Today, I’m going to be diving into my morning routine for optimal gut health all day long. So let’s dive into it.
Tip number one is going to be to get a good night’s rest. So sleep affects our gut health and gut health affects our sleep. So it’s kind of this circle that we have to figure out one way or the other, right? But research has shown that even too nice of not enough sleep in a row has actually decreased the amount of good bacteria in the gut and therefore harmed our gut health. So sleep is so, so imperative to overall gut health and making sure that you start your day off on the right track to optimize your gut health all day long.
So tip number two, once again, it starts with the night before, right? So making sure that you’re getting in an adequate rest and adequate digestive reset period from dinner the night before to breakfast in the morning. So this is where intermittent fasting comes into play. And I like to really use it for nourishing and transforming your gut health. However, I’m not a super huge fan of these like crazy long, intermittent fast. I think that they are unrealistic for most of us and a little too hard on the body, for especially women.
With that being said, I love to recommend a solid 12 hours between dinner and breakfast. So what this looks like is if you have dinner by 6:00 PM then you’d have breakfast at 6:00 AM. There you go, that’s your 12 hours. Hopefully you’re sleeping during most of that, right? So it should be pretty easy. One of the biggest things that will have to be cut out is like late night snacking. That’s going to have to go because it doesn’t allow our digestive system to rest.
So if we’re spending all that time digesting our food, then the gut can’t really repair and transform and heal itself. So we’ve got to kind of prolonged that fast between dinner and breakfast.
Tip number three is going to be starting your morning with a big glass of water bonus points if it has a little bit of lemon in it. I like to juice like half a lemon. In my morning water. And also making sure that this isn’t super ice cold, like no ice in this either room temperature or more on the warm side, not boiling hot because that’s too hot to drink. And once we boil the lemon juice, it kind of depletes, kind of gets rid of some of the vitamins and minerals. So room temperature or warm water is best. I like to fill up this whole thing. My nice glass jug here, my big Mason jar. I fill up the whole thing with water and I drink that whole thing first thing in the morning.
Tip number four correlates with tip number three, but it’s going to be to use the bathroom. And this is pretty standard. I feel like most of us do this every morning. However it’s really important that you are going to the bathroom in the morning. Probably once or twice a day is ideal for how much you want to really go. And I think you know what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about poop. Yup. So it’s we really want to make sure that we’re going and if you’re not going that often, you are constipated. Even if it doesn’t, if it’s normal for you, right? It’s still showing signs of constipation, which can lead to a whole host of other issues. So we really want to make sure we’re using the bathroom, which is why that water really helps, right?
So if you’re not going to the bathroom regularly, reach out and let me know cause we’ve got to get that going and we really, really need to take a look at your gut health and figure out why you’re not going to the bathroom as regularly as you should be.
Tip number five. So I brushed my teeth but also after that I tongue scrape. So here’s my handy dandy tongue scraper. I know it’s like maybe a little wonky. Um, but this is a really commonly used tool in Ayurveda, which is one of the most ancient healing sciences from India. Tongue scraping can really benefit digestion and also just get some of the bacteria out of the mouth and into the sink. So our mouth itself has an oral microbiome. So we’ve got microbiome and we also have an oral microbiome. Really important to keep this healthy.
This can affect health in a multitude of ways. So tongue scraping is a really easy to use tool to the thing to do every morning to get rid of some of those toxins. All the buildup that’s on the tongue. If you’ve never tongue scraped before, you will see a lot of buildup, most likely. Um, and it’s kind of wild and they always say like once your tongue scrape, you can’t go back because you see it and you’ve got to get rid of it. So this is a tool that I like to use every morning to support my digestion, to support my gut health, and to support my oral microbiome as well.
Tip number six is meditate. So rushing out the door first thing in the morning is the worst way to set yourself up for the day, Like, let’s just think about it. Be super realistic and logical.
If you run out the door and are rushing to start your day, where does that leave you? You’re stressed, you’re anxious, you’re freaking out. It’s just not supportive of this like grounded, powerful day. So you want to have also, in addition, meditation is an amazing way to help manage stress. Also tap into your intuition, relax your gut. All of these amazing things, stress will start to wreck your gut if it’s not managed properly. In addition, when we are stressed, blood flow is said away from our digestive system and actually out to our extremities. When that happens, the body’s in a stress state and the blood flow actually goes away from the digestive system. The body can’t really tell the difference between stress of like, Oh no, I’m not going to make my workout class or stress of there’s a lion and I could die and I need to run.
So we really want to make sure that we are pacifying that nervous system entering into the parasympathetic nervous system response, um, and nourishing that gut health and not making sure that the blood flow is going to all of the nice and juicy places that we want it to go. Um, but this is one of the biggest game changers that I see in people’s lives.
Tip number seven is going to be go for a walk. So, so many of us think that we have to hit the gym every morning or every day to have an impact on our health, right? This is just not necessary for all of us. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go to the gym, but what I don’t want you doing is signing up for some bootcamp class that you frickin’ hate. If you’re dragging yourself to these classes and you hate it, you are not supporting your health, especially your gut health.
Because once again, it puts your body into that fight or flight stress response and your body can tell. It’s like, why am I here? This is not necessary, right? So it actually ends up hurting us. In addition, when we’re dealing with a gut dysfunction, our body really needs all of the energy and the juice to heal what’s going on. So when we are consistently going to the gym day after day after day, we’re not allowing our body’s digestive system and the gut to really repair itself because this is, this energy is being taken and being used for the muscle.
