Beating Anxiety & Depression via Gut Health

Hey guys. We are coming live. This is the, the first episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast and we thought that the first episode will be all about anxiety and depression and the link on gut health. So I'm Cribbin Govenda for those who don't know me. I'm a food scientist and digestive health advocate and founder of Noshmi Organics. And we have my colleague James Shadrach. James.

Hey. Yeah, so I'm James. So I'm well into the gut health scene. Mainly got in because of the anxiety side of it and the health and optimization. So I have a background in psychology and an honours degree in psychology and I'm really passionate about gut health and specifically the mental health aspect of it.

So James, with your time so far here with us at Noshmi Organics, what has been your takeaway from a, I guess a psychological perspective coming from that psychology field and quite an abstract link, I guess, back in those early days when you first studied between the gut and the mind. So what's your thoughts on that?

I think it's huge. I think first of all, I'm just amazed by how much new research is coming out. So I'm constantly looking through new articles that are published like either this month or last month with these new breakthroughs. So I think for starters it's still showing there's a lot that we don't know about this area which is just. Yeah, it's incredible. So I think from the anxiety part of it and the mental health aspect, all I know is for me, like when I was younger, I wouldn't, I just ate horribly. Really bad diet, only like the most restricted diet. I was just such a picky eater. Like get the, get this. All I would, all I really wanted to eat was just plain, plain foods, like plain pasta with just a little bit of salt and butter and just plain rice. I was such a weirdo, but that was my thing. I was particular about it. Like, I just, I didn't want pasta sauce, I just wanted like plain, plain food and I'd make my parents give me that stuff. So restricted diet, lots of like overly processed foods, lots of like chocolate and white bread and stuff like that. And you know, looking back when that was my diet, I just felt horrible all the time. Just like in this mental funk and I was just feeling awful, really. And looking back what I now know, it seems that a lot of that was to do with diet and my gut health. My gut was just in turmoil. Antibiotics too. Anytime I was sick, parents would send me straight to the doctors go for a round of antibiotics and that was frequent, like multiple times throughout the year. So looking back, I think that accounts for why I felt so awful all the time. But ever since I got into more of the gut health and started eating cleaner, healthier foods, I feel great.

Great. I have noticed a shift, I think, I guess since you first started with this, you had the gut testing, you start to incorporate more fermented type foods to your diet. So I'm not surprised that you're starting to notice the actual feeling of that difference. In terms of your mental clarity, has there been any improvements?

Yeah, like, I think I used to just be in a fog all the time. Just this low level haze and kind of a fog. I really believe that was because of how my gut microbiome was just being damaged all the time by the foods I was eating.

Totally. James, I can resonate with you. I mean, I think a lot of people know my story. About seven years ago, I struggled extremely badly with anxiety and depression and I was really on the verge of suicide. My life had collapsed. I found myself alone in an apartment ready to end my life. And I think back then, I'd been in the food industry now for a good 20 years, but. But I was just at that point starting to establish that gut brain connection. And the first thing I did was go to a psychologist. And the psychologist was like, oh, you need to go onto Prozac or Zoloft or something like that. But I didn't really want to do that. I wanted to explore a natural way to do it because I looked at the side effects and didn't really resonate with me. So initially I did some pretty cool work with a psychologist on just expressing exactly how I felt. And I think even regressing back to some childhood traumas, that really helped me significantly. And I remember the psychologist actually telling me to, because I had some issues with workplace bullying. I think time that was causing a lot of mental issues for me. No one likes to be bullied, especially not in the workplace, by your boss. It's not a good thing. So she actually got me to visualize like a pillow and she rolled up this piece of paper and she said, now have a conversation with your boss and your boss is this pillow. So I got this rolled up piece of paper and I had this conversation with my boss about exactly how I felt about it. And I proceeded to beat the living hell out of this fillet and the end of it. The paper, that rolled up piece of paper was just shreds and my hands were actually dripping blood. But it was so cathartic. It was like, so cathartic just to get all those emotions out. And I think we were starting to understand the link between gut and brain. But I think there's also a place for dealing with trauma from the past, like childhood traumas. Anything that that's causing, like, sitting in your subconscious mind, that's affecting you, how you feel, and, you know, things like the landmark program. I think you've just been through the landmark program, and I've been through it myself. And it was hugely healing for me because for me, it helped me to deal with a lot of the issues with my mother and, you know, all the feelings of animosity that I had with my mother growing up because I felt like she favored my brother. And she. And that was like, almost like a story that I held my whole life, that I wasn't good enough because my brother was favored. But really going through the landmark program, and that was probably a good six years ago when I went through it hugely, hugely healing to the psyche of having belief in myself and feeling that I'm actually good enough. But I know that you've been through it. So what's your feelings about the Landmark program?

