IBS - The Gut Brain Glitch

In the functional medicine world, we view IBS as a "communication breakdown" between your brain and your gut. It's not just in your head, it's a multifactorial disorder involving motility, visceral hypersensitivity, and the gut microbiome. Whether it's the "fight or flight" response triggering the HPA axis or post-infectious dysbiosis, your gut is sending out an SOS.

Key Takeaways:

• The Science: IBS is a disorder of gut-brain interaction. Triggers range from severe infections to a "garden" of gut bacteria overgrown with the wrong weeds (dysbiosis).
• The Food Lab: While a Low-FODMAP diet is the "gold standard" for temporary relief, the goal is long-term healing. Focus on soluble fibers (oats, carrots) and nature's remedies like kiwifruit for motility and peppermint oil for cramping.
• Lifestyle Matters: Stress management, sleep hygiene and exercise are non-negotiable for gut health.

Your gut is resilient! By tracking your food and mood, you can start restoring the "Wi-Fi" between your brain and belly.

References:

1. American Gastroenterological Association. IBS in America: Despite advances, IBS remains a burden for many millions - American Gastroenterological Association
2. National Institute of Health (NIH) NIDDK (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases). Digestive Diseases Statistics for the United States - NIDDK
3. Mayo Clinic. Irritable bowel syndrome - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
4. StatPearls [Internet]. (2024). Irritable Bowel Syndrome. 2. MDPI Nutrients (2026). Nutritional Management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
5. IBS Center. IBS Info - ibscenter.org
6. Frontiers in Nutrition (2025). An umbrella review of meta-analyses on the low-FODMAP diet in IBS.
7. Michigan Medicine (2025). Gut-Brain Axis (GBA) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Thank you for listening to Healthy California.

If you have tried all my suggestions and are still having trouble with your health, and would like an appointment with me, please email me, text, or call me via the contact information below.

My contact:

Linda Brown, MPT, Doctoral Candidate Functional Nutrition

916-426-2543

linda@heal-throughfood.com

www.heal-throughfood.com

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Healthy California Podcast.

00:00:07

My name is Linda Brown, and I am the host of Healthy California, where my goal is to help educate you on your daily choices so we all can become healthy.

00:00:16

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00:00:23

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00:00:28

It's frustrating.

00:00:30

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00:00:36

And who do you believe?

00:00:37

And where's the science behind it?

00:00:39

This podcast will unravel the mystery behind being unhealthy and talk about little things that we can do in our lives to make a positive change in our health from all angles.

00:00:48

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Let's answer some of these questions to get healthy.

00:00:59

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I will give you resources as well, ways to take steps and make positive changes in your life to becoming healthy.

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This is a journey, not an assignment, so be kind to yourself.

00:01:16

Hello everyone, this is Linda Brown, your physical therapist, functional nutritionist, coach, educator, and your host of Healthy California.

00:01:25

Welcome back.

00:01:27

Today, we are diving into a topic that affects nearly one in 10 people worldwide, and that is irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS.

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Whether you've been personally struggling with that unpredictable gut feeling, or you're just curious about how our digestive system works, pull up a chair, grab some tea, and let's get into this.

00:01:54

We're going to break down the science, look at the research, and talk about how you can actually start feeling better.

00:02:00

So what is IBS?

00:02:03

Irritable bowel syndrome.

00:02:05

The Cleveland Clinic defines it as a group of symptoms that affect your digestive system.

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So it's a group of symptoms.

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They say 10 to 15% of people have symptoms.

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but only half of them see a doctor.

00:02:20

So they remain mostly undiagnosed, or half the people out there remain undiagnosed.

00:02:27

There are different types of IBS.

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There is IBS-C, which you can think of C as the constipation-like IBS.

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And then there's IBS-D.

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You can think of D as the more diarrhea type of IBS.

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And then there's an IBS-M, which is kind of the mix of both.

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According to the Mayo Clinic, it's a common condition that affects the stomach and the intestines, the GI tract.

00:02:55

The symptoms include cramping, belly pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, or both.

00:03:04

And the reason why I'm talking about this is because it does affect so many people, and it affects people's lives.

