Few people know this, but there are millions of people who are suffering from a condition that causes chronic stress to feel even worse, and spurs stress on to develop into other symptoms like exhaustion, chronic inflammation throughout the entire body, getting sick more often for no apparent reason, sore muscles, worsening memory, not having the ability to lose weight, shortness of breath, and basically, not feeling well overall.
This condition is called
Leaky Gut Syndrome.
Leaky Gut happens when there is so much stress in life that we begin making poor lifestyle choices; poor eating habits created, poor hydration habits, poor sleeping habits, and the body starts to become chemically off-balance.
Chemically off-balance simply means that a person’s food intake is being processed in a way that is throwing off the chemistry that the body needs in order to operate well. The body needs a certain amount of nutrition and a specific amount of hormones in order to function properly.
A new awareness of an ‘old immune system weapon’- our own gut lining!
Here’s what happens: When we constantly have too much stress happening in life, the lining of our gut gets messed up. The lining of our intestine is meant not only to absorb food but also to act as a barrier to keep out invading pathogens. When things like aspirin, bacteria or even pesticides sprayed on our food batter this lining, the lining loses it integrity. This is when the door is opened to let in bacteria, viruses and parasites and yes even undigested food that can activate the immune system(and also the ‘autoimmune’ system). I refer to this loss of integrity as “Leaky Gut Syndrome”.
Instead of being a normal, tightly-knit lining, the lining of the gut becomes slightly porous. Think of a privacy fence. Normally, the privacy fence keeps all of the digested food on the inside and the everything else on the outside. Chronic stress, however, comes along and knocks out a few of the boards. This causes bacteria, viruses and toxins and yes even the stuff we eat to get out and get into places that they shouldn’t be, and the body starts to have an allergic reaction and begins to feel sick.
But why does the intestinal lining get thin?
When chronic stress enters the picture, everything else takes just a bit more effort and energy than it used to. The go-to gland for energy is the adrenal gland. This gland creates the hormone called cortisol, which is the ‘stress hormone’. It is released to give more serious attention to the needs of the body. Everything is treated more like an emergency now, and stress is the byproduct of the ‘ER’ atmosphere. Day in and day out, year in and year out, being at the ER takes it toll on the mind and body.
Eventually, your adrenal glands become exhausted, and they begin to look to other glandular systems in the body for help and support and eventually rob those systems of their hormones and energy. Like the thyroid gland or the sex glands or more seriously the heart energy or pituitary activity.
During this stressful time in life, the body seeks an outside source of energy. Sugary, starchy, syrupy, quick- energy, easy to grab foods and beverages begin to have a nagging appeal in our lives. Then when these cravings are temporarily satisfied, we feel like we have energy and continue in our stressful lives. We change nothing but continue eating and drinking more and becoming sleep deprived because we can’t shut our minds off. We’re all hopped up on sweetened and caffeine-rich products. Eventually, the immune system is put into ‘hypersensitive’ mode and everything is running on ‘high attention’.
‘You look tired, old, out of shape’
This leads to the body to begin to break down collagen, like our skin, tendons, ligaments, etc. as well as poor breaking down of good things like protein and fat. Our enzymes become deficient, and the gut begins to lose its ‘attention to details’, so to speak. Things begin to slip past like the onslaught of a bacteria; that would’ve been handled quickly and easily now are able to get a foot -hold and create an immune insult or worse: disease.
I’m Allergic to my own lifestyle!
Eventually, this constant state of insult can only yield a poor outcome...a thinning of the lining of the gut and small holes developing causing allergic responses from the body because there is now a ‘hole in the pipes’ and materials that shouldn’t be escaping the intestinal tract are now pouring out into the body and wreaking havoc.
Then what do we do? Eat some more sugary, floury, caffeine-rich products to help us live through the ‘lie’ a little longer. Because a ‘habit’ begins to form that barely answers the needs of the body, our pancreas becomes the next victim of overworking and
insulin (a product of the pancreas) starts to lose its interest in telling the sugar to help the cells operate properly.
Increased stress =increased adrenal exhaustion = Increased sugar intake = Increased Insulin output=Increased cortisol, Increased stress =increased gut wall thinning=increased toxicity = increased yeast infection (from sugar intake)= increased hormone imbalance=increased weight/water retention.
"What Can I Do About It?"
Once we get stuck in this lifestyle and life cycle of increased stress leading to all these other health concerns and issues, it is really hard to get out. I know I’m not the only one who's been in a place in life when I can’t seem to put down the bag of chips.
So what can a person do?
That’s the big question. Well there a few things that you can do, but the quickest thing you can do to jumpstart your system and get things headed in the right direction is to do an all-natural diet or cleanse in order to clean out and get rid of all of the yeast that has built up and been released because of your leaky gut.
Skinny Up!™ Can help you do this!
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