Beauty + Wellbeing Tips

Our gut health affects many aspects of our lives. Including our weight, mood, and even our cognitive function. Besides being the source of our digestive problems, it may also be the cause of our back discomfort, pain and sadness. Because of this, determining the condition of our gut and healing it are crucial steps in enhancing both our mental and physical well-being.

How to start healing gut health may be confusing at times. After all, gut health healing is not the easiest process! To help you through your journey, here is a Step by Step Guide to Healing Your Gut.

1. Dedicate Time for Exercise

Did you know that exercise can improve your Gut Bacteria? Many studies support this. In fact, moderate exercise benefits the health of your microbiome. It lowers inflammation and intestinal permeability, improves body composition, and has other benefits. It also causes improvements in the composition of the gut microbiota and the microbial metabolites produced in the gastrointestinal tract. Our digestive system contains most of our immune system.

Our gut microbiome contains more than 100 trillion bacteria. Is that not crazy? These gut microbiota—both the good and the bad—help us stay healthy overall and prevent disease. The cycle is straightforward: regular exercise strengthens our immune system, which in turn keeps us healthy.

Starting a new exercise regimen can feel like a significant commitment. Try setting small, attainable objectives when you’re first getting started. Take each day as it comes, whether you are a beginner at exercising or a seasoned fitness advocate. The secret to developing and maintaining both internal and external fitness is consistency.

2. Eat Healthy – Gut Healthy!

Consistent exercise and a healthy diet are the greatest combinations for a healthy stomach. Together, they are a powerful team that neither could be as effective without. One essential strategy for promoting digestive health is to eat for your stomach. Eating a balanced diet full of colourful fruits and vegetables is a key example of making healthier food choices that can really heal your gut.

The greatest way to keep a healthy balance of good bacteria in your digestive tract is to consume nutrient-rich meals that are friendly to the gut. Properly cultured yoghurt, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods are among the healthiest foods for gut health. They encourage healthy bacteria, increase natural antibodies, and fight illness. Other foods rich in soluble fibre, such as chia and flax seeds, stalky green vegetables (like chard and asparagus), and pears, can help to increase your energy levels and feed the good bacteria in your stomach.

Check out these Meal Plans that could help in your journey to gut healing.

3. Check for Food Intolerances

It’s possible that you’re having trouble healing food sensitivities if you’re experiencing digestive problems.

You are not by yourself in this. When there is any kind of gut illness or imbalance present, food sensitivities are a very frequent complaint. We don’t want to accept our inability to handle a certain food and often think food is not the problem. Even if you are able to handle the symptoms of consuming a meal that you are sensitive to, it is just not worth it to continue exposing your body to that item. You can be sensitive to even healthy foods, when your gut is out of balance.

Food sensitivities cause systemic, underlying inflammation that can seriously hinder any recovery you’re attempting to achieve. In essence, having food sensitivities makes it more challenging for your gut to recover.

4. Say No to Stress

We’ve all felt the butterflies in our stomach when we are anxious about something, like an upcoming presentation or a first date. Those “butterflies” demonstrate the close connection between our brain and digestive system.

Stress has an impact on our stomachs as well. Stress speeds up fluid and motility secretion in the gut. This is why experiencing a stressful event may cause you to experience a case of diarrhoea or running to the bathroom to wee. Stress has the ability to both speed up material passing through the intestines and delay the emptying of the stomach. In short, stress can absolutely impact the way your gut is moving and how inflamed it is.

5. Avoid Taking Unnecessary Antibiotics

You would think that antibiotics would help to repair gut health. After all, the development of antibiotics was supposed to increase life expectancy and transform human health. Not so. Not at all. Your gut microbiota can be negatively impacted by antibiotic use in many ways. This includes decreased species diversity, altered metabolic functions, and the development of organisms that are resistant to antibiotics. This can then result in drug-associated diarrhoea and recurring infections.

Unfortunately, even one round of antibiotics can change the intestinal flora permanently. Many studies from several disciplines show the detrimental consequences of gut dysbiosis and insufficient friendly bacteria on a range of health outcomes.

6. Probiotic Therapy

Probiotics are an important component of intestinal healing. They aid in the rebalancing of your gut flora, the restoration of your intestinal wall, and the reduction of intestinal inflammation. These beneficial bacteria can provide relief for leaky gut symptoms such as abdominal pain, cognitive fog, and stool changes in as little as a few weeks.

