Here’s how to change the world through foods.

I thought it would be kind of apropos to write a bit about what I see happening in the world today. Now before, you move on or hit the back button, let me say this post is not existential or talk about politics or discuss global warming. It’s, of course, related to gut health. And as most people I know realize, my life revolves around gut health and how we can get more value and benefits from the foods we eat.

So I’m gonna try to draw correlation (and most people don’t realize that there is a strong correlation) between your mental health and your gut health. What is amazing to me is how powerful that correlation really is. My thoughts are that in order to have a happy attitude and good mental health, you must first have a good and happy gut.

Did you know the brain and the gut are actually made of the same type of tissues, and there are just as many, if not more, neurotransmitters in the gut as there are in the brain? (This article is not meant to be too technical, but neurotransmitters are simply things that tell your body what to do).

If you turn on any social media channel, you’ll see firsthand how much negativity is being portrayed. Is it just me, or is the default narrative slowly becoming negative? But even with all the negativity in the world and the anger people spew, I’m here to tell you that you can make some powerful and significant changes by simply making some changes in your gut to improve its overall health. Actively changing that good gut bacteria in your body can actually affect the way that you view the world for the better, your own internal happiness, and ultimately a number of happy hormones (I’ll get to those in a second) your body produces.

There have been numerous studies linking mental health and a poorly functioning gut. Scientists have even found significant links between autism and gut health. So it’s really important to me to reiterate that if you have digestive issues, or if you just don’t feel right in your stomach or in your head, understand that mental health and gut health are affecting and feeding (pardon the pun) off each other.

If you have that continuous “brain fog”, it’s important to take a step back and understand that focusing first on better digestive health can actually go a long way to improving clarity of thought in your head.

I know first hand of the delicate relationship between mental and gut health. I had some issues in my past where I had trouble dealing with the stressors in my life; I simply didn’t eat. And when I did attempt to eat, I knew and felt that I wasn’t digesting foods properly.

For those that can relate, when you think about anger or you think about hostility or about just having digestive issues, it’s not a pleasant experience. And having those creates a significant amount of stress in your body. Once I decided to turn the corner and begin focusing on being optimally good and healthy, digestively speaking, things started to change in the ways I processed things and how I viewed how I could adapt and resolve stressful situations in my life.

Let’s first look at stress and digestion from a hormonal standpoint. I’ve found most people don’t realize that the (what I call) happy hormones, GABA, serotonin, and dopamine, can all be produced in your gut. The standard train of thought has been these hormones are produced solely in the brain. If you have a properly running digestive system, your body naturally produces those happy hormones that in turn, affects your mental health. Or how about your immune system? Is there a correlation between your gut and your body’s ability to fight disease and infection? Of course, there is. About ¾ of your immune system is found and regulated in the gut, so taking care of it is monumental.

How about from a physical standpoint? How does anger affect your physicality? First, imagine what it takes to actually be angry. When you are in a state of anger and hostility, your body produces stress hormones to adapt so it can survive. It produces hormones like adrenaline and cortisol and those, in turn, create inflammation in your body. It starts in your gut and then it works outward from there. If you’re constantly angry, unhappy, stressed, or worried, understand that your body’s not thinking about digesting foods. It’s thinking about survival or how to deal with the “fight or flight” action you’ve probably heard before. The stressors take precedent over digestion.-

With this increase in stress and production of stress hormones, your immune system then starts to break down, and when your immune system starts to break down, you’ll find that everything else ca be affected. Inevitably, you aren’t able to digest foods and this leads to a complete another set of physical issues.

What about the physical activities of being angry? If I was to ask you to get angry, what would you do? What do you think about? Would you clench your fist or furl your eyebrows. Your heart may start to speed up just by the thought of it. People that are generally angry or live in a constant state of hostility are known to have an increase in death rates and an increase in blood pressure. Those physical issues are caused by that increase in hormones I mentioned like adrenaline and cortisol. Once your body begins to believe it’s in a constant state of stress, it’s not going to focus on digestion and then inevitably, won’t be able to regulate how to process and eliminate foods or produce healthy and happy hormones. Can you see how big of an issue this can be for those who are angry, unhappy, or hostile?

Ultimately, if you want to be a happier soul, you have to first find a happier gut; focus on what you can do to improve your digestion and the health of your gut. And unless there is something medically wrong with you, generally, improving your outlook and overall happiness is going to begin in your gut. The correlation between it and your mental health is immense.-

So if you want true happiness, I won’t spend time telling you to do yoga or do ohms or go to church; of course, you can do all those things if it helps to reduce your stress. But again, from a physiological standpoint, the first thing that you should be doing is focusing on the things that bring happiness to your gut. And the way that you can do that is to take probiotics or eat fermented foods. Those are the first places that you should be looking at so that you can improve your gut health, do what you can to populate your gut with good, healthy, and happy bacteria. Those bacteria can inevitably help you to better regulate the stressors like adrenaline and cortisol and insulin that cause an overabundance of bad bacteria.

Everybody has anger. But it’s the constant state of anger that creates the issues associated with your gut health. Eat fermented foods, eat a significant amount of good and healthy fats, good healthy proteins, and antioxidant-rich foods (I won’t go into detail about those. You can Google examples) What I am here to do is give you a different perception of happiness and health, which always begins in the gut. Make significant changes there, and you’ll find your days will be brighter and happier.

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Jared Toay is an expert author, bodybuilder, nutrition speaker, kombucha brewer, and award winner who commutes between Tulsa and Oklahoma City to manufacture, sell, and ship products from a highly publicized probiotic food business. His fermented foods and snacks has been praised by the Tulsa People, Explore Tulsa magazine, NBC, and CBS. He is the 2016 winner of the Tulsa Start Up Series for his probiotic beer innovation, and was mentioned on NPR for his entrepreneurial style. He likes to be active on all social media channels and has an organic following on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Get free eBook (73 recipes fermented foods) @ http://bit.ly/2hlfQa9