00:03:09

And you see medications all over TV about IBS, so that's why we're talking about it.

00:03:15

It's more common

00:03:16

than people want to talk about.

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IBS doesn't typically cause bowel tissue changes or increase the risk of colorectal cancer, but having constipation can.

00:03:29

And if you have the IBS-C, the constipation type, the constipation actually can cause

00:03:38

increased risk of colorectal cancer.

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And one of my very first podcast episodes was on constipation because it is that important.

00:03:47

So if you want to get more information on just constipation itself and why it is so important to address, then go back to, I think it's like episode 3.

00:03:58

It's one of my very first ones.

00:04:01

And then having the diarrhea type of constipation can cause dehydration or malnutrition.

00:04:08

So they have to be addressed.

00:04:09

So even though IBS doesn't cause cancer, the side effects or the symptoms can cause malnutrition or risk of cancer.

00:04:21

According to a survey conducted by AGA, which stands for American Gastroenterological Association, AGA, IBS disrupts lives like 19 days out of each month.

00:04:34

19 days out of each month.

00:04:35

That's almost 20 out of 30 days.

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That's a lot.

00:04:39

And people can lose work up to 11 days each month just from having IBS.

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Now remember, half the people don't even have it diagnosed.

00:04:50

15.3 million people have IBS.

00:04:54

And there are 5.9 million prescriptions for IBS.

00:05:00

And that's according to the NIH, the National Institute of Health.

00:05:04

And it's what we call a disorder of the gut-brain interaction.

00:05:09

In the world of functional medicine nutrition, we think of IBS as a communication breakdown.

00:05:16

Imagine your brain and your gut are on a Zoom call, but the Wi-Fi is glitchy.

00:05:21

So the signals are on and off and they get crossed.

00:05:25

And that's that gut-brain interaction or the gut-brain axis.

00:05:30

So how does this happen?

00:05:31

How does one get IBS?

00:05:34

Why does the gut start acting out?

00:05:37

Research published in Stat Pearls a couple years ago, 2024, describes it as a multifactorial disorder.

00:05:46

That just means there's more than one cause.

00:05:48

It's a mix of how your gut moves, so that's called motility, gut motility, how sensitive your nerves are, your nerves, that's your visceral hypersensitivity, the nerves in your intestines, that's your visceral nerves,

00:06:01

and the state of your microbiome.

00:06:04

That's all the microbes in your gut.

00:06:07

So let me say that again.

00:06:09

How your gut moves, how your nerves react, and the state of your gut microbiome.

00:06:15

And then there are a few other glitches as well.

00:06:18

And that could be your gut-brain axis, which is your gut has its own nervous system, the enteric nervous system.

00:06:25

When the communication between your brain and your gut is off,

00:06:30

Normal digestion can feel like intense pain.

00:06:34

So if contractions are stronger and lasting longer, contractions are in your gut, we need muscle contractions to kind of move the food along.

00:06:43

If those contractions are stronger and last longer than usual, they can cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea.

00:06:50

But weak contractions can slow food passage and lead to hard dry stool.

00:06:57

So we need those contractions to be rhythmic and a normal strength.

00:07:02

The Mayo Clinic also highlights how stress, especially early in life, tends to have more symptoms of IBS.

00:07:12

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, it's a long word, but I'm just going to call it the HPA axis.

00:07:20

It's the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal, pretty much just means how your hypothalamus in your brain sends signals to your pituitary gland, which then sends signals to your adrenals.

00:07:33

And when you think of adrenals, think of your adrenaline.

00:07:37

Adrenaline is made by your adrenals.

00:07:40

So if you think about it, it's the brain talking to your adrenals, which is going to produce adrenaline if signaled to.

00:07:50

And so what does that have to do with stress, right?

00:07:52

It has everything to do with stress.

00:07:54

If you think about the adrenals and stress, it is our fight and flight response.

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And when you think about fight and flight, we're running from that tiger, right?

00:08:05

That's what stress is.

00:08:07

Out in the wilderness, we need fight and flight to protect ourselves.

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So we run from, we either run or we fight from the things that put us in danger.

