Your Gut and Your Brain

Understand the Foggy Brain and Gut-Brain Connection

Do you have a hard time focusing, or forget simple details, or mix up your words, or feel scattered or confused, don’t blame it on your brain— blame it on your gut.

Brain fog is considered as a loss of mental clarity, difficulty concentrating, and forgetfulness. Though you may feel this way before your first-morning coffee, brain fog is actually a symptom of a deeper issue—inflammation in your body— and in particular, your digestive tract. Fogginess and slower cognitive function is more closely related to digestive conditions such as leaky gut, candida, and bacterial dysbiosis. This connection exists between your gut and nervous system, called the gut-brain axis.

If you’ve got an inflamed brain, the inflammation in the brain can decrease nerve conduction. That can cause depression and reduced brain activity. That reduced activity of the brain reduces the output into the vagus nerve, and that causes more digestive problems and more inflammation in the gut, more inflammatory cytokines in the bloodstream, and those go into the brain. It’s quite a vicious cycle.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Go gluten-free. Gluten is now being recognized as a major cause of leaky gut syndrome. Your body produces a protein in your digestive tract called zonulin. Its primary function is to moderate the junctions between the cells in your digestive tract, which help prevent undigested food particles and pathogens from passing through. Gluten can actually trigger your body to overproduce zonulin, which breaks apart the tight junctions and you can end up with leaky gut. Leaky gut is nicknamed “leaky brain.”
2. Avoid processed carbs like white flour and sugar; they are like a slow poison to the gut. They feed the bad bacteria in your gut, which allows them to grow and outnumber your good bacteria. When your good bacteria is depleted, you’re more likely to experience cognitive effects, including brain fog.
3. Drink juices high in beta carotene, which is healing for the gut. Make green juices with a little carrot. This is excellent for your gut. Get my juice powder Garden’s Best.
4. Eat a high-fiber diet. The cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and kale.
5. Drink plenty of water—at least 8 glasses a day.
6. Aloe vera gel can help heal the lining of a damaged intestinal tract, healing and/or preventing leaky gut syndrome.
7. Cleanse your colon.

Recipe of the Day
Happy-Mood Morning

Fennel juice has been used as a traditional tonic to help the body release endorphins, the “feel good” peptides from the brain into the bloodstream.  Endorphins help to diminish anxiety and fear and generate a mood of euphoria.

• 4-5 carrots, well-scrubbed, green tops removed, ends trimmed
• 3 fennel stalks; include leaves and flowers
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 apple (green is lower in sugar)
• Handful spinach
• 1-inch piece ginger root

Cut produce to fit your juicer’s feed tube.  Juice apple first and follow with other ingredients. Stir and pour into a glass; drink as soon as possible.

Serves 1-2

From The Living Foods Revolution