food, they're not processed, they're not packaged, it's real food, starting with that usually is the easiest thing to do if you're trying to stay on a healthy diet and make sure that your health is better. And then remember this, we need to be hydrated. A lot of Americans, it's said in certain studies up to 70% of Americans are dehydrated. Hydration is a very important part of not just our overall health but our gut health as well. For our gut to do what's called peristalsis, which is like moving and digesting food, moving stuff along, we need to be properly hydrated to digest our food and take in that nutrition properly, so if you're not drinking water or a lot of water, start by just trying to increase your water, the goal there would be about eight glasses of water a day, about 64 ounces a day of water.

Some people consume more, but hey, that's a good goal. If you're not a big water drinker, just trying to increase your water intake over time slowly, that'll profoundly affect your digestion, blood pressure, and many things. So hopefully, this video helps you understand a little more about gut health, the stress response, and making some good healthy choices every day to make you healthier. I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443