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And in our modern world, we're not running from a tiger, but we are always in a stressed state because we're dealing with traffic.

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We have schedules that are too filled with things to do.

00:08:32

We're always behind.

00:08:34

And that's our fight and flight response.

00:08:35

And if you think about what happens when we're trying to run from a tiger, we aren't thinking about digesting anything.

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So our gut is stunted or turned off.

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We're not thinking about reproducing, so our reproductive system is stunted or turned off.

00:08:56

And then our sleep.

00:08:57

We don't want to go to sleep when we're running from a tiger, so our sleep system gets thrown off as well.

00:09:04

So if you can think about stress, a lot of people that are in stress, it affects their reproductive system, their sleep, and their digestion.

00:09:13

So that makes sense.

00:09:15

So that is the gut-brain axis.

00:09:18

And then another way is severe infection.

00:09:22

So IBS can develop after a severe bout of diarrhea caused by bacteria or a virus.

00:09:29

And this is called gastroenteritis.

00:09:31

IBS may also be associated with excessive bacterial overgrowth, bacteria of the unhealthy type.

00:09:38

This is where antibiotics play a role in our gut bacteria.

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Because bacteria is natural, it's supposed to be there.

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But when we take antibiotics, the antibiotics wipe out all the bacteria.

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All the bacteria, good and bad.

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And then we don't have any bacteria in our gut.

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And then a lot of times the bad bacteria end up flourishing and taking over.

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So that's how antibiotics play a role in getting IBS, especially after an infection.

00:10:13

And this is called dysbiosis, gut dysbiosis.

00:10:17

It's an imbalance between the good versus the bad bacteria.

00:10:20

And the human gut is home to trillions of microbes.

00:10:24

Collectively, we know it as the gut microbiome.

00:10:27

And we have a microbiome on all of our surfaces.

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Mucous membranes, like on our skin, has its own microbiome.

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The inside of our mouth has its own microbiome.

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The mucous membrane on our eye has its own microbiome.

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And they're all a little bit different.

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If you think about the microbiome kind of being like a garden, when your microbial garden gets overgrown with weeds, then it's not going to be a good environment for the good plants.

00:10:58

It can overtake it.

00:11:00

In the stomach, the wrong bacteria can ferment your foods too quickly, which can lead to bloating.

00:11:07

And bacteria love sugar.

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That's why a diet with refined sugar, like sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, can disrupt a delicate balance of your internal ecosystem.

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Sugar can cause dysbiosis of your gut, or unhealthy gut, or gut dysbiosis.

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So yes, sugar will feed your bad bacteria and will cause your gut microbiome to be off.

00:11:34

And then what are some triggers then?

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So let's see, let's go over this real quick.

00:11:38

How do we get IBS?

00:11:41

How does all this start?

00:11:42

Your gut motility may not be working, your nervous system may not be working, and then your gut microbiome being off.

00:11:50

Stress, infection, and sugar, or eating things that feed the bad bacteria.

00:11:57

So then what are some triggers then?

00:11:59

Let's go over some triggers.

00:12:00

Well, there are a couple triggers.

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Food and stress are the main ones.

00:12:05

So food, again,

00:12:07

If you have food intolerance, times like that, an elimination diet might be the first, or you can go get a food allergy test.

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And if you have to take a medication or a supplement to control your symptom, that's a sign that you still have dysbiosis.

00:12:23

or you still have an allergy or an intolerance.

00:12:27

Many medications resolve the symptom, but don't actually fix the problem.

00:12:32

That's important because that leads to inflammation later in life.

00:12:36

Even though you may not feel the symptom, the fact that you're still eating something that your body doesn't like is putting you in a chronic state of inflammation, even at a low grade.

00:12:48

And that, over time, can cause a lot of damage.

00:12:52

So medications might resolve the symptom, but doesn't fix the problem.

00:12:57

And supplements may take a while, but they're intended to heal the problem.

00:13:03

So you can't just take them for a week or two and think that it's going to resolve.

00:13:08

And sometimes supplements don't work, or sometimes it's the wrong supplement or whatever the case may be.

