5 Surprising Ways To Heal Your Gut

Between inflammatory processed foods packed with sugars and simple carbohydrates and general life stressors, our guts are all a little worse for wear. This is an issue because a damaged gut can negatively impact everything from your immune system1 to your mood2. Luckily, one of the most amazing aspects of the human body is its ability to heal.

Probiotics are the good bacteria you want in your gut to assist in nutrient absorption and digestion. The key to getting the best probiotics for your body is diversifying your intake.

Try getting probiotics from a few different high-quality food sources like lacto-fermented sauerkraut, kimchi, kefirs, and apple cider vinegar-based drinks like Suja Drinking Vinegars, which use a highly stable strain of bacteria called GanedenBC30. A lot of probiotics don't survive in food or drinks, so being aware of the kinds of foods that contain strong probiotics is helpful.

Good quality drinking vinegars contain both prebiotics and probiotics. High-quality apple cider vinegar is fermented, giving it those good-for-your-gut probiotics, and contains soluble fiber from the apples, providing prebiotics.

Apple cider vinegar can also aid in the detoxification process, as the acid in it binds to toxins which helps with circulation and liver detox. By helping to rid the body of the bad stuff, drinking vinegars can also help boost your energy and immune system and keep heartburn in check.

While it's really important to stay properly hydrated, both for gut and overall health, the timing of your water consumption is important, too. Drinking too much water immediately before, during, and right after a meal can impact your how your gut absorbs nutrients by diluting your natural digestive enzymes.

Drinking about two cups of water 30 minutes before a meal is okay and can enhance your sense of fullness.3 But try to wait at least 20 minutes after a meal before you have another glass of water.

Meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga can alleviate mental stresses4 quickly and effectively. Once the mind is in a good place, it allows the body to relax, which allows the gut to function properly (it's all connected, after all).

Establishing a regular meditation and/or yoga practice that focuses on breathing and muscle relaxation can help to heal the gut by allowing time for digestive fires to begin working and peristalsis (the contractions that move food and waste through the intestinal track) to take place naturally and uninterrupted by typical daily stressors.