Ep. 9 How to Cope with IBD, Motherhood, and Covid Stress

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There’s never been a more stressful time for us.

Dealing with IBD is challenging enough, but now we are dealing with more demands on us from our kids at home more than usual and the stress of living in a world with coronavirus. Has your IBD taken a hit during this crazy time?

You are not alone.

In this episode, we get real about the unavoidable stress we can’t get rid of. But that doesn’t mean have to accept all the negatives that come with stress like this. We discuss how the stress response affects our IBD and how, if we have the right tools, we can overcome this challenge. I also introduce you to my 3-Step Stress Management System that gives you the tools you need to keep your IBD flare at bay and your stress at a level you can live with.

We talk about:

• How our stress is at an all-time high right now
• Our physiological response to stress and why it makes our IBD flare
• The difference between acute stress vs chronic stress and which one has a greater impact on our IBD
• The 3-Step Stress Management System to help you get through these stressful days

And so much more!

After this episode, you’ll be more in control of the chaos around you with clinically proven stress management tools you can use right at home. Listen in to help release the pressure you’re feeling from having Crohn’s and colitis, along with the added demands of motherhood, and the fear of Covid that’s affecting us all.

Episode at a Glance:

• [02:37] We start with the role stress plays in our life when we are dealing with the mega triple threat of stress from IBD, Motherhood, and Covid.

• [12:30] We learn all about the stress response at the physiological level, from the first twinges in the gut, to the recognition in the brain, to the nervous system cascade, and the ravages of the hormone release of cortisol when our stress never gets a break.

• [18:16] We talk about the difference between acute stress and chronic stress and how these two types of stress will impact your IBD, each in different ways.

• [20:43] We explore how subjective vs objective experiences are at the core of how we engage with the stress in our body.

• [25:16] We detail the 3-step process to turn your unbearable stress into manageable stress. It starts with recognizing your stress, then seeing your stress as subjective, and finally, making friends with your stress.

• [29:24] We put our newfound stress management toolbelt to the test by going through an example of how we can use the 3-step stress management system in a real life acute stressful situation.

• [35:45] We look at a real life example of my client, Abby, when she used the 3-step stress management system for chronic stress from colitis symptoms, a family member with Covid, and homeschooling her children stress.

• [40:51] You can take this episode to the next level by downloading my free resource guide: Your Stress Management Toolbelt by going to karynhaley.com/stress

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Episode Links:

Get my FREE Stress Management Toolbelt mentioned in the episode

Covid-19 Demands Forcing Parents to Take Time Off

Psychological Stress and IBD: New Insights Into Pathogenic and Therapeutic Implications

The Mega Triple Stress Threat: Crohn’s and Colitis, IBD, and Motherhood

Win a copy of my cold and flu buster recipe (you’ve got the ingredients right in your kitchen)

[00:04] Welcome to the episode dear listener. Before we get started today. I want to let you know that you can win a copy of my Kitchen Arsenal Preventive and Kitchen Arsenal Cure Recipe Guide to kick that cold or flu right to the curve before it even starts or before it gets nasty. I love this guide because it’s so important as we head into cold and flu season with the added pandemic at our hands, we just can’t boost our immune system enough right now. These rescue remedies are full of ingredients you already have in your kitchen, but they are usually reserved just for my clients. I’m sharing them with you today so if you want to get your hands on these must have sickness buster recipes, all you have to do is leave a written review on The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD on itunes, and take a screen shot of your review. Email it to hello@karynhaley.com with the subject line: podcast review, and I will send you your Kitchen Arsenal Preventive and Kitchen Arsenal Cure Recipe Guide as my way of saying thank you for listening and reviewing the show. My email again is hello@ k-a-r-y-n-h-a-l-e-y.com and I can’t wait to reward you for leaving a review. Alright, let’s get into the episode.

[music]

INTRO You’re listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space for moms with Crohn’s and colitis to connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Hayley, IBD Health Coach, Integrative Wellness enthusiast and mom of three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years. I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey into it, like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music]

Has Stress Taken Over Your Life?

Let me ask you a question. Are you feeling stressed? On a scale of 1-10, where are you at?

Stress just comes with being human, right? Maybe a little more for us.

[02:37] We’ve got IBD and all the lovely symptoms that come with that- abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, rectal fissures, or fistulas, weight loss, fatigue… sometimes heartburn or acid reflux, ulcers in your mouth, possibly joint pain or skin rashes… the challenges with crohn’s and colitis abound.

Then, there’s motherhood and don’t get me started on the stress that creates. I’ve been a mom for almost 19 years, YIKES! Oh the stressful moments that have come up through my kids lifespan. Yes, there have been some crazy stressful, out there moments you can never plan for when my then 2 year old wandered off at one of those big, crowded craft fairs (thankfully he saw his dad in the distance and hopped out of the stroller to run to him, but I didn’t know that and it was a stressful few minutes screaming his name), or when one of my kids accidentally shot the other one with a bee bee gun or when my then 8 year old got a concussion because his brother dared him to take a steep jump on his bike (thank god he was wearing a helmet. I don’t even want to think of how bad that could have been). We all have crazy motherhood moments. But it’s not just about the crazy moments. Those day to day moments create stress too. If you’re in the baby and toddler phase, wow the stress of sleep deprivation. With school aged kids, keeping up with their activities is a nightmare, and with teenagers and hormones, all that need to separate and spread their wings, the mental stress and worry you have for them is so intense. 

