Welcome to Sustain youn Vitality, the podcast that gives you a nurturing kick in the ass so you can take action every day to feel better, not older.

Your lifestyle holds the power to change how you feel, and no matter your age or health issues, you are in the driver's seat.

I'm your host, Zoa Connor, Functional Wellness Guide at Zen and Vitality with Zoa and retreat leader at Intentional Vitality Retreats.

I'm here to help you figure out how to lower your stress, increase your energy, put yourself into a healing state, boost your drive and pleasure in life, prevent disease, and feel the best that you ever have with no regrets later.

Let's go.

In my work to help people feel better, not older, I use the seven fundamentals of functional wellness.

One of these fundamentals is digestion.

Now, many people know whether their digestion is good or bad.

Many people have heard about some magic words like gut, microbiome and stomach acid, and they don't always really know what digestion is all about.

So digestion is the goal of it is to take the food and the water and anything else that goes into the body and process it, break it down, assimilate it into the body, and get rid of what you don't need.

So when you put food or water or drink into your mouth, it goes.

The very first step of digestion, chemically is the chewing and the breaking down of your food.

Saliva is added to the food unless you eat so fast that there's not time.

Now, the saliva contains some enzymes that help break down the food, and that's particularly true for your carbohydrates and sugars.

The mechanical aspect of chewing on the food breaks it down into what should be a soft, smooth, even mush.

Now, if we think about your last day's worth of eating, how often did you actually get your food chewed into that state?

Quite possibly not very often, not all the time, possibly never.

But while the first step in digestion actually starts in your brain, the first chemical aspect starts with the saliva, and the first mechanical aspect starts with your chewing.

Once you get this paste or mush, it goes down your esophagus, you swallow it, it goes into your stomach, and as the stomach gets full, it expands, it stretches, perhaps once it gets full enough.

And the stretching of your stomach is required in order to create stomach acid.

Stomach acid is acidic in nature.

Its job is to chemically support the breakdown of that paste of food.

Also, its job is to change the environment of the food such that pathogens, bacteria, viruses don't want to Live there and they die.

If you have low stomach acid, you're going to have a few problems.

You're not going to kill the pathogens, they're going to get transmitted through the digestive system and into the rest of your body.

You're not going to break down the food very well.

And then maybe you can't absorb the nutrition from it, or maybe because you didn't break it down, it's considered a foreign object and you have to get it out of the body quickly.

The other thing that doesn't happen with low stomach acid is the signals for the rest of the digestive system never get sent.

There's a trigger, your liver, your pancreas, the rest of your digestive system expects to get the message from stomach acid to do their job.

So no stomach acid or low stomach acid, no messages to the rest of the body, the rest of the digestive system is going to be challenged.

Now high stomach acid is also a problem, but the question is for you, do you actually have high stomach acid?

Do you actually have low?

This is controlled by your nervous system.

So when you're stressed, running away from a saber toothed tiger perhaps, or dealing with emotional stress, an argument with your boss, a deadline, health of your family members, any kind of stress, when you're stressed, your body is designed to focus on the stress.

Which means that the physiological changes associated with being in a state of stress involve not stopping to have a snack.

When you're running away from a shaver toothed tiger, your stomach acid production goes down.

When you are stressed.

It's not until you are safe and calm and able to relax and able to de stress that you can make stomach acid again.

That's when you have a snack.

So if you're having digestive problems, they're quite often tied to stress management problems.

And even if you think you're doing great handling all the stress and getting all the things done, your digestive system knows if that's a lie and if you're misleading yourself, you have to be in a healing state, a non stressed state, in order to digest.

Now once you've got your stomach acid added to that paste of food and it starts to leave your stomach, you kind of don't want to use the acidic nature to burn up the rest of your body.

The stomach has extra layers and extra protection and so the first thing you have to do is get rid of the acidity.

That's where the liver comes into play.

The liver sends bile, which is alkaline, right into the small intestine.

At the top right as it leaves the stomach.

And the bile neutralizes the acidity from the stomach acid.

How do you get bile to flow?

Well, you need stomach acid.

Now, bile is interesting in that it has multiple purposes.

Just like stomach acid, bile alkalinizes the food so that it doesn't burn up the delicate tissues of the stomach of the small intestine.

The stomach has its extra protections, but bile also acts to stimulate the immune system.

Bile also acts as a laxative.

Bile also helps absorb fat soluble nutrients.

So you can see that without bile, not as much assimilation is going to happen of your awesome, expensive diet.

You're just going to make expensive pee and poo if you can't digest.

So the stomach breaks up, the food prepares it for absorption.

Absorption happens in the small intestine.

The small intestine has a very, very thin wall.

It's only one cell deep.

And those cells need to be tightly connected together in order to create a barrier between the food and the you.

When those cells are not fully connected and touching the barrier, which is between the food and the you, is incomplete.

