6 Ways To Improve Your Gut Health

Your gut is home to hundreds of microorganisms ie bacteria, viruses and fungi. This is called your gut microbiome. Although microorganisms are usually associated with illness and infection, your gut needs a healthy balance of microorganisms to perform several functions that are essential to your overall wellbeing.

Looking after your gut health is essential to maintaining a healthy gut microbiome. Here, we share 6 tips to keep your gut in good shape. But first, it helps to understand why your gut health and microbiome are so important for your wellbeing.

How your gut supports your general health

Your gut microbiome helps break down the food you eat so that your body can absorb vital nutrients from it. As these microorganisms break down your food, they make byproducts that your body also needs, such as short-chain fatty acids that reduce inflammation and support a healthy gut lining. Some gut bacteria also make B vitamins and vitamin K (Tarrachini, 2024).

In addition to nutrition, a healthy gut microbiome supports your immune system (Zheng, 2020). So-called ‘good’ microorganisms prevent ‘bad’ or disease-causing microorganisms from taking over. What’s more, an imbalance in your gut microbiome can affect the integrity of your gut lining, leading to a ‘leaky gut’. This increases the risk of developing autoimmune disorders.

Your brain is also influenced by your gut health in what is called the gut–brain axis (Carabotti, 2015). Nerves, hormones and immune cells allow communication between the gut and the brain. Poor gut health is linked to an increased risk of mental health challenges, such as anxiety, and degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (Newcombe, 2018).

The complex interactions between the gut and the rest of your body explains in part why an imbalance in the gut microbiome is linked with an increased likelihood of several health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver disease and dementia.

Signs of poor gut health

Signs of an unhealthy gut include frequent or persistent bloating, constipation, diarrhoea and/or heartburn. As these can also be signs of bowel conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease), it is important to see your GP if any of these symptoms go on for 3 or more weeks.

Poor gut health can also cause symptoms outside of your gut. This includes:

Fatigue
Poor sleep
Skin problems — this includes:
- Dry, flaky and/or red skin
- Flare-ups of existing skin conditions (eg acne, eczema and psoriasis)
Unintentional weight gain or weight loss

6 tips to improve your gut health

1. Follow a gut-friendly diet

A diet high in fibre helps your gut in 2 main ways. Soluble fibre feeds the good bacteria that live in your gut. Meanwhile, insoluble fibre adds bulk to your stools and helps you have regular bowel movements, reducing the chances of constipation. As fibre comes from plants, it’s important to follow a diet that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Most fruits and vegetables have a mix of soluble and insoluble fibre. However, particularly good sources of soluble fibre include:

Avocados, apricots and pears
Black beans, kidney beans and lima beans
Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, carrots and sweet potatoes

Good sources of insoluble fibre include:

Blueberries, grapes and strawberries
Cauliflower, chickpeas, corn, green beans and leafy greens
Whole grains eg barley, bulgur, wheat and rye

In addition to following a high-fibre diet, if you have bloating or cramps, taking some peppermint oil can help. Peppermint oil helps to relax the muscles in your gut, which eases discomfort (Chumpitaz, 2019). Ginger is also helpful as it speeds up the movement of food through your gut and can, therefore, help prevent bloating and constipation.

To reduce inflammation in your gut, foods rich in the healthy fat omega-3 can help (Costantini, 2017). Omega-3 is thought to reduce gut inflammation by regulating the gut microbiome.

Foods rich in omega-3 include:

Chia seeds, flax seeds and walnuts
Flaxseed oil, canola oil and soybean oil
Mackerel, salmon, sardines and sea bass

2. Chew food well

Digestion starts when you chew your food. This increases the surface area of your food for your digestive enzymes to work on, including both enzymes in your stomach and in your saliva. The addition of mucus and water from your saliva to your food also helps digestion.

Chewing your food well, therefore, speeds up digestion, which reduces the risk of bloating and stomach cramps.

3. Stay hydrated

To stay hydrated, aim to drink, on average, 6–8 cups of fluid every day. If you are sweating more than usual, for example, due to the weather or exercise, you will need to drink more to stay hydrated. This should not include alcohol and caffeinated drinks as these make you urinate more and consequently can lead to dehydration.

Staying hydrated is essential to prevent hard stools but is also important to maintain the moist lining of your intestines and support the absorption of nutrients from your gut.

Signs that you are dehydrated include:

Dizziness
Feeling thirsty
Feeling tired
Headaches
Urinating less

4. Exercise regularly

Exercise helps the movement of food through your bowels. Consequently, a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of constipation. What’s more, regular exercise has been shown to support a healthy gut microbiome (Boytar, 2023).

Ideally, aim for 2 and a half hours of moderate-to-high-intensity exercise every week, spread out across the week.

If you are overweight, regular exercise can help you lose excess weight and maintain a healthy weight. This is important for reducing your risk of heartburn because carrying excess weight, especially around your abdomen, puts pressure on your stomach, which makes it more likely that acid will leak upwards.

5. Follow a healthy bedtime routine

While poor gut health can reduce your quality of sleep, getting a good night’s sleep every night can improve your gut health. This is because disturbed sleep changes your gut microbiome (Wu, 2023). Although the amount of sleep each individual needs varies, on average, an adult needs 7–9 hours of good-quality sleep each night.

To ensure you sleep well, it’s helpful to go to sleep at roughly the same time every night, avoid eating for the 2 hours preceding bedtime and avoid using digital screens for an hour before bedtime. Also, try to make your bedroom as dark and quiet as possible.

6. Manage your stress

Stress causes changes in the chemical messengers in your brain and due to the gut–brain axis, this can have a significant effect on your gut health. Stress can slow down your digestion, leading to bloating and constipation, or speed it up, leading to diarrhoea.

Finding ways to manage your stress can, therefore, help regulate your bowel movements, which in turn helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome.

While meditation, yoga and mindfulness can all help lower stress levels, there are many different ways to relieve stress. It’s important to find what works for you, whether that’s going for a walk or taking part in a hobby that relaxes your mind.

Take home message

Poor gut health increases your risk of developing gut conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel syndrome, as well as persistent constipation or diarrhoea. It’s also linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune conditions and degenerative brain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Taking care of your gut health, therefore, helps improve your general wellbeing today and your long-term quality of life by reducing the risk of future health conditions.