I think it's awesome. I think it just goes to show how much of your life you can spend holding on to just past negativity. It's crazy, because I got this odd feeling that was similar to the Matrix just going through their programs. And I felt like I just didn't realize how much negativity I was holding onto or how much meaning and how much story I was giving everything. And it's just like a really cathartic feeling, just letting all that go, letting go of the story. Because it doesn't really help anyone.

Exactly. And I think that that whole element of story and how we frame our reality and how we perceive things. And I did read a book a couple of years ago, the Charisma Myth. I'm not sure you've come across it. The Charisma Myth. I'm blanking on the actual. The author, Olivia. Olivia Fox Cabane. Fantastic book. And it's pretty much around charisma, but she has a section in it when she talks about this, you know, being on a highway, and then you've got this black car that speeds in front of you and cuts you off and you're seething. What is this person doing? They're cutting me off. And you have all this anger towards this person. But the way she framed it was in actual fact there Was a lady in that car who had a sick child or something, Something along. I'm paraphrasing, there was a sick child and she's rushing to hospital and she's desperate to save her child's life or something along those lines. But we perceive it as being something. The story that we create is that this person is doing me wrong. But when we actually reframe things, it's extremely powerful. Because if you think about it, most of the way you live your life is in storyline. You're making some judgment or some perception on a frame that you have. But if we're deluding ourselves all the time, how about we delude ourselves in a positive way? How about we think about the best in people? How about we find gratitude? And that's for me, dealing with mental trauma, mental illness, depression, anxiety has been one of the fundamental things that have helped me to deal. And it seems simple, you know, like things like meditation, dealing with anxiety and depression. I remember I was being counseled when I was going through issues with my boss and this was the first time that actually sat down in a guided meditation. And so imagine someone that's lived their life always feeling this low level anxiety, always feeling an edge. And just doing a simple five minute guided meditation with this counselor just helped me feel a lot more present and a lot more grounded. And that anxiety just lifted. And that lasted for a good hour, two hours afterwards. And that was the first time I experienced that any experience with, with meditation or anything like that.

It's incredible. Yeah, it really does come down to so much of the meaning and stories that we give things. Like when I was at that actual program, I was talking to one of the people I was in a group with.

This is the landmark.

Yeah, yeah. And there was this. A guy came up and started talking to the person I was talking to and cut off our conversation. And he did it once and then, then he did it again. And normally for me, I just wouldn't say anything. But because of all the work I'd done through the course, I realized, well, if I'm upset about something, I have to express it. So I just tapped him on the shoulder. Hey, excuse me, you're completely cutting off this conversation. Can you please stop? And he just said yes. Then he walked away. And I didn't really think much about it. But later in the course he came back to me and he just kind of said, oh, hey, thanks so much for doing that, because I was going to get really angry about it, but know, great. And it just kind of hit me that, well, his perception of everything was completely different to mine. Like, he kind of walked off, but I was just saying, hey, stop. You can be part of the conversation. You're not wrong, you're not bad. But his whole mind was seeing that he's the bad guy and he's done something wrong. So he walked off. And it just goes to show, my meaning is so different to his. But each person acts as though it's true. Like, if you think you're worthless, that's your reality and that's what you think is true. But another person could look at the situation, be like, no, that's not true at all. But you can get so caught up in your own view or your own reality of what you think is true.