00:13:15

But I always think that food is the best way.

00:13:19

Our body knows what to do with food.

00:13:21

So if you're trying to heal something, I would always try changing the diet first.

00:13:26

And of course, the other trigger is stress.

00:13:28

And I've talked about stress already.

00:13:29

IBS worsens with stress.

00:13:31

That's kind of a known fact.

00:13:33

And again, we talk about the fight and flight response, right?

00:13:37

So when we are in a fight and flight response, digestion, sleep, and reproduction are blunted or turned off.

00:13:45

I mentioned earlier that stress, even earlier in life,

00:13:49

could still be affecting you, people that have trauma early in life have a higher rate of IBS.

00:13:58

And even though you might be, I don't know, let's just say you're 40 years old, but your trauma was when you were, you know, 10 years old, that trauma, if unresolved, it still could be following you and you might not even realize it.

00:14:10

You might be thinking, well, I'm fine right now.

00:14:13

What does that have to do with it?

00:14:14

It's these little tiny triggers that we don't realize are still affecting us.

00:14:18

And those triggers are putting us into a fight and flight response.

00:14:21

So that needs to be addressed.

00:14:22

So stress, yes, even from trauma that happened when you were younger can still be affecting you right now.

00:14:28

All right, so what are the risk factors?

00:14:31

The risk factors for IBS, well-being under 50 years old, yes, if you're younger, you have a higher

00:14:39

incidence of IBS.

00:14:40

I'm not sure why.

00:14:41

I don't know if it's because of more stress or because of a different type of diet or different environmental exposures.

00:14:48

I'm not really sure.

00:14:49

But if you're under 50, you have a higher likeliness of having IBS.

00:14:53

Females are more common to have IBS than men.

00:14:59

Family history.

00:15:00

Anytime you have a chronic disease, genes are always going to be a part of that, but doesn't have to control you.

00:15:08

So genes don't have to control you.

00:15:10

As long as you know that it might be in your family history, you can still do something about it.

00:15:16

You can change.

00:15:17

change your lifestyle to decide whether that gene is going to be expressed or not.

00:15:22

Another risk factor is anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues.

00:15:28

Again, because history of abuse, especially trauma, is a risk factor.

00:15:33

So when do you see your doctor?

00:15:34

If you have IBS or you're not sure you have IBS, when is a good time to see your doctor?

00:15:41

Well, a persistent change in bowel habits,

00:15:44

Remember, constipation is not normal, so don't normalize it.

00:15:47

You should be having a bowel movement at least one time a day.

00:15:53

The average bowel movement in the US, the average person has a bowel movement 0.8 times a day.

00:16:02

That's not even a whole one time a day.

00:16:04

That's a problem.

00:16:05

I hear people say, well, I've had constipation my whole life.

00:16:09

That's not a good thing.

00:16:10

Just because it's normal for you doesn't mean it's normal.

00:16:13

So don't normalize it.

00:16:14

Constipation is not normal.

00:16:17

So when else would you see a doctor?

00:16:19

If you've lost weight, if you have night diarrhea, rectal bleeding, iron deficient anemia.

00:16:27

Iron deficient anemia is important because if you can't figure out why you're anemic, many times there may be a cancer in your body that is eating up all that iron.

00:16:41

Because iron kind of fuels the body.

00:16:44

We need iron to carry oxygen around our body.

00:16:48

And if we're deficient, it could be a cancer.

00:16:51

So make sure you get that checked.

00:16:53

Unexplained vomiting is a good reason to see your doctor.

00:16:56

Belly pain, especially belly pain that isn't relieved by passing gas or stool.

00:17:02

Those are good reasons to see your doctor.

00:17:04

Okay, so then how do we prevent IBS?

00:17:09

Or can you even prevent IBS?

00:17:10

What if you have a genetic family history?

00:17:13

Is it just inevitable that you're going to have a life of having 19 days a month making your social life miserable?

00:17:22

No, that's not true.

00:17:24

So what can you do?

00:17:25

You know, while some of this is genetic or post-infection, like a bad bout of food poisoning, you can definitely manage

00:17:33

So what can we do?