Some people experience gas, bloating, or diarrhoea when they first start taking probiotics. Changes in the gut microbiota can cause bacteria to produce more gas than usual, resulting in bloating. These negative effects, however, normally go away after a few days or weeks of using probiotics. Though many people get relief from their gut issues within a few weeks of starting probiotics, keep in mind that they are only one piece of the jigsaw and work best when combined with a balanced diet and lifestyle.

7. Stay Hydrated

It may seem the simplest thing to follow, but not a lot of people are fans of drinking plain old water. Drinking plenty of water each day is good for the mucosal lining of the intestines. It also helps you move your gut! Additionally, water can support a healthy mix of gut-friendly microorganisms.

Drinking water before and after meals helps the body transport food through the digestive tract. More significantly, if solid food is not broken down, it cannot be properly digested. Water is involved in this situation once more. The nutrients included in food are transported by water to the parts of the body where they are needed for digestion. Additionally, it aids in moving the waste out of our bodies by moving it through the remainder of the digestive tract. Remember that the stomach contains a lot of acids that combine with water to break down our meals. Drinking a lot of water will assist maintain everything in balance.

Due to its colon-cleansing and detoxifying qualities, alkaline water in particular is a fantastic choice for preserving gut health. Additionally, it may promote the development of probiotics, which help the body absorb nutrients. If you also believe that Your Gut Deserves Better, check out my signature online course and Get Your Gut Right.

Conclusion

It can be challenging to restore good gut health and address associated symptoms. A disturbance in gut function can result from a variety of circumstances. Human digestion is intricate. Although further research is needed, it is evident that the gut microbiome has an impact on overall health. Benefits of a healthy gut include a strong immune system, a healthy heart and brain, improved mood, peaceful sleep, effective digestion, and even the potential prevention of some malignancies and autoimmune diseases. Your gut and general health may benefit from changing your diet and way of living.

_ _ _

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I naturally heal my gut? The greatest method to support a healthy gut is through a healthy, low-stress lifestyle that emphasises sleep, exercise, and plant-based diets. Healing gut health naturally takes commitment. If you’re only going to commit to one thing, alter your diet to incorporate more fresh produce and nutritious meals. This will have the most effect overall. Increase your intake of healing foods and herbs to treat aches and pains and boost your energy, vitality, and emotional toughness. The relationship between your body and brain, as well as between desire and action, may be renewed.

What helps repair your gut? Most people must first adopt an anti-inflammatory diet and alter their lifestyles to promote rest, relaxation, and joy in order to heal their guts. L-glutamine, zinc, vitamin D, and collagen are additional nutrients that may help lessen inflammation and protect the gut lining even more.

How long does the gut take to heal? Some studies reveal that differences can be seen within a couple of days. But it would still depend from person to person. If the new healthy practices are abandoned, the microbiome reverts to its old composition. If the right healthy behaviours are adopted, it could take up to six months to build a healthy microbiome. However, in order to maintain a healthy microbiome, you must practice these habits throughout your life.

How do you know if your gut is healing? We can connect the dots between our gut health and the typical symptoms of poor digestion. Recognise the typical symptoms of poor digestion and absorption. It may include bloating, gas, gut discomfort, inconsistent urination, parasites, yeast infections, skin issues, and mood swings. The most obvious sign that your gut is healing is when your strength and vigour have returned, you’ve regained clarity of mind, your mood has gone better, you’ve restored to your ideal body weight, and you feel like your best self. It’s crucial to realise that, like other health issues, gut health is a spectrum condition.

WRITTEN BY JESS WILSON

Functional Nutritionist | Gut & Hormone Specialist

Exfoliation is a necessary and basic step in your skin care ritual, as it encourages skin cell turnover, stimulates the production of new skin cells, and encourages the production of collagen and elastin, the basic building blocks of the skin.

It’s easy to assume that a face mist is just a fancy spritz of water to freshen up during the day, but for us skincare enthusiasts in-the-know, a face mist is one of the most versatile and underrated products on the market, and is one step in the skin care ritual that would never be skipped. A quick spritz every day, morning and night, after cleansing the skin is a must.

