We’ve been told for so long that you are what you eat.

Then we got the next iteration, you are what you eat ate.

But that isn’t the whole story.

Rather, we are what we absorb.  

You may be that person who eats all the right foods and takes the best supplements but can’t seem to get closer to your health goals.  It could very well be a problem of digestion.

Nowadays most of us know someone with digestive problems. Or, we may even be that person.  IBS, Crohn’s disease, gut infections, IBD, food allergies and more are becoming more common and well known.

There are quite a few aspects to consider when trying to improve digestion, from looking after the digestive organs themselves, testing for and eradicating any sources of infection, taking care of our nervous system and using the right functional foods, herbs and supplements to help.  

It can be tricky knowing where to get started, so here are 4 areas we can look into to support our digestion.

4 ways to improve digestion

1 - Lower stress to improve digestion

There’s no shortage of tasks we could be doing in this world.  We may feel like we need to squeeze every last bit out of every hour in the day.  So, you make the logical conclusion that you’ll respond to emails while eating lunch or you’ll finish off your assignments during dinner.  

Unfortunately, these habits are really impairing our digestion.

We have 2 branches of our Autonomic nervous system, the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic nervous system.  The sympathetic is responsible for our fight, flight or freeze response, while the parasympathetic is our rest and digest response.  When we’re in a parasympathetic state, we better secrete all the digestive juices we need to properly break down food.

Being more present with our meal can help us digest better. Here are some easy ways to do that

• Make meals a sacred time
• Eat with good company
• Leave your assignments and work stress in the office
• Eat at a different place to where you work
• Take some slow, controlled breaths before eating
• Give thanks to your meal

For more ways to lower stress, stay tuned for another article coming.

2 - Bitters stimulate our digestive system

Herbal bitters help digestion in a myriad of ways.  One of the main ways they do so is by

stimulating the vagal nerve to enter a parasympathetic state more readily, so that we’re secreting our digestive juices.

This can be bitter foods such as;

• Radicchio
• Chicory
• Rocket
• Coffee
• Bitter Melon

Herbs such as Dandelion, Gentian, Oregon grape root and more can also be used and tend to pack more of a punch, in both their bitter flavour and their benefits. 

Surthrival’s Herbal Digestive Bitters comes with these herbs and more in an easy to use spray bottle.   3 sprays in the mouth before (or after) a meal and you’ll hear your digestive organs getting to work in no time!

3 - Repair the gut lining

Sometimes we may be secreting all the right digestive juices at the right time, but we’re still showing signs of poor digestion and the inflammation that comes with it.  This could indicate an issue with our gut lining not being able to finish off the digestive process.

There are certain foods that can help repair the gut lining. Bone broth is one of these, containing an array of beneficial compounds to repair the gut lining and lower inflammation, such as glycine, glutamine, collagen, gelatin and more.  This can be a great food to have as a standalone or something to cook your meals in.

However, if you want the gold standard of gut healing, look no further than Ultimate GI Repair.  This product contains 7 synergistic nutrients, including the peptides Pentadecapeptide (BPC-157) and Larazotide Acetate (AT-1001) to heal and seal the gut lining and much more.

4 - Look after our digestive organs with organs

We have quite a few digestive organs.  Our stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, intestines and more!

Traditional cultures would help people heal based on the principle of like cures like.

If you had liver dysfunction, you would be told to eat a liver from a healthy animal. It makes a lot of sense, a healthy liver should have all the building blocks a liver could need.

Here at Revivify, we offer a range of organs.

The most noticeable we’ve personally found for digestion is the Ancestral Supplements Pancreas Extract which actually contains digestive enzymes.  Users (including this writer) have noticed better appetite, the ability to eat more food without feeling lethargic or uncomfortable and better poops.

Wrapping it all up

This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything we can do to improve our digestion, we wanted to make the information in this blog very digestible (pun intended - I couldn’t help myself).  Despite that, there is a lot of information here that we can action quickly and easily.

To keep it simple, how about picking one area to action this week?

How are you going to start improving your digestion?