Why Summer Heat can Actually Excite Havoc on Gut Health [Episode #708]

This week’s topic is: Why Summer Heat Can Actually Excite Havoc on Gut Health

Just in the way that we shift our clothes, our seasonal foods season by season to really make sure that we are on top of our best self care practices. We want to be aware of the effect that the weather and the cycles have on our gut health. Ayurveda says that gut health and digestion are central to our health overall in our wellbeing. And this is something that I have been talking about for many, many years, all the way back to my first book, the Beauty Detox Solution, which was published over 10 years ago now.

I am really passionate about talking about this topic. I know what it’s done for me when I’ve worked to really improve my gut health. It’s done everything from increasing my joy, my peace, my energy, and my skin health, clearing my acne.

It’s just completely transformed my life. It’s made it easier for me to meditate more deeply, increasingly more deeply. And so it’s really important that we pay attention to all these little shifts and nuances. And as we focus on it today, how summer can specifically affect your gut health.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Debbie – Arizona (Body  Cornerstone)

Kimberly, I work outside for most of the day for my job and it’s been an abnormally hot. I have noticed this summer my stomach and digestion is really off and not doing well. Could it be from being outside in the heat all day?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Hi loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast where our focus this week is on our body cornerstone. And our topic is Why Summer Heat Can Actually Excite Havoc on Gut Health. And so just in the way that we shift our clothes, our seasonal foods season by season to really make sure that we are on top of our best self care practices. We wanna be aware of the effect that the weather and the cycles also has on our gut health. Aveda says that gut health and digestion are central to our health overall in our wellbeing. And this is something that I have been talking about for many, many years, all the way back to my first book, the BD detox solution, which was published over 10 years ago now. So I am really passionate about talking about this topic. I know what it’s done for me when I’ve worked to really improve my gut health.

It’s done everything from increased mys, my joy, my peace, my energy, my skin health. It’s helped declare my acne. It’s just completely transformed my life. It’s made it easier for me to meditate more deeply, increasingly more deeply. And so it’s really important that we pay attention to all these little shifts and nuances. And as we focus on it today, how summer can specifically affect your gut health.

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Question around the topic of: Why Summer Heat can Actually Excite Havoc on Gut Health: Kimberly, I work outside for most of the day for my job and it’s been an abnormally hot. I have noticed this summer my stomach and digestion is really off and not doing well. Could it be from being outside in the heat all day?

All right? So let’s get right into our show today about summer heat, having an impact on your gut health and not a good impact. So this question comes from Debbie, who lives in Arizona. Hello, Debbie, my love. Thank you for participating. Thank you for submitting a question and you write Kimberly. I work outside for most of the day for my job, and it’s been of normally hot. I’ve noticed this summer, my stomach and digestion is really off and not doing well. Could it be from being outside in the heat all day? So again, Debbie, thank you so much for this question. It has been a very hot time of year.

And in particular, for many of us, there’s been various levels of heat waves going through depending on where we live. And so the, the long and short is that yes, there is something to be said for the heat, having an impact on your body and your gut health. This is known in, in our Uve medicine is excess Pitta. And we know that when fire is in excess, think about in nature when fire rages like uncontrolled fires, forest fires, there’s destruction, there is imbalance, there is inflammation. And so when there is excess Pitta, there’s excess fire, excess heat in our environment, we have to take steps to balance that otherwise this element, which we think is outside of us, but really also inside of us, the Pancha Maha BTA theory of our Veta states that the same five elements in nature are the same five elements in our body.

