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Health : The Gut Feeling

After going through one of the most excruciating times in my life, battling unknown tormentors in my gut with no weapons of my own, I will never again look at sambal the same way. Nor will I beer. #lol No, I am not talking about harboring a human inside my womb and throwing it out into the world via crevices I would rather keep private about.

It took a tiny little machinery hooked up with a camera to tell me (and the Doctor) what had taken my system and body hostage, throwing out everything that I could possibly put past my mouth.

Cursed be my love for nasi lemak and coffee in the morning. The funny thing, (not that funny, actually) to many of us, nasi lemak and spicy meehoon are staple in the morning, isn't it? Am I alone in this? I swear to God that I am absolutely not alone in this, if the scene at the mamak every morning is anything to go by.

But the honest truth is that, these food aren't exactly the best things to consume early in the morning. Despite having read and heard all about the ills of eating spicy and acidic food in the morning, many of us have survived it. How bad can it be since we've been doing this for...like, only our whole lives, right?

Guess again.

By : tijana87

And you know what is bloody awful? You have to skip your morning coffee too. COFFEE, guys, COFFEE. #cryingariver So, get ready to hallucinate after skipping it for a week.
When your gut is unhealthy, it can cause more than just stomach pain, gas, bloating, or diarrhea. Because 60-80% of our immune system is located in our gut, gut imbalances have been linked to hormonal imbalances, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, eczema, rosacea, and other chronic health problems - Mind Body Green
So, if you suddenly become sensitive or allergic to certain foods, develop bloating, gassiness or an excessive need to do the BIG ONE throughout the day, it is time to have a look at what we're putting into our face holes.

Our body is like a festival. As with a festival, it attracts a whole bunch of people - good and fun ones, rude people, drunk ones, unruly ones, law-breaking ones, gun-totting ones, lunatics, happy people, kids and riled up ones. Once the vast ecology is imbalanced - there are more lunatics in there than tree-hugging hippies, for example - your body turns itself upside down...like a dying goldfish.

What I didn't know, had no inkling about, was that the gut was also in charge of the production of neurotransmitters. Dopamine and serotonin. No wonder people go crazy when they're hungry. #lol And it's also proven that your internal microbiome affects your overall mental health too. So, eat something every morning before you leave home for the office to reduce the chance of you starring in your own unplanned Facebook Road Rage Viral Video. It's common these days. Everyone's a film producer and journalist with their top range Apple, Xioami and Samsung.

It's also been shown that taking probiotics may help ease a distressed gut and depression.
In a placebo-controlled trial, we found that the probiotic BL reduces depression but not anxiety scores and increases quality of life in patients with IBS - GastroJournal.org
However, on a side note, ANYONE would feel a lot less depressed when they don't need to hold shit in in the middle of a meeting because they're stressed out about an up-coming presentation. I digress.

During my quest to unearth the mysteries of the human gut, I also found out that the gut is also your truest front-line defender socially. Participants of a study, apparently, were able to tell whether lawyers who were complete strangers to them were successful or not, based completely on their yearbook photo...and their gut instinct. And while this is not the panacea for everything social, it says something about how we instinctively know something from looking at a person's face, checking his/her demeanor and accessing their mannerism.

Suffice to say, this is not an end-all-be-all because sometimes we are wrong about a person. Prejudgement much, humans. But science has it that most of the time, we are right.

Anyway, if you're feeling a little bloated, depressed or suffering from digestion problems AND if you have 4 minutes to spare in the morning, try this video for size. It's simple yoga, nothing too complicated. It's just a little twisting of your mid-section and some regular stretching that just about anyone can do. Nothing woo-woo, don't worry. You don't even have to say Namaste.

Namaste,
Marsha

Credit:

  1. Sambal - Wikipedia
  2. Gut Bacteria and Weight (Mind Body Green)
  3. How Probiotics May Help Depression (Time)
  4. Science Revaels How Accurate Your Gut Instincts Are When You Meet Someone New (The Power of Ideas)

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