Seven Ways to Keep Your Gut Healthy

The gut changes as we age, making it even more important to be good to your gut. Here are 7 great ways to keep your gut healthy:

1. Eat Often: Grazing on frequent mini-meals keeps the body Satisfied—neither hungry nor uncomfortably full. Here’s why grazing is especially good for the gut:
   • Grazing is easier to swallow.
   • Grazing eases heartburn.
   • Grazing increases nutrient absorption.
   • Grazing eases constipation. 
2. Enjoy Smoothies: Add smoothies to your diet for a super grazing way to eat. Smoothies slide through the twenty-five feet of your intestines because the blender does much of the work the intestines would have to do. The sipping solution is good for the gut because it:
   • Improves absorption
   • Lessens heartburn 
   • Is a natural laxative
   • Helps weight control
   • Boosts immunity
   • statblizies blood sugar
   • Shapes taste
3. Chew Slowly
   • Take time to dine: Since your digestion slows as we age, it makes sense to slow down the volume of food that is presented to those sluggish digestive juices. When we chew slower and longer, we stimulate saliva production so salivary digestive enzymes can go to work digesting the food even before it reaches the stomach. And, chewing longer stimulates satiety, which means we are less likely to overeat.
   • Rest your fork: Talk or listen after a few bites. Develop a habit that encourages you to put down your work, such as your napkin between bites.
4. Eat Pure and Eat Fresh: Remember, eating real foods is the most vital nutritional tip for healthy aging. The older you get, the fewer packaged foods you should eat. As you age, you have to become a food purist. This may mean a total overhaul of your shopping and eating habits, but your body deserves the best. Doesn’t healthier food cost more? In the long run, no. While you may pay more at the supermarket, you’ll eventually pay less at the doctor’s office. If you think health food is expensive, compare that to the costs associated with health care.
5. Go for Quality Over Quantity: Unprocessed food is naturally more satisfying. Processed, packaged food is purposely fabricated with sweeteners and taste-enhancing chemicals that entice you to overeat, but it’s low in satiety-producing nutrients, protein, and fiber. The longevity benefit of real foods is that they are nutrient-dense, meaning they pack more nutrition in fewer calories. Processed foods, on the other hand, are calorie dense.
6. Relax Your Gut Brain: The gut has a mind of its own. There are more nerves in the intestines than anywhere else in the body, except for the brain. The gut brain shares many of the mood-altering hormones of the brain, such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. It’s the main supplier of the “happy hormone” serotonin, the neurochemical that is thought to be stimulated by antidepressants.A disturbance in serotonin levels from depression and anxiety affects the mind and upsets the gut. When your happy hormones are missing, not only will your brain feel depressed, so will your gut. Digestive disturbances, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), colitis, diverticulitis, and general indigestion, are frequent maladies of prime timers. People with IBS tend to have less serotonin in the cells lining the gut. In conclusion, the older we get, the more we need to relax.
7. Be Kind to Your Colon: The colon, the last six feet of your twenty-five-foot-long intestinal tract, is often the part of the gut that gets the most upset. Colitis and colon cancer are two common prime-time illnesses. While the colon is best known as a waste disposal system, it also plays an important role in balancing your immune system.
   • Eat probiotics.
   • Get your bowels going.
   • Move your body to move your bowels.