Totally, totally. And also the masks that we wear. And this brings me to another, I guess, key reason how I manage to deal with anxiety and depression. And we will get to the gut health that's so important. But the other thing was doing acting training. And you've been to a couple of Claire D's Meisner training as well. And I found that learning how to act is so counterintuitive because you perceive acting as pretend. But from learning the craft of acting, it actually teaches you how to be yourself and to accept all of you and all your shades and colors. And so, you know, we have this feeling of not being good enough, or it's almost. Then we create like a mask on top to hide that part of ourselves because we think that's a deficiency. But I think there's incredible strength that comes from accepting all of you, all your colors, you know, all your different shades. Like, I mean, how boring would the world be? But it's all those individual pieces of ourselves that, I mean, I don't think there's really just one you. There's all these different parts of you that you bring out in different situations. And I think that acting really helped me to embrace the darkness and the light because it's all part of me.

Cool. So acting lets you, or I guess, like, delve into all those different sides of yourself and then accept them as well.

Totally, totally. And very similar to the exercise that we had with the psychologists. We had this exercise called it wasn't Private Moment. I'm Blanking. It was like it was set up in a way that you're having a conversation with someone that has impacted your life in some way. So it can be positive or negative. Typically, I would tend to go into negative places. So you choose another actor and they would embody the person that you have this conflict with. And it was actually my late brother that I had a lot of, I guess, conflict growing up with. And so we had some actors that would play my brother and I would have a conversation with him. But it was, again, it was like just me speaking 100% for myself, truthfully, authentically. But even though it's an imagined circumstance, it's almost like you're talking to him. So there's some conflict resolution that happens because you're holding all the conflict inside of you. But then having that conversation with him, it can fully express. And when you express that emotion, it can shift and change. So that's how powerful, I think a lot of mental issues and depression, anxiety happen because there's unresolved emotions trapped inside our body. So this is another very powerful way to actually let that shift and change and resolve. Because the body can't really tell between what's imagined and what's real. So it's like watching really scary movies. So your body is reacting in a way that it's in danger, like you're watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something, and you're feeling all the emotions, like this killer is going to actually be endangering your life. So in a similar vein, it's like when I'm having this conversation with this actor that's. That's playing my brother, it's like me talking to him so my body can actually resolve.

Yeah. Wow. It's amazing. Interesting point for the actor as well. Kind of step into that. It's like they're doing a massive favor for you.

Totally. And I mean, I played. I sometimes I played the actors for someone else. And I remember having. Going through some. Some exercises where, you know, I was like, playing someone's boyfriend who had cheated on them. And then this, this. This actress is like fully yelling at me. And then I have to fully embody that and take that on as an actor. But it's. But it was such a gift for me, and I think I felt very grateful to be able to be the gift for the other person to actually receive as well, to help them deal with their traumas.

I think that's a big part of it too, like just being or playing with those emotions, embracing them. I think a lot of people just kind of go through their life really dull to any type of emotion, just kind of like flatlining the whole time. I think there's real power in letting those emotions out and experiencing and expressing them in a safe environment, like expressing anger or expressing sadness or having a really deep conversation with somebody or even joy. I think a lot of people are just kind of flatlining. I don't think that's good for mental health at all.

I totally agree, James. I think, well, even anger, which is perceived as something quite negative, is extremely powerful when expressed in a safe way because your anger is actually telling your psyche, your body that you're not happy with something. So when we suppress things like that, the classic mask that people wear I think is the people pleaser. And it's like when they live. And this was me to a T, wanting to always please everybody and not rock the boat and have everybody like you. But that's extremely, extremely stifling. And I think it's one of the reasons why I always felt anxious because I always felt like I was looking for approval. Approval. Maybe it's related to the issues I have with my mum of not feeling good enough, but it was like always seeking approval. And I mean to wear a fake smile all day is extremely draining and I think very damaging for your psyche.