00:17:34

Stress management, sleep hygiene, exercise, and food.

00:17:39

So stress management, we talked about it already.

00:17:43

Since the gut and brain are best friends, if the brain is stressed, so will the gut be.

00:17:48

Research from Frontiers in Psychology suggests that mindfulness and even gut-directed hypnotherapy can be as effective as diet for some people.

00:17:59

But you can also do

00:18:01

cognitive behavioral therapy, massages, yoga, walk in the woods, all that is good as well.

00:18:09

Maybe not replacing any sort of hypnotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, but it is always good to spend some time outside.

00:18:18

Sun in the face, taking a big deep breath of nice, healthy, fresh air, that's what the body was intended to do.

00:18:27

That's a good stress management technique.

00:18:29

And then sleep hygiene.

00:18:31

A research by the Stat Pearls notes that poor sleep is a major trigger for IBS flare-ups.

00:18:38

It's a major trigger.

00:18:39

You know, poor sleep is a major trigger for many chronic diseases, many, many things.

00:18:43

So it's always going to be part of my podcast, stress management, sleep hygiene, exercise and food is always going to be, it's always going to be there.

00:18:52

So make sure you get a good night's sleep.

00:18:54

Not just 8 hours, but quality sleep.

00:18:58

Your body uses that time to replenish and repair and heal.

00:19:04

And then exercise.

00:19:05

Low to moderate exercise intensity lowers stress, helps with food movement, helps with bowel function.

00:19:11

And even though exercise can be inconvenient when you have IBS symptoms, it's not a trigger.

00:19:17

Exercise is not going to be a trigger for IBS.

00:19:20

And then food.

00:19:21

What do we eat and what don't we eat?

00:19:22

That's the question, right?

00:19:24

So let's start with what to avoid.

00:19:28

the triggers.

00:19:29

I FODMAP foods.

00:19:31

FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols.

00:19:39

So it's just easier to say FODMAP.

00:19:42

So a saccharide is a sugar.

00:19:44

So oligosaccharide, disaccharide, monosaccharide, those are all sugars.

00:19:49

And they're the short chain carbs that are poorly absorbed and fermented in the colon.

00:19:54

So think like onions, garlic, wheat, and certain fruits like apples.

00:19:59

Those are high FODMAP foods.

00:20:01

And we'll go over that more in a second.

00:20:03

According to a 2025 umbrella review from Frontiers in Nutrition, the low FODMAP diet is a gold standard for reducing symptoms and improving quality of life if you have IBS.

00:20:16

In my opinion, this should only be temporary until you can resolve the problem.

00:20:20

So if you cut

00:20:22

FODMAP foods out of your diet, that doesn't resolve the problem.

00:20:27

That just decreases your symptoms.

00:20:29

If you eat a FODMAP diet for too long, you're going to get malnourished because you do need all these foods in your diet eventually to repair your gut and to keep your body healthy.

00:20:40

A low FODMAP diet should really only be temporary.

00:20:44

And in the meantime, you should be doing whatever you can to repair your gut.

00:20:49

And then another food to avoid would be excess of insoluble fiber.

00:20:53

And fiber is good.

00:20:54

It's a good thing.

00:20:55

We need fiber.

00:20:57

But sometimes when we're having flare-ups, it is not easy for this high insoluble fiber to be going through our gut.

00:21:06

So cutting them out leads to more gut dysbiosis, cutting out these

00:21:10

insoluble fibers.

00:21:11

So again, only temporary.

00:21:13

Or you're only doing it temporarily while you're trying to repair your gut.

00:21:17

So if you're having symptoms, cut out your insoluble fiber.

00:21:19

And that would be your lentils, beans, black-eyed peas.

00:21:24

So these legumes, they both have insoluble and soluble.

00:21:28

So you're going to hear these on both the insoluble and the soluble list.

00:21:32

However, we're talking an excess of the insoluble fiber.

00:21:38

Chia seeds,

00:21:39

turnips, sweet potatoes, barley, kale, Brussels sprouts, apples, apricots, pear strawberries.

