Health Resolutions for 2023! (it’s ok to start early)
Want a headstart on the New Year? Why wait until January 1st to get healthy and feel GOOD!? You can feel better now … here are a few things to get you started. 🙂
1. Try a real food or elimination diet
Eat real food. Simple. Real, whole, nutrient-dense food. You can find it in the grocery store … (not in a package) and it may be many different colors – red, green, yellow, white, orange, purple, and blue. You can also find organic, wild-caught, grass-fed meat, poultry, and fish along with healthy fats, herbs, and spices.
If you have a compromised digestive system – try eliminating things like eggs, grains, nuts, seeds, beans, and dairy. See how you feel after about 2-4 weeks. Then reintroduce one food group at a time and note any symptoms you experience.
2. Work on a proper sleep routine
Sleep is completely underrated when it comes to gut health and healing. We should be working towards closed eyes by around 10 pm or earlier and 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night. Why? Because physical repair and regeneration of the body, and especially the gut, happens while we are asleep. Have you ever gone to bed with a bloated stomach or pains and woken up in the morning with neither? That is the healing power of rest.
Setting up a sleep schedule where you limit screen time and blue light exposure at least an hour before bed is a great place to start. Create a bedtime routine that helps you to relax, clear your mind, and get to sleep quickly. You might like to try reading, listening to calming music, journaling, or meditation. Then finally, ensure your room is really comfortable, cool, dark, and quiet.
3. Adjust exercise to match where you’re at with your gut health
Get some movement! How does it make you feel? If you are exhausted and dragging at the end of the day – you are probably doing too much or the little that you are doing your gut, hormones, and adrenals can’t handle it. Do you enjoy the type of movement you are doing? If not, it’s just an added stressor. Find something you enjoy that brings you energy. Need help? Reach out and I will give you some ideas.
4. Incorporate stress-management strategies daily
If you have plans to work on your health, it is usually because you have frustrating or embarrassing symptoms like bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, constant fatigue, irritability, or reflux for example that can be really stressful. Poor gut health can also bring about brain symptoms like worry, low mood and anxiety. For this reason, it is important to incorporate stress-management techniques into your day. Options that my clients like to use are meditation, deep breathing, journaling, prayer, watching a funny or uplifting movie, or listening to music you love. The trick is finding an option for stress management that works for you and your lifestyle.
These techniques move the body away from the sympathetic nervous system stress response of fight or flight, to the parasympathetic nervous system response, allowing you to rest, digest, and heal.
5. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins
Toxins from our environment can contribute to gut dysfunction and mineral imbalance among other things. They irritate the gut lining, which acts like a second skin inside the body and stops harmful toxins from entering our bloodstream. This means that limiting your exposure to things like mercury, pesticides, BPA, and fluoride, as well as pain relievers with Aspirin, Acetaminophen, or Ibuprofen can reduce the overall toxic load on your gut and give you space to heal.
And if you’re really up for a challenge, swapping all of your personal care and home cleaning products for natural options is another massive change you can make on the way to limiting your exposure to toxins and ultimately healing your gut.
6. Only use antibiotics as a last resort and focus on building your immunity
Antibiotics are a lifesaver – a genuine last resort, emergency, lifesaver. Antibiotics not only target bad bacteria, but they also often have a damaging effect on the number and diversity of good gut bacteria. This can cause serious problems because of the important role that a balanced microbiome plays in the proper functioning of our immune system and overall health. There is a growing body of science that links a lack of diversity in gut-friendly bacteria to conditions like IBD, asthma, obesity, allergies, leaky gut, depression, autoimmunity, and countless others.
So this year (more than ever!) focus on building your immunity so that you aren’t so susceptible to infection and consider natural alternatives for low-grade infections before jumping straight to the big guns and potentially setting your gut health back another year.
7. Stop taking poor quality supplements – they don’t work
In a market that is not very well regulated, it’s even more important to use brands trusted by your practitioner. You get what you pay for, so don’t let some clever marketing take your cash without any noticeable improvement in your health.
And why spend money on supplements you don’t even know that you need?
8. Try a natural protocol that addresses the root cause of your health issues
Natural supplements are often essential when healing serious chronic health disorders. But, they should never be the first step, which is why I only recommend them after incorporating all of the other strategies listed above.
There are three reasons we use natural supplements as part of our healing protocols:
> Substitution: To replace something that is missing in the body or that the body is not producing due to gut damage, such as stomach acid or digestive enzymes.
> Stimulation: To stimulate organs, glands, and systems in the body to do their job, such as vitamins and minerals.
> Support: Short-term aid for the body while function is being restored, such as liver and adrenal supplements which help the body respond to toxins and stress.
9. Get tested to find your root cause/s
There’s only so much the above-mentioned diet, exercise, and lifestyle strategies can do if you have serious or chronic gut dysfunction. And there is a limit to what self-diagnosis and intervention will achieve when you have a complex digestive condition.
That’s why I lean on testing … not guessing what’s wrong with someone. Because it could be lots of things and is almost always a combination of things. Each of our bodies is unique so it’s important to have an individual approach to healing. I hope that these resolutions give you a jump start to a new year!
And if you’re up to finding the root cause of your health issues and interested in working with me one one-on-one – book a Free Health Assessment with me. I would love to chat about what’s been going on with you!
Need a Health Assessment Review? I would love to get to know you and see if there is a way I can help. Click here to book a call!