Natural Wellbeing Blog

During menopause, your body goes through a lot of changes. Your hormone levels shift, which can lead to mood swings, hot flashes, insomnia, vaginal dryness, hair loss and more. For many women, this period of transitions can be extremely stressful.

The average modern diet tends to consist of processed, refined foods, simple sugars and imbalanced nutrients. As a result, your gut health may be suffering. An unhealthy diet, paired with other factors like stress, illness and antibiotics, can ultimately contribute to an imbalanced gut microbiome and, by extension, an unhealthy life.

Millions of people around the world suffer from mental disorders like anxiety and depression, and the general understanding of mental wellbeing as a whole continues to improve by the day. Although mental illness is largely understood to be rooted in genetics and brain chemistry, research is finding that there is also a connection between mental health and something seemingly unrelated: the gut.

If you’ve browsed the aisles of your local health food or supplement store recently, you’ve probably seen bottles upon bottles of pills called “probiotics.” Next to them, or even included on the same packaging, might be things called “prebiotics.” These supplements have become very popular in recent years because of their proposed health benefits.

When you hear the term “bacteria,” you probably instantly think of the nasty germs living on your hands or on dirty surfaces that can make you sick. While some bacteria are certainly hazardous to our health, not all bacteria are bad bacteria—in fact, there are hundreds of forms of bacteria living inside our bodies, helping to keep us healthy.