And that has a nice, easy, leaky gut.

So the job of the small intestine is to assimilate and absorb the food.

Which means that the things that leave your small intestine and go through that one cell thick wall go right into your bloodstream.

So the question is, what is actually getting into your bloodstream?

Is it vitamins and minerals and proteins?

Is it beneficial or is it harmful?

Is it supporting health or is it challenging health by adding extra things that your immune system has to track down and kill or get rid of in order for you to be safe and healthy?

Another reason in your stomach for low stomach acid.

You can think about this in terms of ulcers.

Ulcers are aggravated by high stomach acid higher than the ulcers like.

But a lot of times the reason that you develop the ulcer was because your stomach acid was low and that allowed an overgrowth of a certain kind of bacteria called H.

Pylori.

So blaming the H.

Pylori for the ulcers is fair, but the problem was ultimately the wrong amount of stomach acid.

A similar thing is true in the small intestine.

There's a layer of mucus that protects the one cell thick wall and keeps things sliding through and past.

That mucus layer is supposed to keep bacteria from entering the bloodstream.

But if there's no mucus layer or too thin of a mucus layer, then you're going to have a same kind of problem.

That bacteria are going to grow and go into places where they don't belong.

So where are the bacteria supposed to be in your digestive system?

That would be the large intestine.

So after the small intestine comes the large intestine.

At the end of the large intestine is the opening to the outside of the world where your poo comes out.

The large intestine is where your main gut microbiome live.

They're supposed to live in the large intestine, not the small one.

When the small intestine has an overgrowth of bacteria, sometimes it's because you're constipated and you've gotten backed up enough that your fecal matter has stuck out past the opening to the large intestine and it's sticking into the small intestine.

And that's not where that stuff is supposed to live.

And so it goes right into the bloodstream, and you are more toxic because of it.

The large intestine is where your microbiome lives.

And your microbiome is in charge of turning fiber into energy, making postbiotic chemicals which are used as signals for the body that good things or bad things are happening.

Your gut microbiome makes your vitamin B12, for example.

And so the fact that your large intestine is there is a way of keeping you healthy.

The quality of your large intestine is intimately related to your brain health.

The quality of your small intestine is intimately related to your immune health.

Both of them affect your mood.

Both of them affect the challenge to the liver and the kidneys and the brain.

And in order to make sure that you're properly assimilating the food that you take in, you must have a daily poo.

Now, the tricky thing about discussing your poo is that you only know what is your personal normal.

Which means if your personal normal is to have one bowel movement every three days, that's not going to sound wrong to you.

That just sounds like the way you've always been.

But you do need a daily poo, because just like you eat every day, you need to get rid of the waste products every day.

And the transit time from mouth to poo coming out does vary from person to person.

But typically it's a day and a half and it shouldn't be any longer.

Which means if you eat every day, you poo every day.

And then your body gets cleaned out and all is well.

So if you don't take enough water and minerals in, you'll have a hydration problem.

And that can contribute to constipation.

If you don't have enough stomach acid, that can contribute to lack of bile flow and lack of the laxative benefit of it and contribute to constipation.

Sometimes the problem is is that you can't break down the food well enough and your body goes oh this is yucky.

This needs to leave now.

And that would be diarrhea.

And if it's really bad then it's not just diarrhea, it is throwing up as well.

Not a favorite activity of anyone I know, but all of these things are indicators of good digestion, good assimilation, or suboptimal.

No one likes to be suboptimal.

Digestive fire is important too fiery and you don't feel good, not enough fire and you're not getting what you need from that awesome food.

Your digestive fire changes as you age.

It changes with stress levels.

It changes with all sorts of things, but you're looking to find a good digestive state.

Digestion and assimilation are only one part of the seven fundamentals of functional wellness that can help you feel better, not older.

I look forward to the chance to help you with your digestion.

All you need to do is schedule a new client.

Consult with me at my website.

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The Sustain your Vitality podcast is a gift from Zenin Vitality with Zoa LLC and Intentional Vitality Retreats based in the State of Maryland, usa.

All the podcast things planning, recording, editing, producing have all been done by me, Zoa Connor, PhD.

Even though you can call me doctor, I'm not a medical professional and your safety is your responsibility.

By listening to this podcast podcast and understanding that any movement, nutrition, lifestyle or health protocols discussed, you are agreeing to take full responsibility for your actions.

Zen and Vitality with Zoa are not responsible for any injuries or issues that may occur.

This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized medical, wellness, nutrition, lifestyle or movement and fitness advice.

Always practice any fitness or movement related activities in a safe environment.

I make no claims about the effectiveness of the techniques or protocols discussed for you or any specific results that you may achieve.

I recommend you consult with your healthcare professional before changing your diet, exercise, routine or healthcare plan.

Zen and Vitality with Zoa and the guest of this program podcast are not liable for any injuries or health problems that may arise from following the information presented.