If you’re always feeling sore, your body can’t even worry about your digestion because it’s also trying to heal that. And it’s also dealing with normal like everyday stressors and all of these other things. So I’ve actually seen many people, benefit a lot from taking the exercise down. With that being said, my tip number seven here is to go for a walk. So walking is really nice and gentle on the body and it is really important to move your body on a daily basis because that is going to help relieve constipation and prevent constipation.
Walking can be really beneficial here because it keeps your body -unless you’re super power walking, it keeps your body in a more parasympathetic nervous system response so your digestion can still work and do its thing. You don’t necessarily have to do a lot of muscle recovery but you’re still moving. In addition, if you go for a walk outside, I recommend honestly like even 10 minutes in the morning, it will shift your entire day. Get in that fresh air, get in those grounding negative ions which help your nervous system stay nice and even keeled. Fresh air, negative ions, sunshine, the vitamin D. it’s like the biggest whammy for all of it, right?It’s a big gift from the universe and nature to just be able to walk outside and enjoy that.
And finally, tip number eight is going to be to have my HAN morning power smoothie for your breakfast. So one of the biggest areas where people go wrong in their food decisions is breakfast because Oh gosh, so many things right? But let’s just talk about it here. If we wake up and we skip breakfast, then we are more likely to be hungry or later. And when we are in that state where we’re so hungry, we’re like, “I don’t even care what I eat, give me whatever.” “I Would eat anything right now.” How likely are we to make a supportive decision? Less likely, right? I am all about getting the body back on your side and making it easy for you to live this healthy, vibrant and enjoyable life.
One of the ways that we do this is by having this movie first thing in the morning because it’s going to help turn off over eight hunger hormones in the body because it has a very specific formula that I use to kind of craft this smoothie. However, I like to give an outline and let you pick the specific ingredients and I have a bunch of recipes for them too. I want you to kind of do your thing. I’m not going to force you to eat anything that you really don’t like. So I like to give an outline where you can pick the specific ingredients so you like it, right? I always say like, if you don’t like celery, I’m not going to force you to eat celery. Not necessary, we can find something else that you do like.
So I love giving the outline. With that being said, we do have a bunch of recipes for the HAN morning power smoothie, um, but this movie is going to turn off over eight hunger hormones in the body, so you’re going to feel satiated longer. It does this because, well for many reasons, but one of them being that it helps support healthy blood sugar levels. So when we wake up and we eat something like a doughnut or, or we hit Starbucks and we grab a croissant and a coffee with vanilla creamer or whatever, I don’t know. I don’t really, that’s not my thing. But if we do that -everyone has a blood sugar curve and we want it to be kind of like this, right? It’s like every time we eat it goes up a little and it just back down and it goes up.
But it’s not this crazy roller coaster ride. Most people exist on this crazy roller coaster ride and when our energy goes way up due to the sugar, right? The sugar that we eat makes our blood sugar levels boost up, which is when you get like a sugar high, right? But the higher it goes up, the lower it dips down, which then leaves you, when it dips down here, you’re like hangry, you’re a little anxious, you’re a little irritable, and it’s not supportive for our overall health because once again, you’re not setting yourself up for success here, right? You’re like, whatever, give me the bread basket. I don’t even care. I’m so hungry, I’m gonna eat my hand. You’re less likely to be like, Oh yeah, I’m just going to order, you know, my gut friendly meal and everything’s chill. So it makes it harder to like stick to your game.
You’re not really using your body’s capabilities to benefit your health and get your body on your side. Also when our blood sugar goes up, our body produces insulin and insulin is the fat storing hormone. So this is like, you know, weight management one Oh one is that we don’t want to bump insulin really high and then have a drop really low. It’s just not supportive of our body goals. So we really want to make sure that we’re kind of keeping it more here, the blood sugar curve. Um, and that’s supporting our energy for sure. Our anxiety for sure. Because once we get to this really low place, um, we feel hangry and anxious and we’re like irritable, right? And if you’re someone that suffers with anxiety, this can be a huge game changer for you. So we don’t want to have you up.
And then really low, that’s going to add, it’s going to flare up maybe a panic attack or something of the sorts. We want to avoid that. That’s what this smoothie does in addition to the fact that it contains really good quality fiber and this fiber helps feed the good gut bacteria and promotes gut bacteria proliferation. So it’s going to promote the making of all of those good bacteria because the good bacteria, it’s great to have them, but to make sure that they stick around and really like do their thing, we have to feed them. So this smoothie is located in my free three day gut reset, which you can find in the description below this video. And I give you many options there and it also breaks it down for you. So you really understand and then you kind of know how to mix and match on your own.
And if you have any questions about it, let me know in the comments below because I see this movie change people’s lives all the time, day after day, because also like once we get our morning right, the rest of the day is so much easier. Instead of kind of fighting, you’re like, you enter the day and you’re already tired and depleted and starving. How hard is the rest of the day, right? Like so hard. So we want to make it as easy on ourselves as possible. So that first meal of the day is so, so important because it just makes the rest of the day easier. And if you don’t let yourself get to this place, and then you enter lunch and you’re like, chill, I’ll just eat my food, my normal food that’s really supportive of my health makes me feel good. It’s easier. And then that meal carries you over to dinner and then you’re done.