The primary role of a serum is to hydrate as well as provide beneficial properties to improve your skin concerns, whether that be fine lines and wrinkles, oily skin and acne, dry skin or sun damage, via the active botanicals and extracts within the formulation.

The role of a face oil is to deliver nourishment to the skin, to improve the look and feel of your skin, and address your skin concerns, whether that be fine lines and wrinkles, oily skin and acne, minimising pigmentation or calming redness, via the active botanicals and extracts within the formulation.

If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s something missing from your health and beauty routine, there most likely is, and it’s not one of the usual suspects. Dry body brushing is one of the most beneficial things you can do to support your lymphatic system on the inside and promote smooth, glowing skin on the outside.

Finding a shampoo and conditioner duo that ticks all the boxes – natural, organic, ethical, cruelty-free, sulphate-free – is hard enough. But then when you add to the mix – one that leaves your hair looking and feeling like you just walked out of a salon – well, that’s almost nigh on impossible. Because let’s be real for a moment, there’s most often a compromise when searching for a completely clean and irritant-free shampoo and conditioner. They either contain sulphates (that are known irritants to the scalp) or they leave hair looking and feeling greasy (no thank you) or they have lovely botanicals in a soup of pseudo-naturals (i.e. not at all natural).

When searching for hair care for the Be Genki shop, it was most certainly one of the most challenging and time consuming tasks to-date. I washed my way through numerous brands, over numerous years. And I’m so glad I did, as we now have four options that tick all of those boxes, including the most challenging … delivering head-turning, shiny, luscious locks that bounce with health.

Get ready to meet your new best hair care friends.

Living Libations

LIVING LIBATIONS seabuckthorn shampoo and shine on conditioner : VIEW

LIVING LIBATIONS true blue shampoo and conditioner : VIEW

Tips from Nadine Artemis, founder of Living Libations

“Your hair is a reflection of your internal health, and what you eat today will show up in your hair. Eat healthy fats. A diet rich in olive oil, flaxseeds, chia seeds, wild-caught cold-water fish, and walnuts will give your hair a super softness and a high-gloss sheen. Eat enough protein. Hair is made of protein; and if the diet is deficient in the full spectrum of amino acids that constitute complete proteins, then your hair will suffer for it. Ingest culinary creations rich in omega-3 fatty acids, iron, vitamin B12, and zinc, which are important for strong hair and a healthy scalp. Brittle hair is sometimes caused by a biotin deficiency. Organic, free-range eggs are rich in protein, happy-hair fats, and B vitamins. Dark-green leafy vegetables are good sources of vitamins A and C, which the body needs to produce natural hair oils that keep the hair soft and shiny. Gluten is less than the best for healthy hair. It blocks nutrients from absorbing through the gut and into the bloodstream to nourish you. Reduced nutrition and inflammation of the gut and hair follicles from gluten sensitivity may cause shedding. Gluten and non-fermented soy (as well as radiation, bromide, mercury fillings, and other things) can put your thyroid in a tailspin. An under active thyroid is often the cause of dryness, thinning, or loss of hair.”

“Cosmetic store and salon products, including those that tout “natural and organic” on the label, usually contain thirty or more synthetic ingredients. Some of these substances strip natural oils from hair and scalp leaving both seriously dry, while others leave behind a heavy-waxy build up guaranteeing bad hair.

“The more damaged the hair is, the higher its negative atomic charge, and softening, smoothing, and shining synthetics are drawn to that negative charge. If there is a lot of damage you might see a lot of buildup on the hair. More seriously, many of the ingredients are detrimental to health.

“You can have a good hair day every day, and the first step is improving the products that you put on your hair.

Cria Hair 

Cria Hair is the organic solution for hair loss, thinning, brittle, over-processed hair & itchy scalp. Cria’s patent pending formula powerfully combines only 4 organic ingredients to give you a healthy scalp that leads to healthier, stronger, shinier hair. When you first apply Cria to your scalp, the organic ingredients balance out the PH so your scalp is neither too oily or too dry, stimulate the hair follicles so you can experience healthy, new hair that lasts.