Yeah, for sure.

I think it's just that to learning how to be authentic and, and be accepting, fully accepting of yourself and be fully okay that not everybody is going to like you and be totally okay with that, that's extremely empowering. How about we shift gears? Is there any other strategies, do you think from your psychology training that you have that may help people that are listening that are dealing with some form of mental illness, Anxiety, depression?

Yeah. Look, I've read so much on psychology and mental health and I've looked at so many different books and different authors. One of the most powerful concepts I've found is by a guy called Albert Ellis. And he's passed now, but he was a really powerful psychologist and he came up with what's called rational emotive behavioral therapy. I think that's it. But basically his idea was unconditional self love. And he was saying the issue that people have is that they put conditions on the love that they give themselves. So I'll love myself if I do this. I'll love myself if I'm successful, I'll love myself if I am healthy or if I have a lot of money. And what he was saying is all those ifs or conditions that you put on yourself creates so much pain, so much anxiety and suffering. But the flip side of looking at it is that I will love and accept myself regardless of the condition. So even if I mess things up, and even if I'm not the healthiest version of myself right now, I still accept myself and I found that extremely powerful and especially coming from a really challenging place, if outwardly your life really is not in a good place, like if you're struggling with your health, struggling with your finances, and you don't really see anything going that well, even if you can accept and love yourself and that's such a powerful place to come from, and then you really can move forward. So for me, that, that would be the most powerful thing I've learned from all my studies.

Wow, that's profound. I mean, it's, I think it comes back to be fully, fully accepting of yourself. Yeah, I mean, warts and all, just, you're an individual, you're a beautiful person, you are here for, to serve your purpose. You are enough. And just having that, that realization, that acceptance, cutting through all the stories that you've been telling yourself that have been negative is hugely beneficial and hugely healing. And I think by having full acceptance of oneself, you can fully serve and fully help others without being stuck, stifled by being stuck in your head. And this comes back to some strategies that I learned as well in acting training, where I think a lot of the times when we struggle with anxiety and depression is because we're stuck in our heads. And it's the other mask that people normally wear is called the criticism. It's that little voice in your head that talks to you. Why did I say that? Well, I'm not good enough. It's that little, that voice that's kind of like judging you or criticizing you. And that's that critic. So to deal with the critic, I found that dropping into my body really helps silence that voice. Because I really think we have very different parts of our brain. I think being in our body, we know the gut has a separate enteric nervous system, but I think there's also different parts of your brain and different, like there's theories on it. You've got your, the frontal lobe, which is the thinking side, and you've got the reptilian brain, which is more the primal side. And then the mammalian brain, which is more your emotional side. And I think dropping more into that body side, which is your emotional side of your brain that frees you from that critic. And some strategies that have really helped me to deal with that is simple things like exercise, like going to the gym, having a hard, high intensity training session helps me to get out of my head and into my body. And another one that really helps me is doing yoga. So when you're listening intently on what that teacher is telling you and you don't want to mess up because you're so in tune and you're so in tune to your listening and making sure you're following the poses. And the poses themselves might have some benefits, but I find that it helps me drop into my body. And I know after the class is finished I feel very free and liberated and energetically I feel very different. Have you had any experiences with exercise or yoga?

Yeah, I mean my thing's jiu jitsu and that's, you know, a grappling type of martial arts. And you're sparring with people and they're really trying to get you. So it's a competitive situation you're in. And for me, there's nothing else that I think of when I'm on the mat. It's a really intense situation that you have to deal with. But I have complete clarity. I'm not thinking about business stuff that I need to do or work that I need to do or bills or anything. I feel just really refreshed out of that. I've gotten somewhat with exercise, but the training with martial arts has taken it to a whole other level because you don't have room to think about anything else.

