the 20-something’s guide to gut health (aka:: how you can help your gut health, digestion, bloating, & constipation)
if you’re like me, your feeds are filled with videos from holistic health coaches, nutritionists, dieticians, hormonal health experts, etc. all helping us to heal our guts internally. i absolutely love this type of content, but i want to offer a different gut health perspective from a board-certified doctor of physical therapy in orthopedics & a pelvic floor physical therapist. so much of the content & education i see involves how to heal our guts from an internal perspective, so let’s dive into more of an external perspective & lifestyle perspective on changes we can make to help our gut health! (& all of them are completely free!)
“the gut tube”- anatomy & physiology
okay excuse the brash language, but i had a professor in pt school who always referred to our gi tract/digestive tract as the gut tube, so this is for him. :)
a brief gut tube overview::
mouth:: starts the mechanical digestion of our food via chewing to break it up into smaller pieces so it can be further digested, absorbed, & cleared out. there are also salivary enzymes that are released that initiate the chemical breakdown of carbohydrates.
pharynx:: a passageway linking the mouth to the esophagus
esophagus:: connects the pharynx to the stomach. it is made of smooth muscle tissue that undergoes a contraction process called peristalsis to transport food & liquids into the stomach… almost like a pumping motion.
stomach:: another smooth muscle structure that helps to store food, while also releasing enzymes & compounds that help to breakdown protein, & finally creating a mushy gushy substance called chyme to move through the rest of the tract.
small intestine:: yet another smooth muscle structure (sensing a theme…?), that is primarily involved in the actual digestion & absorption of nutrients. it continues to help breakdown carbohydrates, fats, & proteins while having various hair-like projections that help absorb the nutrients & push along the leftovers.
fun fact:: these hair-like projections actually help to increase the absorption capacity of the small intestine! more hair= more surface area!
large intestine/colon:: a smooth muscle structure that helps to absorb water & electrolytes from the leftovers from the small intestines, while also preparing & storing the waste for excretion. the rectum, or the very end of the large intestine, is a storage site for waste prior to defecation.
what is with all the smooth muscle, & what exactly is smooth muscle?…
you’ll notice that i emphasize the structure of the gut tube being smooth muscle, which is a type of muscle tissue in our body. smooth muscle has some similarities & differences to skeletal muscle, or what we typically think of as our muscles (biceps, 6 pack, etc.). smooth muscle, like skeletal muscle, is contractile, meaning it lengthens & shortens. however, unlike skeletal muscle, smooth muscle contraction is mostly involuntary, meaning we cannot consciously contract smooth muscle structures. (for example, try to contract your stomach vs. your biceps…very different!) so what creates this contraction process for smooth muscle if we can’t actually control it consciously? our subconscious nervous system, or autonomic nervous system, actually helps to contract the smooth muscle of our digestive tracts to move things along. this means that any activation of the part of the nervous system that regulates this smooth muscle contraction can help our digestion & gut health! pretty cool, right?
so you may be wondering, well what part of our subconscious nervous systems help to regulate this contraction & pumping of food throughout our digestive tracts? stay tuned! it’s a super pillar to gut health from an external & behavior change perspective!
the most romantic belly massage that you can do yourself!
one of the best ways we can assist our own gut health is through self-massage! we can help things move along a little better by massaging along our digestive tracts, following a specific path, to help the “motility” of the food! i especially love to do this after a heavy meal, when i feel bloated, or when i travel & things aren’t moving as smoothly as i would like. here are the steps written out below, & here is a video link to check out!
start in the upper left quadrant of your abdominal region (just underneath your rib cage)
put light, circular pressure into that region, then rainbowing across to the right upper quadrant (below your right rib cage) & down to the right lower quadrant by the bony part of your pelvis
starting in the right lower quadrant/pelvic region, begin to make a smaller rainbow over your belly button and towards the left lower quadrant.
perform for 3-5 minutes, then follow it up with some deep, diaphragmatic breathing.
repeat as many times as you’d like, always following it up with deep breathing.
it’s best to go on a walk or move around in a light way after…try not to return to a static sitting position!
again, here is a link to a specific video that shows the technique!
meditation, mindfulness, & breathwork
have you ever heard of our fight/flight nervous system? what about the rest/digest part of our nervous systems? both are part of our autonomic, or subconscious, nervous system, & both are active during certain activities & parts of the day. after a meal, we especially want to turn up our rest/digest, or parasympathetic, part of our nervous system to help move things along. the parasympathetic nervous system is the part of our nervous system involved in smooth muscle contraction, in addition to other digestion-related processes in our “gut tubes”! so cool, right?
