Here are my top six tips to reset your gut after traveling!
Tip #1: Eat an early dinner.
This is my biggest tip that I could give you. It’s so simple. It’s free, it’s so easy and it’s easy to implement. When we have an earlier dinner, we elongate the amount of time that we’re able to rest our digestive system. We’re simply giving the gut much more time to really repair and rejuvenate because the number one time when it actually gets to do this is when we’re sleeping. If we have that later dinner, either right before we go to bed or an hour before we go to bed, and then we wake up and we eat something first thing in the morning, that’s not a lot of time that our body has to really repair and rejuvenate because it’s spending most of that time actually digesting our food.
When we elongate that window, the body can digest all your food, which takes about four hours. And then after that, it gets to clean house, repair, rejuvenate and seal back up that gut lining. We’re also not adding in anything extra that could potentially be causing inflammation or requiring energy to be used towards digestion as opposed to healing, transformation, and repairing. I aim for around 5-6 PM for my dinner, but work with your own schedule and customize for your needs! For myself and a lot of my clients, when we move that dinner to around 5-6 PM, it makes a huge difference. You’ll feel like a brand new person in the morning! Do this a few days in a row for best results. It’s so simple, and one of the best ways to reset after traveling.
Tip #2: Remove dairy, gluten, and sugar for around three days.
Five days is awesome. Seven’s better. Forever is the best. But three days works, too. Dairy, gluten and sugar are things that I like to call common toxic triggers. They basically like tick off pretty much everyone’s body regardless of whether you have celiac or you’re lactose intolerant. Most of us don’t have the proper enzymes to actually digest and assimilate dairy as best as we should if we’re eating it regularly. Wheat crops are genetically modified, which affects gluten, and it creates serious inflammation. It also actually starts to pull away at that gut lining that surrounds the gut. This gut lining has things called tight junctions.
When we eat things like sugar and gluten and dairy, or we take antibiotics, or we’re under like severe stress and trauma, these tight junctions start to pull apart. When they pull apart, things start to flow through that really should not be flowing through. This is where the term leaky gut comes from. These tight junctions get a little leaky, and toxins flow through to the bloodstream where they shouldn’t be going. So, removing the dairy, gluten, and sugar is going to help secure the gut lining and those important tight junctions. This tip is definitely worth trying because it’s something that my clients see amazing results with.
And, it’s easier to implement than you think. Go for three days, or for five, maybe seven or forever. If you need any help with that, check out my 3 Day Gut Reset that’s posted below! My reset removes these automatically, takes out some other things that tick most people off, and incorporates a ton of other gut-healing benefits. You can download it for free below this video! It also has amazing recipes that are children and boyfriends-approved. My HAN Cookbook could be another amazing resource for you because all of the recipes in there are dairy free, gluten free, refined sugar free, and freaking delicious. My point here is: try removing dairy, gluten, and sugar for 3-7 days because they’re the biggest offenders to the gut.
Tip #3: Get some sleep.
Go to bed earlier. I know this can seem like easier said than done, but this makes such a huge difference. Remember what I said in tip #1 about sleeping and how that’s the time when the gut can repair itself? This is what I’m talking about. Research has shown that a few nights of poor sleep can negatively affect the microbial balance in the gut.
We have all these microbes and bacteria in the gut, and after just two nights of poor sleep, the bad bacteria start to outnumber the good bacteria, and the number of good bacteria actually decreases. Maybe you’ve heard of probiotics, which are good bacteria. So make sure to get good quality sleep, and aim for seven to nine hours. This is also hyper-personal, and you know what you need for your body. Try to prioritize the sleep because it’s going to make a huge difference for your gut health and therefore, everything else including your skin, energy, digestion, mood, etc. So go to bed earlier!
Tip #4: Hydrate.
Traveling dehydrates us, right? When we’re flying, we don’t have access to as much water and the plane air is super dehydrating. Even if we’re in a car doing a road trip, we’re dehydrated because we’re trying to stop using the bathroom. Maybe that’s just me and my family, but hydrating is so important during travel, AND after travel. Proper hydration has actually been shown to benefit the mucosal lining of the intestines, and it also just keeps things moving through our system how we want them to. Also, using the bathroom is the number one way that we eliminate toxins, so if we’re not doing that regularly, consistently, or properly, there’s something going on.
Monitoring this is so important because if it goes unnoticed, it can become a really big problem. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth can happen, as well as skin issues. In all, we want to make sure you’re using the bathroom very regularly. And the number one thing to do here is to hydrate efficiently. Make sure that you’re getting in your eight glasses of water a day, if not more. I usually recommend more for a multitude of reasons, but a few other things that dehydrate you are coffee and exercise. If you drink coffee, drink an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee. If you exercise regularly or live in a hot climate, you need to drink more water to properly hydrate yourself.