00:21:46

Again, many of them have insoluble and soluble fiber in them.

00:21:51

And when we talk about insoluble fiber, we're talking about an excess of it.

00:21:55

So if you are having symptoms and you have trouble eating some of those foods, just cut those foods out.

00:22:02

So again, the things to stop while you're trying to fix your gut.

00:22:06

Foods that you're

00:22:08

sensitive to or allergic to excess insoluble fiber and foods that easily ferment, like onions, garlic, baked beans, sauerkraut, and then certain fruits high in excess fructose, like apples, pears, grapes.

00:22:22

You cut all that stuff out of your diet while you are trying to heal your gut.

00:22:27

That's going to help some of the symptoms.

00:22:29

And so then what foods do we eat?

00:22:32

Foods that flourish.

00:22:33

Soluble fiber.

00:22:34

So what's the difference between soluble fiber and insoluble fiber?

00:22:38

You can go back to my podcast on fiber, but insoluble just means it's not soluble in water.

00:22:44

And if it's soluble, it means that it is soluble in water.

00:22:48

Water will break it down.

00:22:50

So insoluble fiber would be like parts of, if you think of vegetables that have

00:22:56

the fiber that you kind of chew through like the celery, all the fibers in celery, that doesn't break down.

00:23:02

While the stuff in between it might.

00:23:04

So that's the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber.

00:23:07

So foods to eat.

00:23:09

Soluble fibers, again, some of these might be redundant because they're on both.

00:23:14

But we have, if you think of soluble fiber, think of oats, carrots, peeled potatoes.

00:23:20

They kind of form a gel in your gut.

00:23:23

The American College of Gastroenterology strongly supports soluble fiber like psyllium.

00:23:29

Psyllium is what is in Metamucil.

00:23:31

But if you think about psyllium, psyllium husk is good, yes.

00:23:35

It doesn't contain all the nutrients, so don't just depend on psyllium for your fiber.

00:23:41

If you have to take psyllium or Metamucil, take it and sprinkle it over

00:23:46

your yogurt or sprinkle it over a cereal or put it in a shake, but don't just take it by itself in a glass of water like most people do and then call it a good fiber source.

00:23:56

It shouldn't be intended to be the only fiber that you're taking.

00:24:01

So mix it with something.

00:24:03

Other soluble fiber is legumes like lentils and beans, and I mentioned that in insoluble.

00:24:08

Again, apples, bananas, avocados.

00:24:10

Avocados are surprisingly high in soluble fiber.

00:24:13

Carrots, prunes, kiwi,

00:24:15

oats.

00:24:17

So kiwi, kiwi, dried apricots, and prunes.

00:24:21

Consuming 2 kiwis a day has been shown to be just as effective as a laxative for IBS-C, like the constipation type, but with much better comfort.

00:24:33

And then of course we all know that prunes is good for constipation.

00:24:38

And here is a true story.

00:24:41

My mother went to the hospital

00:24:44

And she was given pain meds, and pain meds are known to cause constipation, and for her, it absolutely did that.

00:24:51

So she was given pain meds, she got constipated, she couldn't go to the bathroom, which then shot her blood pressure up.

00:24:59

So the doctor increased her blood and gave her an anti-constipation medication, which got her even more bloated.

00:25:09

And because she got more bloated, her blood pressure went up even more, and so they increased her

00:25:14

blood pressure medication again.

00:25:15

And I asked, can I just give her some prunes?

00:25:19

And they said no, because it will shoot her blood glucose up because she's diabetic.

00:25:24

She was diabetic.

00:25:25

And instead of just letting her have prunes and let her have her blood sugar go up temporarily, they ended up increasing her blood pressure medication two times and putting her on another medication for constipation.

00:25:40

And I just said, this is ridiculous.

00:25:41

I took her off all that.

00:25:42

I gave her two prunes in the morning and two prunes a night.

00:25:45

In a day and a half, it just, it fixed the problem.

00:25:47

She ended up going to having just one prune in the morning every morning, just like that.

00:25:53

Didn't do anything to her blood sugar.

00:25:55

That's a simple fix.

00:25:57

And then let's get back on track.