There could be some, I think, impact of hormones as well because I think when you exercise it releases endorphins. So this is another way to kind of stimulate the way your body feels by doing exercise to release endorphins. A really funny thing that helps me really drop into my body is having an ice cold shower. So like typically when I have to run workshops, I will have a five and a half minute ice cold shower. I start hot so it's nice and comfortable and warm and like I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. And then I just quickly just turn the water on like ice cold. And it's really tough in winter. But I tell you what, I feel so euphoric after having an ice cold shower. And it could be like even doing ice plunges that can help shift state, shift that state in your body. It could also be something like sauna as well. That really, that's the opposite spectrum where you're using heat to warm up your body. And there's all sorts of health benefits as well from doing sauna or you can do hot cold as well. So I find that very interesting. But this brings me back to, to I guess the main thing that impacts me and I guess how I found out about how to heal the body and heal the depression anxiety symptoms that I had via the gut. And a huge part of it is actually diet. Diet and science is evolving all the time. And I mean, the microbiome, all the research happening on the gut bacteria, bacteria, the neurotransmitters they produce. I'm not sure whether you're aware, James, that about 90% of serotonin, which is your feel good hormone, is actually produced in the gut. And a lot of these drugs work by, like Prozac, Zoloft, work by keeping serotonin in the system longer. So that's how they managed to elevate serotonin levels. So that the serotonin is actually produced 90% by gut bacteria and 50% of dopamine, which is another neurotransmitter, GABA, acetylcholine, produced in the gut primarily by gut bacteria and the gut epithelial cells, so the gut cells themselves. So how do we, I guess, manipulate the biome to feel better?

It's a really interesting conversation. It becomes now, because, you know, neurotransmitters contribute to how we feel and our mental health. And if so much of that is controlled by your gut health, well, then the conversation moves to, hey, if we can fix our gut health, maybe we can fix some of these mental health problems that we're having.

Totally, totally. I've seen studies come out of Korea was a couple of months ago where they managed to actually predict whether a person is more neurotic versus conscientious by the types of bacteria in the gut. So this is how staggering it is. This is where the science is headed. And you might have heard terms like psychobiotics, things that are used to actually stimulate gut bacteria to improve mental health. I think there's going to be an explosion of these type of products coming as well, which is amazing.

Incredible. I mean, even with the neuroticism and conscientious idea, those two are personality traits that have been studied extensively. And basically all people, at least in the Western world where it's been studied, will fall somewhere on those different continuums. So you can be low conscientiousness or high conscientiousness. Same with low or no or high neuroticism. But that's consistent with people in general. Like, we find that something that everybody has is like five different factors or so. But if you can find that out from the gut, I mean, that is incredible. That's kind of like giving a basis for who we are and the way we act. From looking at your gut, I mean, that's incredible.

Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited by the science because the gut bacteria can actually communicate with the brain. This is what science is showing us because you've got an enteric nervous system, you've got all these nerves and neurons in the actual gut as much as a small cat. And these two systems, the brain and the enteric nervous system, operate very differently. So by using, I guess food as a start, this is a very low hanging fruit. By changing our diets to eat a lot more cleaner and cultivate, I guess, more diverse gut bacteria, I think that goes a long way in improving mental health. I think that's a really good place to start because I think if we look at firstly how we can take out the things that are disruptive to the gut microbiome and then start to incorporate things that are beneficial for gut microbiome, especially encouraging diversity. So lots of different types because all these different strains of bacteria have different purposes. Some produce neurotransmitters, others help us digest food, others produce vitamins and other important metabolites like butyrates that are all beneficial to the body. So I think it's really exciting for me that science has come so far in a sense, eight, nine years ago, there wasn't much information coming out about this impact on gut and brain. But now we see new studies coming out every month about how substantial this actually is. So, you know, things like kefir kefia in Turkish actually means feel good. So even though it's thousands and thousands of years old, I guess the people of the Caucasus Mountains where these things have originated from, kind of felt better when they were having these things. So it's incredible. And Eli Metchnikov, very early 1900s even started to establish longevity in finding pockets of people in Bulgaria and whatnot that were living over 100 because they're consuming a lot of these health giving, probiotic type foods. So not only good for, I guess, mental health, health, overall longevity. So critical.

