A gut in distress can impact mood. In fact, our guts have such an extensive network of neurons, that some scientists have given the gut the nickname "second brain." It's now understood that our second brain has a significant impact on mood and anxiousness. In short, a healthy gut feeds better mental health.

Unfortunately, many day-to-day stresses and environmental exposures can contribute to a lack of helpful bacteria or overabundance of unhelpful bacteria (pathogenic bacteria, fungi, or parasites) in the digestive tract. Stress can interfere with the development of healthy gut bacteria and increase inflammation. Leaky gut, inflammation, and dysbiosis, can all negatively affect the core digestive processes. A stressed-out gut can also occur after an acute illness, after a course of antibiotics, when experiencing other bothersome GI symptoms, or due to unhealthy dietary practices. 

When some damage has occurred, it can be helpful to rebalance the microbiome with probiotics (the healthy bacteria) and to boost the necessary nutrients these healthy bacteria need to survive and thrive with special probiotic foods called prebiotics.

Remember, supplements are generally not the only solution and are most often short-term supports. Exposure to a variety of appropriate micro-organisms in daily activities and a diverse diet (try our Resilient Diet) is essential to continue to maintain a healthy gut (and brain). 

Resilient Remedies' High-Quality Probiotic Supplement at the Natural Mental Health Store

Balance is a vegetarian, dairy- and gluten-free, four-strain probiotic totaling 30 billion CFU* per capsule. Balance provides four researched strains of beneficial bacteria, including the extensively studied HN019 strain of Bifidobacterium lactis. These live microorganisms have proven health benefits and well-established safety.