Poop Out Your Stress

Alright, the subject line was a little misleading.  Unless you are stressed about being constipated, and then you have a great poop, well then you are pooping out your stress.  I decided to write this week’s newsletter about a transcribed short conversation on NPR.  Here’s the link- Scientists look at the connection between gut health and resilience to stress.

The study of the human gut microbiome is still in its earliest stages.  If you aren’t aware of what the microbiome is, it’s the term given to all of the microorganisms ( bacteria, viruses, parasites, yeasts…) that live in your intestinal tract.  Most of these microorganisms reside along the wall of your large intestine.  The more research performed the more science has learned how much your gut microbiome plays in your mood, energy levels, immune system, and in today’s snippet of research, your resilience to stress.

Stress management or how well you handle stress is one of the main players in your overall health and is also 1 of the 11 Habits I recommend that you pay attention to in my book.  If you have read these weekly emails over the years I return back to the connection between your brain, your gut, and your immune system quite often.  Because understanding how these systems work together is still in its earliest stages, we can understand the main principles that have stood the test of time and work with the science available.

I like the description used in this transcription to describe stress management:

“CHURCH: Think about the cognitive part or the frontal part of your brain, like, being the brakes. The highly resilient individuals had really efficient brakes. There was less of this hyperstressed response.
STONE: Then there was the gut microbiome, where they found microbial signatures that distinguished those with higher resilience.”

So research has uncovered that there are associations with certain microbiome patterns and brains that are more resilient to stress.  A pattern they see as highly beneficial is to have a microbiome that produces butyrate.  Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced by microbes living in your gut after consuming carbohydrates.
Wait, aren’t CARBS BAD?
No Crabs aren’t bad but there is a delicate balance between consuming enough carbohydrates to feed the gut microbes that produce butyrate and eating more carbs than your system needs and dealing with blood sugar dysregulation.  This is why your health needs to be assessed in a way that takes YOU as an INDIVIDUAL into account.  What is good for the goose…(I hope you know the rest of that saying).

So how can you tell if you are producing enough butyrate?  How can you tell if you have an optimal microbiome?  Could you be even better at handling stress that you are right now just from eating more carbs?  The way you find out is through lab testing and experimentation. You can test your stool for optimal butyrate production and retest it after making dietary changes.
You can experiment with different diets and see how each one affects your stress levels.  It’s not easy to assess emotional stress because there are normal variations based on day-to-day life.  I have found for myself and for many other patients that sticking to the basics takes you 80% of the way there.  After that you can use stool tests and adding specific pro or prebiotics can get you to optimal resilience.

What are the basics?  JERF – Just Eat Real Food

Try avoiding all processed food for 4 weeks. That means you eat food that closely resembles how it looked on the farm with minimal steps taken to get onto your plate.  For the most part, if your food comes in a box and has been sitting on a shelf for a few weeks it is NOT JERF.
I’ll be doing a Minimally processed diet starting mid September.  I do food experiments on myself at least once a year, this will be # 2 for me this year.  Whan was the last time you were super disciplined about what you eat?

Want some help devising a plan to get to be your most resilient self?  Reach out to me today to set up an appointment.