Your mind affects your gut and what you can do about it

Have you ever had a gut feeling or butterflies in your belly when you were in love? Have you ever gotten so frustrated or upset that your stomach was in knots and you felt like throwing up your lunch? It goes without saying our gut and our mind are intertwined.

How we interpret and manage stress and emotions can alter our digestive behavior and vice versa. It’s not a one-way street, in fact, 95 percent of your serotonin is produced in your gut, and your brain relies on the production of this vital hormone (among others) to keep balance on many levels from your emotional balance to fighting infections.

You can buy into Proactiv and work through your skin to reduce acne however, the gastrointestinal mechanisms that manage intestinal microflora can be attacked by accumulated stress you endure from day to day. In fact, if you often times feel “stressed out” and don’t manage it, this stress can increase intestinal permeability and contribute to systemic inflammation, depression, anxiety, and you guessed it, blotchy, pimply skin.

John H. Stokes and Donald M Pillsbury proposed the link between acne and the gut over 70 years ago so it’s not really a new idea yet it’s only with recent advanced in research and technology that the gut-brain-skin connection have been validated.

So how can you combat this accumulated stress? Well, the first is get a good probiotic as the ability of the gut microbiota to remain balanced can be significantly altered for the better with an oral probiotic. A high quality probiotic can influence systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, and improve glycemic control and tissue’s fatty lipid content. In fact, a healthy gut can also improve overall emotional states not to mention keeping your skin glowing and oils balanced.

Beyond the gut, the interconnected matrix of stability—your connective tissue system (a.k.a. the extracellular matrix) can also be influenced and assisted to remain stable thus assisting the gut balance indirectly. What most people don’t realize is, stress—and I really mean your life— can be managed better without our conscious control and you can actively partake in the daily management of stress.

That’s really what MELT is all about.

It’s a direct approach to keeping the connective tissue healthy and an indirect way to keeping the regulators of your nervous system balanced. The regulators (there are three of them) manage stress, repair, and the gut. By MELTing once a day for 10 minutes you help boost your body’s natural repair mechanism, which aids in gut balance and stress management.

You can go after your gut directly with a probiotic and help reduce constipation and the re-circulation of hormones like estrogen—we don’t like hormones re-circulating because it stressed out our liver and that big mother of a gland has a lot of jobs to do in a day—over 700 jobs so don’t make it do any jobs twice.

The combo that can help

By taking a probiotic and MELTing once a day, you can reduce the overgrowth of bad bacteria while improving the barrier between the cell walls so they stay strong and healthy. The extracellular matrix is the scaffolding that keeps the cells stable on the outside while the same matrix sustains the architecture within each cell—including the cells that line the intestines. If these cells are breached, it can cause leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and diseases that mess up your autoimmune response.

It slows transit, leading to constipation and the re-circulation of hormones like estrogen through your liver. It increases the overgrowth of bad bacteria. And it loosens the barriers between the cells that line the intestines, creating something called leaky gut, which then leads to inflammation, food sensitivities and even autoimmune disease.

Some simple recommendations and my personal favorite gut supplements and daily regimens to keep my body balanced:

Start your day off with a MELT foot or hand treatment (takes 10 minutes and you can do it anywhere, including your office).

For a more restful night’s sleep, try the MELT Rebalance Sequence.

My personal favorite probiotics:

• Liquid type: American Health Probiotic Acidophilus (20 billion organisms)

• Pill formulas: I’m a fan of Renew Life (you can check it out on line. They have many types. I like the 90 billion organisms type for women).

So don’t let your stress disrupt your gut. Remember, the gut and the mind are intertwined. Without gut balance, stress can really stress you out and cause more problems down the road. Keep your stress in balance from every level and live a better life!