from a macro perspective, we can use breathwork & mindfulness practices to help cue our bodies to switch to this “rest & digest” (parasympathetic) part of our nervous system via a variety of super cool pathways!
from a micro perspective (& you guys know i like to get micro!), purposeful, slow breathwork helps to activate the vagus nerve, which is basically the COO of our parasympathetic nervous systems. the vagus nerve, in turn, helps to reduce our heart rate & blood pressure through the baroreceptor reflex, while also causing smooth muscle contractions in our “gut tube” to move the food along (think moving toothpaste through a toothpaste tube!). it also stimulates various secretions along our digestive tracts for appropriate breakdown, absorption, & clearance of food.
deep breathing also helps to decrease our blood pressure & heart rate through the baroreceptor reflex, which subsequently helps to turn the knob down/up on our sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous systems, altering the mode in which our body is functioning.
& finally, deep breathing helps to bring in more oxygen to our bloodstream, changing the ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen & cueing the parasympathetic nervous system.
similarly, meditation & mindfulness work on various parts of the brain that help us to better regulate our autonomic nervous systems, or the overarching term for the combination of our sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous systems. by performing meditation & mindfulness practices, we are better able to switch between the various levels of our autonomic nervous systems.
in summary, any activation or better regulation of our parasympathetic nervous systems can help improve our gut health, bloating, & digestion!
we like to move it, move it
as mentioned above, movement is one of the best things we can do to help our gut health, bloating, & constipation. movement works in conjunction with some of the above techniques to continue to help push food along the digestive tract through smooth muscle rhythmic contractions (toothpaste tube, again!). exercise also helps to reduce stress, which can subsequently take us into more of a parasympathetic, or ”rest/digest” state, promoting digestion. exercise also allows for improved efficiency of movement of food through our digestive tracts, although careful to not exercise “too hard” where the body is forced into more of a sympathetic state & diverting more resources to our muscles rather than towards our digestion.
it’s about what you wear when you eat
another lesser talked about contribution to our gut health is the clothes we wear, primarily in relation to our abdominopelvic region & around our rib cage. we all know this subconsciously, right? we wear stretchy pants to thanksgiving for a reason! any restriction in our abdominal region or restriction in our ability to perform wonderful, diaphragmatic breaths can alter how we digest our food. if we can’t get the proper expansion through our rib cage, we might not be able to activate our vagus nerve & parasympathetic nervous systems as efficiently. similarly, the motility of food through our digestive tract can literally be restricted due to cinching at our waists or pelvises. so let this be confirmation to what you already knew, braless & pantsless is truly best…especially for our gut health!
every pelvic floor pt’s favorite piece of equipment:: the squatty potty
have you heard about the squatty potty? it is a stool you place under your feet when going to the bathroom, especially pooping, that helps place the very last part of your digestive tract & the surrounding muscles in a better position to allow for an easier bowel movement. it puts our pelvis in a position that better relaxes the puborectalis muscle, creating a smoother exit when pooping! (smooth poops all day erry-day!) for an at-home version, try tilting the trash can on its side & place your feet on top to bring your knees above your pelvis while keeping your pelvic floor relaxed. or, you can always invest in a squatty potty!
image reference:: https://motipt.com/constipation/
march gut health challenge
braless & pantsless for all of march, amirite? as amazing as that sounds, we can do the next best thing:: i want us all to focus on these 4-5 (maybe 5 if we include the braless & pantsless?…fine, 4.5) pillars of our gut health for 14 days. choose 1 to try each day for the first 7 days, then try to combine them in the 2nd week after you’ve become more consistent with them! totally experiment with the right combination of techniques, timing with meals, & what you are able to actually implement into your daily routine. all of these techniques are meant to be in conjunction with the techniques & protocols set forth by all of the wonderful gut health experts & practitioners!
want an even more holistic picture for your gut health?
if you’re looking for a more holistic resource for your health & wellness (i’m talking at-home workouts, an 8 week deep core program, mindfulness/meditation sessions, fueling/nutrition ideas, & “wellness girl chats” all about gut health, toning, breathwork, hormonal health, “snatching our waists”, & the true science behind all the confusing topics), then check out the elää wellness sisterhood, where your first 7 days are on us!
love you guys! cheers to smoother poops!
kelsy