CRIA hair and scalp booster : VIEW

CRIA pure women's shampoo + conditioner : VIEW

CRIA pure men's shampoo + conditioner : VIEW

Calia Natural

CALIA moisturising shampoo + conditioner : VIEW

CALIA hydratimng shampoo + conditioner : VIEW

Tip about Silicones from the folks at Calia Natural

"What are silicones anyway? Silicones are a type of polymer (a.k.a large molecule) that behave similar to plastic. In hair care products specifically, silicones provide a "protective coating" around the hair to help provide added softness, reduced frizz, and shine. Sounds great right? Well, not really ... While silicones do not pose a threat to our physical health, they can seriously damage the hair over time.

"Experts say that the real issue with silicones is that they cause build up on the hair, and create a residue that blocks moisture from getting into the hair shaft. They act essentially as a waterproofing agent. Over time, your hair not only appears dull, but it gets dehydrated and weak from a lack of moisture. This can impair all of your hard work put into achieving shiny, hydrated hair.

"From our point of view, silicones are their own worst enemy. If the whole point is to add a "protective coating", that in reality damages your hair over time, wouldn't we all be better off not using them in the first place? The answer is most definitely yes.

"The great news is, you can achieve tangle-free, frizz-free, shiny hair without the use of any kind of synthetic ingredient! Our advice? Ditch the silicones. Rather than adding a false protective coating to your hair, provide it with the love and care it deserves by making the switch to natural hair care products!

"Care for your hair for the long-term. Trust us, it's worth it. Calia products help your hair shine exactly like it's meant to in nature!"

Moroccan Natural 

Several years ago Moroccan Natural founder, Carole Fraser, had more than just a ‘bad hair day’. Her hair was frizzy with terrible split ends, wouldn’t hold its colour and had just turned on her. In a desperate bid to bring it back to life Carole browsed the internet and put 10 items into her basket; a shampoo for dry hair, a mask for splitting hair, something else for breaking hair and another for dry hair. Just as she was about to hit the ‘checkout’ button, when she was hit by a big flash that said ‘Stop! These are all chemicals and it is chemicals that have done this to your hair’. She called her Guru in Canada – Jacques Lee Pelletier – and he suggested that she try some Argan Oil from Morocco – that is how she discovered the amazing, wonderful properties lurking in each drop. Not only did it bring back her hair to the condition it was years previously but it also got rid of the psoriasis that she had on her legs for the last 14 years. And so in 2010 … Moroccan Natural was born. 

MOROCCAN NATURAL African liquid black soap : VIEW

MOROCCAN NATURAL argan hair treatment : VIEW

Sappho makeup artists provide the following colour palette of organic cosmetics for a makeup look perfectly suited for your skin tone. 

Very pale with a slightly yellow undertone.

Essential Foundation Bryce + Concealer Fair + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Fair

Very pale with a slightly pink undertone.

Essential Foundation Mia + Concealer Light + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Fair

Pale with a slight yellow undertone.

Essential Foundation Leisha + Concealer Light + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Fair 

Light with a slight yellow undertone.

Essential Foundation Rachel + Concealer Light + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Fair

Light medium with a slight yellow undertone.

Essential Foundation Lisa + Concealer Light + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Light

Fuller medium with slight olive undertone.

Essential Foundation Rosalina + Concealer Medium  + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Medium

Slight tan base.

Essential Foundation Kate + Concealer Medium + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Medium

Light caramel with slight olive undertone.

Essential Foundation Sarita + Concealer Caramel + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Caramel

Deep caramel tone.

Essential Foundation Sarah + Concealer Caramel + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Caramel

Medium dark with a slightly yellow base.

Essential Foundation Margot + Concealer Caramel + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Caramel

Medium dark with slight red undertones.

Essential Foundation Pam + Concealer Dark + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Dark

Medium dark with slight red undertones.

Essential Foundation Tracey + Concealer Dark + Shine Patrol Pressed Powder Dark

With the change of seasons it’s always a good idea to give the immune system a little boost to help strengthen the body and mind, promoting optimum health. Naturally, a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle is the number one take home tip here. The following nutrients are essential for a strong immune system 

If you are someone who religiously wears SPF daily, and also someone who relies on SPF in your foundation alone, you may want to lean in closer. Most foundations and makeup now come with built-in sunscreen, and whilst this is handy – if you’re out and about in the sunshine all day –  they only offer a minimal amount of protection and you will certainly not get the level of protection that is claimed on the front of your bottle.