Welcome to the Gut Health Course _Final

>> Welcome to the Gut Health Course. I'm so excited to be taking off on this journey with you. Over the next several months, we're going to explore just about everything there is to know about gut health. We have so much great information in store for you. In this lecture, we'll go over the most basic Fundamentals, and I'll walk you through and overview of what's to come. Now let's start at the very beginning. What exactly does gut health mean? And what does a healthy gut feel like? Is a healthy gut an absence of gas, bloating, heartburn or other symptoms related to digestion? What about brain fog? Lack of focus, headaches, skin issues? At the root, these symptoms can be a sign of a deeper gut issue. As it turns out, the gut may contribute to many common symptoms and general malaise. On the flipside, a healthy gut seems to also be at the foundation of vibrancy and optimal health. Let's go over some staggering facts. There are over 170 diseases that have been connected to gut health. Does that sound gut-wrenching? Over 70 million people in the US alone have some type of digestive disease. These include irritable bowel disease, diverticulitis, celiac disease, Crohn's, clostridium difficile or C. diff, just to name a few. In fact, 90% of all disease can be traced back to an unhealthy gut. For example, allergies, asthma, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, autoimmune disease, and arthritis, the list goes on. There are many symptoms that can result from a gut health imbalance such as, chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, skin issues, brain fog, hormones, low libido, mood swings, anxiety, depression, headaches, and eczema. It's overwhelming how many maladies and diseases in the body originate in the gut. Chronic disease is on the rise, and obesity is an epidemic. We're hearing more and more instances of gut disturbances whether they're the root cause or a symptom of a larger problem. How many of you have seen clients who've had a gut health or digestive issues? Has that number grown? And how often have you found that another issue such as skin or immunity or blood sugar is related to a client's diet or digestion? It looks like Hippocrates was right in saying that all disease begins in the gut. And it also looks like our modern life is wreaking havoc on our intestines. So what exactly is the gut and why is it so important? On a basic level, the gut is where we take in and process all aspects of our food, everything from the enzymes that appear the moment we smell food cooking to proper digestion and assimilation of the nutrients from the food we eat. The gut is the place where we break down that food into information our body can utilize such as fats, proteins, carbs, sugars, but it plays a much larger role than digestion. Did you know the gut also helps develop the immune system right from birth? It's the largest endocrine organ secreting over 30 hormones, and it has its own brain, meaning it can operate completely independent of your other bring, you know, the one in your skull. As it turns out, the gut impacts nearly every other system and organ in our body. The gut plays a large role in our immunity, hormone regulation, blood sugar, and even the health of our brain. Now that's some food for thought. The gut is actually called the second brain because it has more neurons than the spinal cord. This seems to imply that the gut has much larger function than just digestion. Your gut and your first brain are in constant communication, the gut passes signals along to the brain and vice versa. It alerts the brain of any potential stress or danger, your gut is your largest sensory organ, and it's communicating information to you all the time. Think of your gut as the gatekeeper, even though it's technically inside your body, the gut determines what enters your body from the outside world. It decides what gets let in and what should be kept out. Imagine a time when hygiene or sanitation wasn't widespread, before doctors washed their hands with anti-bacterial soap, and when we didn't slather our children in anti-bacterial hand gel. Pathogens and bacteria were found everywhere. The gut's job was to make sure that you didn't get food poisoning or catch a bug from your neighbor or swallow a parasite from unclean water. And that's why 80% of your immune system resides in your gut. In Eastern medicine, the gut is known as the seed of the soul or the power source. However, many of us especially in the West haven't given much thought to our guts other than a place that food goes in and comes out or maybe what we refer to as the extra weight around the center, the gut that we get from too much cortisol or beer. In this course, we'll provide you with the physiology of the gut, but you'll also learn that it's much more than just a bunch of hollow tubes. By the end, you'll understand how the gut is essential to optimal health. You'll be able to help your clients connect the dots between their gut health and other issues that at first may seem totally unrelated. We'll explore Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Greek perspectives on gut health, and how these may have changed over time. We'll also offer guidance around diet, herbs, supplements, and lifestyle choices that can help you and your clients feel better, better than maybe you knew was possible. You'll hear stories of people who changed their diet and therefore were able to change their mood. I mentioned earlier how the got affects brain health. Well, current research is showing that the gut directly affects our emotions, behaviors, and decisions. Let's stop and reflect for a moment. Grab a pen and paper and start reflecting on your own gut health. Sit still for a moment and just tune in. What do you notice in your gut right now? By gut, we mean stomach or that general area. Anything? Full from a meal, gurgling, nerves? When you're done, jot down below what you ate last and a few of the major things going on in your life right now. Are there any stressful situations at work or at home? Do you have any lingering to-dos or maybe a conversation with someone you'd like to clean up? Any big events or meetings on the horizon? Pause the lecture now. How did that go? Does it look like there might be a connection between what's going on in your life and what's going on in your gut? Our guts are full of information. Think about how often we hint at gut feelings and everyday conversation, "I have butterflies in my stomach. I have a knot in my stomach." But how often have we stopped to really think about where these sayings originate, what do we really know about the gut? It digests our food, but what about our thoughts? Given how much we refer to it, on some level, we probably had a gut instinct that our intestines were up to much more. Another thought, the healthier the gut, perhaps the healthier our instincts. I encourage you to start tracking your gut feelings throughout the day. You may find it helpful to use the handout in this module called gut feelings. And remember to keep us updated in the Facebook group about any interesting insights you uncover. In this course as we explore more in depth how the gut receives impressions and communicates with the brain, we'll uncover the science behind the ancient wisdom and the saying, "Go with your gut." And we'll discuss why so many of us due to our current lifestyle have lost that connection to our gut and inner wisdom. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group which owns over 400 companies, once said, "I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics." The wisdom of the gut holds true to even the most powerful businessmen, and probably even to how you run your health coaching practice. As you learned in the health coach training program, the body is an inter-connected system. Consider the gut as the central operating system. And literally and perhaps metaphorically, if we listen to hypocrites that death lurks in the intestines and bad digestion is the root of all evil, then it makes sense that optimal health starts there too. In this course, we'll cover a little history and various perceptions of the gut, from old beliefs to modern. And we'll look at when it was common practice to cut out part of the colon to the modern day impact of antibiotics and overuse of anti-bacterial products. We'll also define common diagnoses and gut disturbances in the Western, Eastern, and alternative medicine like Cboe, Candida, leaky gut, and we'll teach you a few ways you can help assess your clients from within your scope of practice including resources you can offer them when they want to dive deeper. Lastly, we'll also explore what we're now calling the forgotten organ, the bacteria in the gut. More on that to come. Right now, we're living in a time where gut health is garnering a lot of attention, and for good reason. The general public is starting to catch on the gut health not only as a thing but it's a thing that matters. You've picked a great time to be a Health Coach specializing in this field. To recap, an increasing amount of research has linked gut health to various chronic conditions, and many believe it to be the foundation of our health and well-being. Looks like ancient wisdom is proving to be true, the gut is our power source and may hold the key to health that we've all been seeking. So what is gut health? Well, the definition is still evolving, but by the end of this course, we hope you'll have a better understanding of what gut health means to you. Thank you so much for joining us. See you soon.