And we are intrinsically connected to nature. So we’re going to be affected by what is going on in our external environment. And so everything as we’ll get into, in a moment from dehydration, just taking in that extra element, through absorption, through being outside, it’s going to have an effect. And as we look at some research, which I will link to in the show notes, particularly from the national library of medicine and animal nutrition have found that in animals, hot temperatures affect the diversity and stability of bacteria and the gut and cause inflammation and changes to the gut lining. So of course these are animal studies and may not necessarily have a direct correlation to the human population, but more and more experts are starting to believe that the heat can have a similar effect on humans. Meaning that changes in body temperature can influence our gut microbiome, diversity and stability, and too much heat for extended periods of time can result in this dysbiosis or more growth of bad bacteria, which can lead to symptoms such as bloating, gas, diarrhea, worsening symptoms of IBS.

You know, as you mentioned in your question, Debbie, you’re noticing that your digestion feels off and you’re outside all day in the heat. So it is something to pay attention to. It is something to be aware of. And as I mentioned in a general wider VEIC sense, we wanna notice when one element is predominant and then we wanna balance whether that’s dipping in water more, there’s lots of fire, um, fiery element, fiery heat. So we wanna take cool baths. We wanna drink water. We wanna drench our internal state with water, having hot water with lemon room, temperature, water, lots of things that we’ll talk about in just a moment to create that balance. Similarly in the fall, our conversation would shift to how there is an excess of vodka energy. So air wind, which makes us more susceptible to colds, flu, so on and so forth.

So this is about protecting and adding heat, adding fire. So we add scarves, for instance, we protect our body with our clothing. So it’s always about balancing the elements. And right now we wanna balance this fiber I’m fi first thing I wanna talk about, we balance the fire. And the first thing I wanna talk about spoiler alert is increasing the fiber <laugh>. So one of the things that we wanna do particularly this time of year is we want to increase fiber, which is such an important element for balancing our microbiome. It helps us to create that really healthy, strong base, which is going to be, uh, more efficient at detoxifying. It’s going to help, um, create the short chain fatty acids in our gut, which in which in turn creates, uh, increase systemic, um, in decrease inflammation overall, it helps to protect our gut microbiome.

Fiber is so important. Now there’s many experts and many other, um, guests that we’ve had on our show previously, which we will link to in the show notes, such as our incredible, um, Dr. B, um, who’s a gastroenterologist who’s plant based, which talks about, he talks about how fiber is the missing element. For many people, it’s not protein, which is commonly believed. And then we have an incredible, um, professor from Cambridge who wrote a book called why calories don’t count. And he also talks about the importance of fiber. So if we wanna keep our bodies in balance, we wanna eat natural foods and natural foods are, you know, largely plant foods or all, depending on your perspective. And these foods are full of fiber and water, which brings me to our next point, which is hydration. When we are dehydrated, our detoxification pathways slow down, they, they get stagnated and eventually they can even really, um, stop being efficient altogether.

And it’s so important that we allow this flow, which down to an elemental sense, means water to pass through in abundant qualities. So a lot of these natural foods contain five, the plant foods contain fiber and they contain water. So besides having lots of room temperature, water, it’s important to eat fresh raw plant foods right now. So salads, smoothies, Glowing Green Smoothie®, you can freshen up your water with fruit, adding sliced strawberries in it, limes, herbs, like basil, just to increase the, um, you know, making it, keeping it interesting. So you continually drink, but again, it’s not just from the water, it’s the quality of the food that you’re having, because if you’re having really dense food all the time, like excessive animal products, it will take a lot of water to digest and metabolize and can lead to some dehydration. So you wanna make sure that you’re eating lots primarily or all plant-based especially right now with all those fresh, beautiful plant foods, which are also supplying you with water.

The other great source of hydration is elixers, I’m a big fan of hot elixers. Even in the summer. I love to have my herbal tea at night. I love to drink hot water with lemon in the morning, which is also said from an VEIC standpoint to promote good digestion because the heat helps to stimulate ane. So this is that internal fire, but a beneficial fire, which helps you metabolize your food more efficiently. So that’s another important aspect. And the next is developing a daily routine that you stick to. So even though you may be outside more, um, and working outside more, Debbie, you wanna make sure you’re having your morning practice. You wanna make sure you’re taking your SBO Probiotics. Hopefully you are from Solluna, which are clinically researched and very powerful in fortifying your gut health day in and day out. So you wanna make sure that you aren’t getting off track in the summer so much.

