3 Ways To Improve Digestion & Gut Health — Without Changing Your Diet

Stress has a direct impact on digestion, making it important to examine how you eat, in addition to what you eat, if gut health is your goal.

The beautiful thing is that we have the ability to help guide our nervous system out of the stressed fight-or-flight mode and into rest-and-digest mode using a few key lifestyle strategies. Try out this three-step relaxation plan before your next meal to improve digestion in mere minutes. Build these strategies into your daily routine to experience smoother digestion and improved gut health over time:

If we try to eat while multitasking, answering stressful emails, watching TV, etc., our bodies cannot completely prioritize digestion. In my practice, I've found that these distractions can lead to uncomfortable post-meal digestive symptoms. We have to make sure our bodies and environment are calm and focused on the food in front of us before we even start to eat. Here's how to set the scene for drama-free digestion:

Check in with yourself during your meal: Are you racing through your food, barely chewing, chugging water, and never putting down your fork? The habits we have during meals impact how we feel after and can lead to burping, bloating, gas, and other gut symptoms. Focus on how you are eating by checking in on these key habits throughout mealtime:

Finally, the timing of your meals influences digestion. The goal is to give your gut and brain enough time to communicate hunger and satiety signals. Here's how:

Implementing just some of these strategies in your day-to-day can help ease frustrating digestive symptoms—and provide some much-needed stress relief at the same time.