Holiday Recovery: How to Reset Your Gut for Optimal Health

The holiday season is a time for celebration, indulgence, and creating lasting memories with loved ones. However, it's also a season that often takes a toll on our health, especially when it comes to our gut. The rich foods, stress, and overindulgence can leave us feeling bloated, sluggish, and out of balance. If that sounds familiar, then rest assured that this is something that can be reversed. There are steps you can take to reset your gut health and get back on track for optimal well-being in the new year. Let’s explore how.

Understanding the Importance of Gut Health

Your gut is at the core of your overall health, impacting nearly every other area of your body including your immune system, mental health, cognitive function, and metabolism. In particular, the focus of gut health lies in the balance of the gut microbiome, which houses trillions of bacteria that play a significant role in many bodily functions. Since not all gut bacteria are helpful, it’s essential to find and maintain a balance of good and bad microbiota so that your gut and the rest of your digestive system can function properly.

What Happens to Your Gut During Holidays

During the holiday season, there are a lot of challenges that arise for those of us who are worried about our digestive health. From temptations like sweet treats and processed foods to changes in sleep schedules and increases in stress, several aspects of the holiday season can take a toll on your gut health, leaving you feeling less than your best by the time the festivities are over. If this sounds familiar, it may be worth it to invest some of your time and energy into a gut reset as we reach the end of the festive season and head into a new year.

What is a Gut Reset?

A gut reset is a set of techniques you can use to help restore balance to your gut microbiome. It’s about giving your digestive system a fresh start so it can support a healthier you with practices that support healthy digestion. Over time, these actions will become health-supporting habits. 

Typically, a gut reset involves taking actions like eliminating processed foods, boosting your nutrient intake, adding more movement into your days, and supporting balance with probiotics and digestive enzymes.

How to Reset Your Gut After the Holidays

Now that you have a better understanding of the importance of gut health and how it’s impacted by the holiday season, let's explore how you can go about resetting your gut by breaking it down into a series of small steps.  

When you first start a gut reset, it can be tempting to jump in feet first, but the process will be more effective if you can break it down into small steps. This makes the changes less overwhelming and more likely to turn into long-term habits that will help you support your digestive health day in and day out. With that in mind, let’s break these steps down into 3 different sections: 1) start with, 2) then add, and 3) finally try. That way, you can choose the length of your reset, moving through these suggestions in as little as three days or as long as a month. The pace is yours to choose. 

Start By…

When you first set out to reset your gut after the holidays come to an end, start with these two small steps…

1. Replacing Fake Foods with Whole Foods

Your gut is more likely to thrive if you are properly nourishing it, and we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but processed foods like chips, candy, and ice cream aren’t going to cut it. Make it a goal to cut these highly processed items from your diet and replace them with whole foods that haven’t been processed or have been minimally processed, like fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and lean meats. The human body, especially the gut, runs best on food that is as close to (or in) its natural state. 

2. Increasing your water intake

Water is vital to nearly every aspect of your health, and your digestive health is no different. Being properly hydrated is essential for supporting beneficial colonies of the gut microbiota as well as ensuring that toxins and other waste can effectively move through your digestive tract to be properly disposed of. To give your digestive system a helping hand, aim to drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of water per day.

Then add…

Once you’ve got the hang of eating more whole foods and keeping your body properly hydrated, try adding these two practices into your day. 

1. Daily Practices to Relieve Stress

The gut-brain axis is very real and impacts your gut health more than you may realize. Since this axis directly connects your gut to your brain and lets them send signals back and forth to each other, your emotions, particularly powerful ones like stress and anxiety, can directly impact how well your gut is functioning. With that in mind, it’s important to take time each day to destress. Carve out a minimum of 3 to 5 minutes for journaling, meditation, or other mindfulness activities that help you better manage your stress levels.

2. 30 Minutes of Daily Movement 

Believe it or not, regular exercise can help the good bacteria in your gut microbiome flourish. The exact mechanisms behind these unexpected connections are still being uncovered by scientists, but there is no doubt that the simple act of moving your body can support a thriving digestive system. The best part of this is that the exercise routine doesn’t have to be intense or complicated to be effective. Even simple activities like walking or yoga can have a profound impact on the composition of your gut microbiome. With that in mind, aim to add at least 30 minutes of physical activity to your routine at least 3 days a week. 

Finally, try…

Now that you’ve established a solid foundation of gut-supporting daily habits, it’s time to give your digestive system an extra boost with probiotics and digestive enzymes. 

1. Reinoculating with Probiotics

Probiotics are living good bacteria that support overall health in more ways than one. By ensuring you are getting probiotics daily from the foods you eat or the supplements you take, you will be seeding your gut with the beneficial bacteria it needs to restore balance and return to feeling and functioning its best. While probiotics can be found in fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, and kombucha, you can also opt for the more convenient route of getting them with a daily probiotic supplement. 

2. Supporting Digestion with Enzymes

Digestive enzymes are vital compounds when it comes to the process of digestion. These mighty helpers exist throughout your digestive tract to help break down the foods you eat so all those important nutrients can be absorbed for use throughout your body. By giving your body an extra dose of digestive enzymes each day, you can combat digestive discomforts like bloating and excessive gas while also ensuring that your gut microbiome and the rest of your body will have access to the nutrients it needs to function properly. You can get digestive enzymes by adding foods like pineapple, papaya, raw honey, and ginger to your daily meals, or you can choose to get them from a convenient, all-natural enzyme supplement.

Get Your Gut Reset with Essentials

After all of the fun that comes with holiday celebrations, your gut will need a little help recovering, which is why now is the perfect time for a gut reset. Taking small, impactful steps to give your digestive system the nourishment and support it needs to restore balance is the best way to get back to optimal health as we enter a new year. 

And if you’re looking for an easy way to add an array of nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes into your daily routine, look no further than Essentials from New Earth. These daily supplement packs are specifically formulated with your digestive health in mind. With powerful probiotics, plant-based digestive enzymes, and the near-perfect superfood known as organic Wild Microalgae™, Essentials has everything you need for daily gut support in a convenient daily packet. 

What’s more? You can put it to the test risk-free with our 60-day money-back guarantee.