I HAVE TWO BRAINS?! WHAT???

 

                                                     I HAVE TWO BRAINS?! WHAT???

Did you know that you actually have TWO brains? You have your main brain- the one up in your head, but researches have also deemed your Gut a brain, too. Your gut not only digests food, but it has more neurons than your peripheral nervous system and spinal cord (Hadhazy, 2010). Did you know that 90% of serotonin is made in the gut? Serotonin is the chemical that makes us happy.

So, why is this important to know? Well, if you have 2 brains, than more than one part of you is responsible for your mood throughout the day. If your main brain is thinking, “Monday, let’s do this!”, but your gut is thinking “I’m not moving,” you have a problem. Since your gut has so many neurons and can “feel” a lot of things, your Gut actually sends a ton of messages every day to your main brain.

 

You know that “gut feeling” you get, or those butterflies in your stomach before a speech? Yep, that is your gut sending messages to the brain. In fact, Hadhazy (2010) stated that IBS is actually deemed the “mental illness” of the gut. Your main brain can get a mental illness, and so can your gut.

 

Ok then, you want a happy gut! A happy gut=a Happy main brain and overall mood. So, how do you get a happy gut?

According to Kresser (2014), here are some things you can do to get an Unhealthy Gut- Are you doing any of these?:

·         Taking Antibiotics and other medications like birth control and NSAIDs

·         Diets high in refined carbohydrates, sugar and processed foods

·         Diets low in fermentable fibers

·         Dietary toxins like wheat and industrial seed oils that cause leaky gut

·         Chronic stress

·         Chronic infections

According to Kresser (2014), here are some HEALTHY things you can do for the Gut

·         Remove all food toxins from your diet

·         Eat plenty of fermentable fibers (starches like sweet potato, yam, yucca, etc.)

·         Eat fermented foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi, etc., and/or take a high-quality, multi-species probiotic

·         Treat any intestinal pathogens (such as parasites) that may be present

·         Take steps to manage your stress

 

This week’s Challenge: Make a change to stop doing one thing off the bad Gut list, and add one thing to your health from the Good Gut list.