So there is this sense of regularity, which is such an important part, like the circadian rhythms in nature, just to keep your gut going in a, in a, in regularity. So this also includes making sure that you leave enough time in the morning to have a bowel movement, which seems basic, but it’s funny. I’m starting to go through basic, very preliminary potty training again. Now for the second time with Moses, with my second son, and you realize how much time and space and relaxation mentally goes into going to the bathroom. So if we’re in this different mode in summer and we’re rushing, or, you know, there’s this just a different pattern where, where, you know, we’re outside, um, we’re, we’re sort of pushing to get outside faster, whatever it is we can get off in our schedule. So along with that beautiful hydration, which keeps things supple and hydrated also in our GI tracks, just making sure that there’s space, we get up early enough to do our meditation, ideally to connect inside, to get into our breath, to go to the bathroom as well.

And next it’s important to make sure that you are getting enough sleep and enough rest. There is research correlating sleep as being beneficial for good gut health. And we’ve had some great sleep doctors on here as well, which we can link to those show notes, but when we don’t sleep well, what happens is that there’s an increase of cortisol and stress hormones in the body, and this can lead to increased permeability in the gut. So in summertime, we need to stick to an evening routine. It’s certainly light out longer, which can trick us sometimes into believing, oh, I have all this extra time, but we still wanna be on point and getting our routine going. So that maybe that might mean starting your shower a little, you know, at that time, even though it’s light out, I know this is a funny thing with my son. So when they’re like mama, it’s bath time already, it’s still light out. But the truth, as I explained to ’em, no, this is just the light right now. This is how it appears, but it’s actually a lot later than we think. So we keep that beautiful sleep going and we are able to, we’re really able to, um, stick to that routine and keep our guts strong and healthy and so much repair and restoration and rejuvenation happens in the nighttime hours.

And then the next thing I’ll say is just focusing on really good digestion basics in the summer. So eating slowly, chewing, well, having lots of smoothies, which we mentioned in the hydration point, because they’re easy to digest in summer. We are excited. We wanna be outside. Sometimes there’s a tendency to rush meals because we wanna play or we wanna do something else. And it’s really important to remember that there’s so much energy that your body is using to keep your internal temperature cooled down. And so this is diverting energy away from other bodily processes, including digestion. So when you eat slower, when you chew well, when you take the time to blend foods like smoothies, this allows your digestive system to keep up with you and your summer needs. So it’s just really important going back to basics, honoring your body, shifting with the seasons.

In Review

So let me review how, um, how you can really fortify your digestion in summer, which is the time as I mentioned, where your gut microbiome can be under particular stress, and we wanna take extra care to nurture number one, increasing your fiber intake. Number two, staying hydrated, not just through water, but warm temperature water is of course important, but also through hydrating fruits and veggies as whole plant foods contained fiber and water, number three, sticking to your daily routines like your morning practice, including having space to go to the bathroom, which leads us to number four, your evening routine, and making sure your sleep is in check because sleep is an important part of maintaining good digestion and gut health. And finally eating slowly chewing, well, lots of smoothies and soups, still even room temperature, soups, things that are going to enhance digestion because your body is using energy to keep your body cool and pulling it away from other processes such as digestion. So it’s really important, um, to do that. So please be sure to check out the show notes over at mysolluna.com as always, we will link to the research in this show, as well as other podcasts articles, meditations recipes, that will be helpful to you and also in conjunction with this theme and this topic in particular.

So I will be back here on Monday for our next interview podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I am so honored and grateful for our connection. I look forward to connecting with you more. Remember you can submit your own questions also over there at mysolluna.com. And hopefully I will answer one, answer your question on one of our upcoming shows. So sending you so much love so much gratitude, Namaste.