The actions we take on a day-to-day basis can massively impact our gut health. From the way we eat, what we eat, how active we are, and everything in between, our gut can become compromised with poor habit choices. It is important to identify the areas in your daily lifestyle that could be potentially damaging your digestive tract in order to get things in order.
The Connection Between Exercising and Gut Motility
A consistent exercise schedule plays a major role in ensuring your digestive system is running smoothly, boosts one's mood, and helps to protect one’s bones and muscles in the long run. Exercising helps to increase blood flow towards your digestive system and can lead to a stronger core. A strong core can help to protect your back and helps to move food through your digestive tract in an efficient manner.
When you live a sedentary lifestyle, your body’s digestive system becomes stagnant and you are more likely to experience bloating and constipation. When stool and other waste stays in your digestive tract for a long period of time it can start to cause complications and reduce the health of your gut microbiome.
All this being said, many people struggle to stick to an exercise schedule due to a lack of time, dedication, and drive. Figuring out what exercise excites you is the first step in leading an active lifestyle. Here are some exercise options to consider:
- Aerobic Activities: Walking and cycling are both aerobic activities that can help to strengthen your heart muscles and help with the natural contraction of your intestinal muscles.
- Yoga or Pilates: Yoga and pilates are both low-impact exercises that increase flexibility. The twisting that naturally occurs in these workouts massages your intestinal organs and promotes circulation as well as digestion.
- Lifting: Lifting is a high-impact exercise that can help with the development of your body’s muscles. It is important to strengthen your muscles to protect them as you age.
We recommend avoiding strenuous exercise directly after eating. While a leisurely walk after a meal is encouraged to promote movement in the gastrointestinal tract, strenuous exercise can divert blood away from digestion and to the working muscles. This can lead to unstable digestion.
It is also important to have a healthy balance of rest and exercise. Your body needs time to heal in order to reap the benefits of exercise.
How Our Eating Habits Can Make or Break Our Digestion
There are many seemingly minor eating habits that can actually make or break your digestive health. How we consume our food has just as much of an impact as the food we are consuming. Let’s explore certain eating habits and how they could be impacting you.
Have you ever noticed the pace at which you consume your food? Eating too quickly can lead to poor chewing which causes your stomach to work harder to break down the different doos you consume. This added exertion can cause issues such as acid reflux, bloating, and indigestion. These complications are also due to the time it takes for our body to receive a signal of fullness during mealtime. If you are eating your meals quickly, your body typically does not have enough time to digest the food to be able to tell you when you have received enough nutrients. This delayed communication can cause overeating which can cause one to feel unwell.
The time in which you choose to participate in mealtime also has an impact on your digestion. Our bodies generally tend to thrive when we have an eating schedule that we stick to. Irregular eating patterns cause the body’s natural circadian rhythm to become unbalanced and reduce digestive enzyme production and the efficiency of one’s gut. Eating too close to bedtime can interfere with the processes that your digestive system undergoes during sleep such as repair and rejuvenation.
Eating with intention and without distraction is also incredibly important. When we eat at high points of emotion, we are more likely to negatively impact digestion due to your body’s natural fight or flight response. When we eat under high levels of stress our body’s ability to properly absorb nutrients from the food we consume significantly reduces.
Sleep Quality 101 For Better Digestion and Reduced Stress Levels
Sleep is a crucial part to leading a healthy life. Without quality sleep, all the processes in our body face significant complications such as irritable mood, a stagnant digestive tract, and extreme fatigue. Our digestive tract relies on our sleep to stabilize your circadian rhythm. When our body reaches a point of deep sleep in the night, our digestive tract starts to repair and regenerate. Our digestive system also produces the hormones we need to experience stable appetite levels and an efficient metabolism.
Even just one night of bad sleep can completely throw off your circadian rhythm and cause a host of health issues. So, how can we achieve proper sleep? Make sure to create a relaxing environment so that there is no chance for distraction. A cooling comforter, a sleep eye mask, and a diffuser can help to set the tone in your bedroom and to improve your sleep quality.
The recommended seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night allows our body to maintain proper levels of hormones that regulate hunger and satiety, preventing stress-induced overeating and subsequent digestive issues. Implementing a consistent bedtime routine that includes avoiding screens for at least an hour before bed, maintaining a cool and dark sleeping environment, and practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing or meditation can significantly improve sleep quality.
When it comes to proper digestion, leading an overall healthy lifestyle is most important and these are just some of the pillars to this type of life. From a supplement for bloating to vitamins with gut health enzymes, there are loads of ways to add support throughout your day for your gut! Consider working on one of these aspects of your life this coming week to see how it changes your overall health.