00:26:00

So the IBS Center, you can look up all these in my show notes, the references in my show notes.

00:26:06

The IBS Center also recommends vitamin D.

00:26:09

Many IBS sufferers are deficient in vitamin D.

00:26:13

Digestive enzymes.

00:26:15

The digestive enzymes you can take include protease, amylase, and lipase.

00:26:19

Those enzymes digest the proteins, the carbs, and the fats.

00:26:24

And then ginger.

00:26:25

Ginger reduces pain and inflammation as well as improves digestion.

00:26:30

Aloe vera can work as a natural laxative, and it also helps the body get rid of toxins.

00:26:36

Turmeric.

00:26:36

We know turmeric is really good for inflammation.

00:26:39

but it's also good for a variety of GI issues.

00:26:43

Then peppermint oil.

00:26:45

Peppermint oil is a natural antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory.

00:26:52

It's just a natural anti-spasmodic.

00:26:55

Sometimes those cramping type of ointments will have peppermint in it because it's a natural anti-spasmodic.

00:27:02

Helps to relax the cramping that we get in our muscles, including the muscles in our stomach.

00:27:08

and then taking probiotics.

00:27:10

So the IBS Center recommends vitamin D, digestive enzymes, ginger, aloe vera, turmeric, peppermint oil, and probiotics.

00:27:19

So here's the take home for all this.

00:27:21

If you're listening to this and feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath.

00:27:25

Start small.

00:27:26

You don't have to make fast changes.

00:27:29

You don't have to make big changes.

00:27:30

You can keep a food or a mood or a poop diary if you want.

00:27:35

Make sure you eat at regular times.

00:27:38

Your gut loves to be on schedule.

00:27:40

Focus on soluble fibers.

00:27:43

Focus on sleep.

00:27:44

Focus on stress.

00:27:46

Remember, your gut is incredibly resilient.

00:27:48

Your body wants to heal it.

00:27:50

So give it what it needs to heal it.

00:27:53

You just need to have the right environment to heal.

00:27:56

So I'm going to end with this last thought, and it comes from a biblical verse in Matthews 5, 16, and it says,

00:28:06

In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

00:28:15

And I like this because you can live your life with your light shining.

00:28:22

You can do good things, you can say good things, you can live, you can shine your light, you can shine your life just by your acts, by your words.

00:28:32

And people notice that.

00:28:34

People know

00:28:36

Without even you saying anything, just by how you live and act and talk and react, people just know if you are a good person or not.

00:28:48

That glorifies God.

00:28:49

Whether you believe in God or not, it still makes people look at you differently.

00:28:56

So I just want to leave you with that.

00:28:57

And I want you to remember to stay healthy, California.

00:29:04

Thank you for joining me today.

00:29:06

I hope you learned something new.

00:29:08

Health care and treatment should focus on being proactive and preventative, emphasizing the importance of addressing the root cause of a disease or illness.

00:29:17

While the U.S.

00:29:17

has an excellent trauma medicine system, no helping patients when problems arise, our goals should be to prevent disease before they happen.

00:29:25

That's why this podcast is so important to me.

00:29:29

If you're needing further guidance or have questions on a particular matter, you can find my contact information in the show notes where you can set up a 15-minute consultation.

00:29:37

I also recommend you adding a functional nutritionist, a functional medicine practitioner, and a physical therapist to your healthcare team.

00:29:45

This podcast reflects my personal opinions based on extensive research and education.

00:29:50

It is not intended for medical diagnosis or treatment and should never replace the advice from your doctor or other healthcare professionals.

00:29:58

To continue providing this free information, I rely on your support.

00:30:02

Follow, subscribe, like, and share this podcast with your family and friends, or on social media.

00:30:07

Don't forget to turn on your notifications to stay updated whenever I have a new episode released.

00:30:13

Educating you and empowering you to take back your health is my ultimate goal.

00:30:17

By gathering knowledge and implementing small but impactful changes, you can reclaim your well-being.

00:30:23

This is a journey, not a quick fix, so be kind to yourself, and I'll be there to help.

00:30:27

You've got this.