How Gut Health, Stress, & Hormones Affect Each Other

How are these three connected? Today we’re talking through HOW our gut health, stress levels, and hormones are all connected and affect the other!

Listen to the Podcast on Stress, Fatigue & Drive above,

or listen on itunes HERE, or on Spotify HERE!

& if you’ve been loving my podcasts or specifically love this one — I’d so greatly appreciate if you popped on over here for just 1 minute and left a review on my podcast!

The Podcast Notes: How Our Gut Health, Stress, & Hormones Affect Eachother

In this instagram post, I talked about the Gut Brain Axis bidirectional communication. But let’s review the gut-brain axis….because today we aren’t only going to talk about gut and brain connection, but how our gut health can affect our mood, stress, and hormone balance!

Copy from my IG Post:

Ever felt really stressed about something in life and then began to have stomach pains? Ever had “butterflies”? Felt nauseous before a competition or when having to speak in front of people? You know those times you just feel like you have a “gut instinct” about something??

Did you know there’s a reason for that?! It’s call the GUT-BRAIN AXIS!

it’s a biochemical bidirectional communication that exists between our gastrointestinal tract and our brain. Our gut/enteral NS, & our CNS (brain and spinal cord).

Connected neurons (500 million neurons in our gut 100 billion neurons in our brain), hormones and neurotransmitters send signals to our brain about our gut and even allow our brain to directly control our gut function

microbiota is a huge player in this axis
diet is one of the most important modifying factors in this axis

Our GUT can influence mood, stress, behavior, neurotransmitters..

And our BRAIN can influence gastric motility, secretions, nutrient absorption, & microbial balance.

So chronic stress can trigger GI symptoms and affect our microbiota… but also GI issues will affect our mood and lead to stress / release of cortisol — which ultimately affects our appetite, metabolism, and more!

Also did you know 90% of serotonin (our feel good neurotransmitter), is made in the gut? This neurotransmitter affects mood, behavior, melatonin (sleep). Not to mention 80-90% of immune system lies in the gut too!

Meaning that an imbalanced gut can lead to lower serotonin levels, decreased immune system, and stress…. & chronic stress (helllllo 2020) can further negatively affect our mood/stress levels AND our immune system.

Ok so now that we see how our gut and brain, let’s cover how HORMONES also play a role in this!

So Unhealthy digestion is a potential source of both inflammation and hormone disruption.

HOW?? the digestive system is one of the largest sites for hormone production — and they both affect one another: hormone balance affects our gut, and gut balance affects our hormone health.

Over 30 hormone genes are currently known to be expressed in the stomach and intestines — making our gut the largest endocrine organ in the body! Hormones produced in our Digestive tract govern appetite, food breakdown, nutrient absorption, waste excretion, and also influence mood, mind, and memory!

So as you can see… The gut isn’t just in it’s own world in our bellies… it involves both our nervous system (gut brain connection) and endocrine system (hormones!). And did you know the digestive system on it’s own has as many nerves as our spinal cord?? Maybe that’s part of why we get “gut instincts” 🙂

We NEED good balance of bacteria in our gut, but things like poor diet, antibiotics, BC, chronic stress, chronic infections, diets low in fiber or high in refined carbs/toxins, and other meds can upset our balance, and lead to a host of problems — one being estrogen dominance!

HOW is it tied to estrogen levels??

The gut microbiome interacts with many aspects of our human physiology like contributing to nutrient absorption and immune function. Now scientists have discovered the estrobolome – (certain microbial populations that are capable of metabolizing estrogen). These gut microbes produce beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme that can increase levels of free estrogen in circulating blood. How? Your liver packages up excess estrogen and ships it down to be excreted. But this little enzyme has the potential of basically “opening up the package” and letting the estrogen free, before it’s excreted!

When our gut microbiome is healthy and balanced, the estrobolome can regulate the right level of estrogen within the body, but when imbalanced by inflammation – gut dysbiosis can drive the production of estrogen in either direction, disrupting the normal flow and leading to estrogen-related pathologies. So anything that upsets our gut and digestive system, has the potential to throw our hormones out of whack too!

What affects our Gut Health??

poor diet
antibiotics
birth control
chronic stress
chronic infections
diets low in fiber or high in refined carbs/toxins
other meds

BENEFITS OF HEALTHY, BALANCED GUT

supports immune system
boosts serotonin (mood)
supports good nutrient absorption (iron, b12, biotin)
lowers inflammation
supports healthy, glowing skin
aids in appetite control
helps the detoxification process with liver to rid excess estrogen.

What we need for out GUT to FXN best??

relief from inflammation, food allergies and poor diet
relief from stress (see past episode on stress here)
the right bacterial balance for immune system and ridding excess estrogen
proper enzymes and acid levels for nutrient absorption
open communication with the nervous system & the brain to control appetite, metabolism, and digestive functions
the ability to keep things moving — aka pooping daily to rid body of hormonal waste and toxins

So let’s quickly talk about some ways to support all sides of this equation — STRESS/MOOD, and GUT — since both affect our hormones!

STRESS/Emotions Support

stillness
movement
prayer
self-care time
enough quality sleep
and follow the tips in this podcast here
and check out this instagram post here!

Gut Health Support

lots of high-fiber, prebiotic foods
probiotic rich foods
life9 probiotics (or other probiotic with at least 5-10 strains & 10 billion cultures or more)
digestive enzymes can help
even using essential oils like peppermint, digize, fennel, and ginger can support that gut!
control stress in healthy ways
poop daily!!