Yeah, it's incredible. So what would you say are some of the things or I guess what damages the biome? What should we avoid if anything?

Great question. I think if you look at the science, there's some clear ones out there. I think processed foods are number one.

Question for that one. So what, what do we mean by processed foods? Like how do we break that down?

Simple. A processed food is anything that's been, I guess, adulterated substantially from its natural form. So you think about something like a, like a, like a condiment. And the way you establish that is you look at the ingredient list and you can see, well, it's got all these additives and e Numbers, something like tomato sauce. I mean, it's processed, it's pasteurized. I mean, the cooking process is not the issue. It's just that food companies need to have shelf stability. They have a supply chain. They've got to keep it around longer because the longer shelf life equals dollars for them. So shelf life. So anything that needs a substantial shelf life is going to be going to have additives in there to actually keep it around longer.

Right. Okay. And is. Are the additives and preservatives bad because they kill off bacteria so that the food can last longer? Is that how it works?

It's exactly how it works. I mean, there's some additives that are antibiotic in nature, like sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate the raw or sulfites, metabisulfite. The raw things that actually are the bactericidal. It means they kill bacteria or bacteriostatic, which means that they keep these bacterial species like flat line. They don't allow any growth of bacteria. They're stifling growth. So the same things that are in the food to keep it giving it shelf life to keep it from spoiling will still be active when you consume it. So this antibacterial effect or bacteriostatic effect is still elicited in the body. So when you consume will still be having an impact on the gut microbiome. And other things that have very clear impacts on the gut microbiome will be things like emulsifiers. There's been a clear link established to damage the gut microbiome. And also sweeteners, artificial sweeteners. So all these are very. Well, they're studied, they're established, they're not good for you. But the biggest thing for me, I think, is the one that's hidden is antibiotics from. Through meat and farmed fish. I think that is the biggest source of antibiotics. It's not from a doctor, it's actually from your food. So the antibiotics that are actually included into meat to really boost the actual, I guess, the amount of mass, the amount of meat that they can produce. They figured this out a long time ago and that the antibiotic is still effective when you consume the meat.

Wow. Yeah, it's given me a lot to think about. One thing I notice is I'll make lunch at home and after I eat what I've prepared, I feel pretty good. But a lot of the time, if I don't have the time, I'll just buy something from the store, maybe like a roll or like a sandwich or something. And I Just feel horrible afterwards. But I look at it and it's not like they've added any crazy product product in there. It's just like meat and some vegetables. Now that I think about it, there's a lot of condiments that I don't put in my food. Whether it's some type of mayonnaise or some type of mustard or sauce or whatever. So I wonder if that's it because I normally don't eat those.

That's a big one. I mean, the condiments, they're all mass produced in a factory somewhere. They're all most likely laden with preservatives and chemicals to give it shelf life. The other issue is that not many people are aware of it, but there's an actual massive food service industry. It means when you go and eat at a restaurant, a lot of the times you perceive that to be freshly prepared. But there's a whole industry built on actually servicing quick service restaurants like McDonald's, Subway, Red Rooster, all these fast food restaurants, even restaurants, even takeaways, a lot of these things are just, they're just assembled on the actual premises, but they're all processed foods, even things like chicken schnitzels. And you think, wow, they're making it there. They're getting fresh chicken breasts in the back and then they're crumbing it. And it's all made fresh. But 99% of the time, time it's just to heat and serve. I mean, it's all made in a factory, it's all crumbed at a factory. It's all, you know, it's marinated and tumbled and it's full of chemicals. It gets to a restaurant and all they're doing is just frying the thing. Hamburgers as well. A lot of hamburgers might be pre made. So there's this whole food service industry. So this, it's all to do with perception. Like you're perceiving that I'm having this fresh sandwich, but when you actually look deeper behind it and you separate all those different ingredients, there's a lot of processed foods entering that food supply. So hence that's why I always recommend that people eat fresh foods prepared themselves. I get it, it's hard, it takes more work. But I think if you plan yourself well, you establish a good relationship with a butcher, you know, a good farmers market, or a good green grocer, an organic store, health food store, and you buy all your ingredients, lots of diversity. So things that improve the gut bacteria, lots of different types of vegetables, heaps of vegetables are very important.