Everyone’s body is different, so personalize it to what you need. Make sure to hydrate because it will benefit your gut by keeping things moving properly. It also helps to solidify and allow your stool to be easy to pass. Maybe that’s a little gross, but we need to talk about it! If you don’t like the taste of water, add some mint to it. Mint is also really soothing and pacifying for the gut. You can also add a slice of lemon. It’s also really helpful to get in your water through eating whole, fresh foods. Foods such as apples, big salads, carrots, celery, watermelon, and cucumbers are super, super hydrating.
Most of us don’t eat enough of them, so increase your intake of those foods and it will help you eat your water. Having a healthy gut is going to help promote really dewy, hydrated, fresh skin. You get that glow that everyone wants, a really high functioning immune system, better sleeping habits, less anxiety, a positive mindset, and definitely more energy.
Tip #5: Morning sun exposure for resetting your circadian rhythm.
When we travel, we’re likely in different time zones, on a different schedule, and out of our normal routine. And every human has an internal body clock. It is like a 24 hour set of rhythms that help determine when we go to bed and when we wake up. Gut research has shown that the gut plays a huge role in helping to maintain and regulate this body clock.
Getting proper sleep and resetting that natural circadian rhythm, allows us to sleep effortlessly and easily through the night. One of the things that really helps this is morning sun exposure. So ideally we are waking up with the sun and we are going to bed when the sun goes down. However, I’m not doing that, and most of us probably aren’t doing that. If you are, you get 10 gold stars. But with technology, with work schedules, with all the stuff that we all manage, chances are that’s not happening.
We can help those circadian rhythms by just going outside and getting that morning sun exposure first thing in the morning. Another reason why I like this tip is that it’s super easy to implement – and it’s free! Morning sun exposure is going to help reset you because your brain will recognize that it’s sunny out now, so later it’ll be dark. That recognition is what’s going to help reset your circadian rhythm. You’ll be producing more melatonin when you should be, and that’s going to naturally help you fall asleep. Just 10-15 minutes outside, first thing in the morning. This is not only going to help with jet lag, but it’s going to help get you back in the rhythm of things when you get back from traveling. Especially so if you traveled outside of your home time zone to a different country or something like that.
It also just feels really nice and relaxing to get outside first thing in the morning. You’re also getting in some vitamin D, which is good for all sorts of things like immune function and metabolism. So just expose yourself to some sunlight first thing in the morning, and aim for 15 minutes. It’s going to help everything, but it’s especially going to help you sleep during the night, and we know that the gut affects how much you sleep. This is why clients who have done my program report sleeping through the night for the first time in 10 years! We repaired her gut, transformed her gut health and then she slept through the night and didn’t need the medication she was taking.
Tip #6: Avoiding the late-night blue light.
These last three tips all correlate, all helping you get better sleep so your gut health is better and so you feel more on track. We all know that when we don’t get a proper night’s sleep, we’re way more tempted to reach for the candy bowl. Once it hits 11:00 AM at the office, we are more tired, we’re more likely to skip the workout. We are more likely to crave sugar and carbs and it’s kind of this vicious cycle, right? We’re also maybe in a bad mood, which is no fun. So my sixth tip is going to be avoiding that late-night blue light, which is going to help you sleep. Like I said in my last tip, the circadian rhythm needs external factors to trigger.
So, things like that morning sunshine are going to help your body recognize that it’s morning, and it’s going to help regulate that circadian rhythm. When we add the late-night blue light, this is going to do the opposite. It will trick your body into thinking that it’s still sunny outside, even though it could be like 11:00 PM and you’re watching Netflix – I’ve been there, no shame. But, the late-night blue light isn’t going to help you feel better after traveling or really help you feel better ever, so we want to avoid it. When it gets dark, your pineal gland produces a hormone called melatonin. This hormone helps you fall asleep and makes you feel sleepy. But, the key here is that this happens when it gets dark, so if you’re always in front of a screen, melatonin won’t be produced.
It could be your iPhone or regular phone, your computers, tablets, TVs, things like that. The blue light from these devices prevents the production of melatonin, which makes it harder to sleep when you should and that can then disrupt all sorts of other hormones and your gut health.
So, those are my top six tips to help reset your gut after a time that you’re traveling. Any questions? Let me know below, send me an email, or DM me on Instagram!
