Between large feasts, holiday treats, and an added dose of stress, your gut has gone through a lot this holiday season. Now, you may find yourself feeling unusually uncomfortable or fatigued as you prepare to welcome the New Year.
If you’re feeling the negative effects that the holidays had on your digestive system, you may be inclined to just wait it out and hope it goes away. However, what if we told you that there are things you can do to get your gut health back on track and ease your discomfort faster?
Well, you can, and we’re going to tell you how! But first, it’s important to understand exactly how your holiday celebrations may have impacted your gut.
Your Gut and the Holidays
The holidays pose a lot of challenges as far as gut health is concerned. For starters, the holiday season usually brings about a change in eating habits. You may find it relatively easy to make healthy eating decisions throughout the year. However, when the holidays roll around you are suddenly faced with all sorts of temptations. How are you supposed to say no to your grandmother’s famous Christmas cookies? Can you really pass up that extra cocktail at the end-of-year party? Indulging in too many of these temptations and veering too far from your normal eating habits can cause unbalance in your gut microbiome, which consists of good bacteria and other microorganisms that help with digestive functions.
For the most part, though, all those holiday temptations won’t do too much harm if you enjoy them in small quantities. The problems tend to arise when we overindulge in all those treats. When you eat too much or too fast, your gut becomes overwhelmed and isn’t able to digest as quickly or effectively, which can lead to a variety of unpleasant consequences.
Food isn’t the only thing that can impact your gut health during the holidays, though. It’s no secret that this festive season can be very stressful. Alongside all the holiday cheer, there is a lot of planning. With things like shopping for gifts, making travel plans, and hosting family get-togethers, it can feel like your to-do list just keeps getting longer. All the stress that comes along with these tasks can take a toll on your gut health, particularly by altering your gut microbiome.
Get Your Gut Back on Track
There’s no doubt that the holiday season can slow down all the progress you’ve made when it comes to having a healthy gut. An increase in stress levels or a few days of overindulgence can have you feeling like you’re back to square one. But don’t worry. There are things you can do to help get your gut health back on track so you can start your New Year off on the right foot.
1. Nourish Your Body with Whole Foods
Your gut doesn’t just break down food and pass the nutrients on to other parts of your body. It needs those very same nutrients so it can keep functioning. Therefore, if you want to help heal your gut after your holiday escapades, the best place to start is with the foods you eat.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are great for this. Not only are they packed with micronutrients, but they are also rich in fiber. The latter is particularly useful in promoting effective and comfortable digestion. There are a number of other whole foods that are great for nourishing your body, including whole grains, beans, and meat. Basically, as long as you steer clear on highly processed, pre-packaged options, you are heading in the right direction.
2. Add Probiotics to Your Diet
Probiotics are living beneficial bacteria that are similar to those already found in your gut. Their job is to help to promote balance within your gut microbiome. Essentially, probiotics help to replenish the good bacteria in your gut so that harmful bacteria don’t have a chance to take over. This helps to support digestive functions like gut motility, food digestion and even gives added support to your immune system.
Probiotics can be found in yogurt as well as fermented foods like kimchi. Alternatively, you can also get them in supplement form.
3. Take Digestive Enzymes
If you are trying to recover from indigestion after a particularly large holiday meal, the solution may be digestive enzymes. As their name implies, these enzymes are responsible for helping your body break down the food you eat. Your body already produces these enzymes on its own, but it may need a bit of help keeping up if you have overindulged at your recent celebrations.
In such cases, you’ll want to provide your body with an extra dose of these important enzymes. Supplements made from plant-based enzymes are a great place to start and will help get things moving along in your gut in no time.
4. Take Care of Your Mind
Did you know that your mental wellbeing can impact your gut health? It’s true, thanks to something known as the gut-brain axis, which is the connection between your brain and gut. This connection allows the health and functionality of one to directly impact the other. That’s why things like stress can be detrimental to your gut health.
Therefore, it’s important to set aside some time to care for your mental wellbeing as you and your gut recover from the holiday season. This means ensuring you get enough sleep, have time to work on your hobbies, build and maintain healthy relationships, and do whatever else makes you happy and sets your mind at ease.
Meet Essentials: Your Daily Gut Support Pack
After weeks of holiday celebrations, your gut deserves a little extra care as you head into the New Year. Lucky for you, Essentials is here to help!
Essentials from New Earth is specifically formulated to help you support your gut. These daily supplement packs include plant-based digestive enzymes and probiotics, which you now know are both crucial for an optimally functioning digestive system.
What’s more? Essentials also contain organic Wild Microalgae™. This rare superfood has an incredibly rich nutrient profile with everything from vitamins and minerals to amino acids, fiber, and healthy fats. The nourishment organic Wild Microalgae provides will go a long way toward helping your gut recover now that the holidays are over.
The best part is it comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can put it to the test risk-free!