Look after your gut for better mental health

How your happy tummy improves your Mental Health

Protect both your mental health & gut health simultaneously? Prioritising your gut health at this particularly stressful period in time as it has a profound effect on your mental health.

If you’re feeling extra tired, moody, depressed, or confused these days, you’re a person with a pulse living in the year 2021. But, these are also all signs of seasonal affective disorder or SAD and the answer to good health may lie with nutrition...

The genetic makeup of clinically depressed individuals, the depression itself, and altered lifestyles due to depressive episodes can all have significant influences on the gut microbiome. To keep the gut healthy and functioning optimally, experts suggest eating lots of fibrous, nutrient-rich vegetables and yogurt, drinking kombucha, and exercising. In replenishing gut bacteria after recovering from an infection or pathogen, your doctor may suggest adding a pre-or probiotic to your routine.

It's still too early to say that definitive mental health diagnoses can be made based on the gut microbiome. But researchers are increasingly paying attention to this "gut-brain axis," hypothesising that the gut bacterial microbiome plays a role in Parkinson’s disease, bipolar disorder and autism.

However, the dynamic between gut health and mental health is complex and bidirectional. It's likely that gut microbiome disturbances negatively influence mental health. Simultaneously, changes in diet and physical activity associated with mental health problems may, in turn, harm the gut microbiome.

If you are interested in finding out more about how to improve your gut health and the positive impact that may have over your general health, get in touch and we can book you in to see our gut health Guru and colonic specialist Liz O' Sullivan.