You have a recommendation for that, don't you? Is it, what is it, 20 vegetables a week or.

I think you need about 30 to 40 different types because each type has a slightly different fiber that can target different bacteria. So if you want diversity, we've got to have all these different types of fibers. It sounds hard to have 30 or 40, but it's also. It could be a lettuce or maybe a different type of lettuce. So rather than having the same iceberg all the time, might be tricos or something different. Or if you have certain types of fruits, maybe try different varieties of fruits. They're all different. We're bucketing them all together. It's an apple and orange, but there's different species of oranges, there's different species of kiwifruit or berries. So this is all different.

I was actually writing a post on this today based off what you said about looking at the gut microbiome like a rainforest. It's the way I was writing it was that, you know, a rainforest has this rich ecosystem of different animals and life forms and it all contributes to the development of that rainforest. And if you were to take out, for example, the food source, like every food source for monkeys, eventually all the monkeys would die out and, you know, something would take their place, but the forest would be in an imbalance because they're missing part of their ecosystem. And then I wonder, is that similar, similar to the gut, that if you're only eating one type of food, you're only giving food sources to certain types of bacterias and that way the ones that are getting fed will populate your gut and that will create some type of imbalance. Is that it or.

That's exactly right. I mean, it's all to do with. It's like any ecosystem. I mean, if you have an abundance of a certain type of food source that one animal can have a slight advantage over, they're going to dominate that population. And we see this in the western diet because of the prevalence of processed foods. You get this dysbiotic effect, dysbiotic meaning an imbalance in the type of bacteria. So by increasing the diversity of fibers, we can actually help to rebalance it because then we're giving other bacteria chance to compete essentially, like for just having one type all the time, you're going to get an over population of 1. Sometimes it could be a matter of antibiotic abuse, maybe very early in life that set you back. So then it's a matter of repopulating the ones that are being damaged. Unfortunately, some of them you might not be able to get back. But there's some keystone ones that we look at that are very good for holistic health is your lactobacilli and your bifrobacteria. So this is where your fermented foods are so important. Then your prebiotic fibers like acacia fiber, partially hydrolyzed guar gums, lactulose gos. We've got bimino as well. Bimino is a good supplement. That's a GOS supplement that boosts bifidobacteria. Acacia fibre is amazing because people who are going on this low fodmap type diet where they're experiencing discomfort, this is a nice gentle one just to lift populations of lactobacilli and bifida bacteria. Wow, awesome. So in terms of diet, so that's the key ones like to, to limit the amount of processed foods. I guess those ones are detrimental to your gut bacteria. Increasing the amount of fermented foods we consume, the amount of antioxidants, antioxidant type foods like green tea, dark chocolate, berries, these are all food for good bacteria. Obviously vegetable content is paramount, I guess. And also just a simple one is just to think of kind of meat as being the side. It's a bit of a shift in thinking, but I think we center a meal around a big piece of meat and we build the rabbit food around the side. By thinking of your vegetables as a hero and the garnish being your meat, I think that will go a long way to improving your gut bacteria, especially how you feel. Investing in good organic food. Glyphosate is hugely damaging to the gut and gut bacteria. So that's a simple one, is to go organic. I mean, rather than taking pills to fix your anxiety and depression, something simple as buying organic, preparing your food at home, good, clean food will go miles and actually helping you feel a lot better. Love it.

Should we wrap this up? We've been going about 40 minutes now.

Yeah, I think we'll wrap it there. But this has been our first ever Gut Health Gurus podcast and I hope your listeners enjoy it and if there's any questions or comments, get in touch, let us know. We'll put some notes in the the actual the show notes as well for you and some relevant links and thank you for joining.