Apparently, motherhood and IBD isn’t enough, now we’ve got coronavirus to contend with.  Many of our kids are schooling at home, spending hours and hours each day on a computer trying to learn, social distance and deal with how crazy it is that they can’t hug or hang out with their friend. How do you explain that to a 5-year-old? Maybe you’ve had to leave your job during all this to care for your kids. According to census.gov 1 in 5 parents left jobs to provide childcare for their kids and in women 25-44 years old, they are 3 times more likely to leave their jobs than men. And since we have IBD with a diminished immune function and increased inflammation, especially if we’re on biologics or steroids, we’re worried about contracting Covid. And what’s our prognosis if we do get it…

Just mentioning all the stress we are under right now makes my heart beat a little faster. It makes me feel for YOU dear one. How are you doing right now? Has your Crohn’s or colitis suffered because of it? Mine definitely has. You are under more stress than is reasonable. We both are. This is tough. There’s no denying it.

Feeling overwhelmed with stress makes me wonder- what effect does all this stress have on IBD. When it comes to all the things I can think of that negatively impact our Crohn’s and colitis, what we might eat, the quality of our sleep, and our stress levels, something I’ve learned from clients and in my own experience is that stress has a huge a bigger impact on our IBD than we might initially realize.

[06:59] Many stress gurus out there tell you that all you have to do is reduce levels. Stop feeling stress, ignore the stress, put on the right armor and stress won’t bring you down. Just have less stress.

I’m sorry, but I’ve got to call B.S. on that.

We’re moms. We have a chronic illness. Now we have to deal with coronavirus and quarantining. We can’t harry potter this whole thing away. Stress doesn’t work like that.

Studies show that adverse life events like a pandemic, chronic stress, depression (which I’d argue are all stress related), each one of these increases the likelihood of an IBD flare-up.

How can we navigate everything that’s going on in our life right now, with a positive attitude and without letting stress get so impactful that it brings our Crohn’s and colitis right into the toilet.

[08:04] Like every good mystery tv show, we love it when the detective has that a-ha moment that changes the course of everything. And within our stress mystery, our a-ha moment starts with a little thing called insight. Insight into what’s going on behind the scenes, within our body. Today, we’ll start our stress and IBD conversation by unraveling this stress mystery at its most basic level, the a-ha moment level. At this first moment we might not initially recognize, but if we do recognize it at this point and we do start to be conscious of what’s going on, we can use this inside our body knowledge, not to our detriment, but to our advantage.

What’s coming up on today’s episode?

Today on the podcast, We’ll uncover the hormone that controls all this stress and wreaks havoc on our gut health if we don’t stop the vicious cycle. We’ll talk about what objective and subjective stress is and what it has to do with our IBD stress response, we’ll get into the difference between acute stress and chronic stress, again focusing on how that impacts our Crohn’s and colitis and finally we’ll talk about the 3 step stress busing process you can use to do it like a mom and ensure your stress won’t bring your IBD down with it.

Let’s start with the stress mystery, the would-be a-ha moment if we’re aware of it. The insight piece into what’s going on inside our body when we first experience stress. This is the knowledge we all need to get started really understanding our stress and how it affects all the systems in our body, and our gut the most. If we don’t have that a-ha insight early on, stress will start to impact us in negative ways.

[10:16] To say that our bodies are complicated is the understatement of the year, especially when it comes to the stress response. I get kind of geek out excited at this whole process, and I could go on about it for far too long, but for the sake of time in our episode today, I’ll give you the highlights. If you’re like me and you want to know this stress response, nervous system reaction inside and out, you can check out my stress management toolbelt pdf guide. It’s a resource I created just for you, if you want to take today’s conversation deeper. Your stress management toolbelt will walk you through the whole body’s response to stress at the nervous system level, definitely cool information to have because when you have that a-ha moment of “I think I’m getting stressed” early, you can nip it in the bud before it starts to harm your gut. My stress management toolbelt will also guide you through acute stress vs chronic stress in more detail than we’re talking about today, and also give you 11 stress busting techniques that you can hold in your imaginary toolbelt and whip out at a moment’s notice—whenever you need them.

I’ve got a FREE resource I think you are going to LOVE.

If you want to get your hands on this new, free resource, just go to karynhaley.com/stress or find the link in the show notes. That’s k-a-r-y-n-h-a-l-e-y.com/stress

OK, how about a quick highlight into our stress response at the nervous system level? Remember, if you can catch your stress here and have that a-ha moment, you’ll be world’s ahead of all the stressed out, fatigued mamas out there. You’ll know exactly what to do about it. And we’ll talk about how you can do just that, in a moment.

When you think about stress, you might think you would feel it in your head first with your thoughts, but nope, even at the nerve ending level in our body, it starts in our gut. And of course, if you listened to episode 6, use the gut brain connection to your IBD advantage, you know that this makes complete sense. Can you catch your stress here with the first twinges or gurgles in your belly, if you can you might be able to ward off a full blown stress meltdown or an anxiety attack. As you might expect, because of that awesome gut brain connection we have, our stressful feeling continues to rise as it moves up the vagus nerve into places in the brain like the amygdala and the hypothalamus. If the stress continues to build, our amazing body that it is, knows it’s time to alert the whole body through the sympathetic nervous system. And if we aren’t in a true fight or flight scenario, the good news is that our nervous system has this great shut off system called the parasympathetic nervous system.

It’s so cool how our body has all the warning systems built in. This is the reason I get so geeked out over this. Our body’s want to be in balance and they have truly ingenious systems to help that happen. We just have to listen when they talk. Usually, we just aren’t in tuned enough to notice the tingles and the twinges when our body is talking to us. If the parasympathetic nervous system, our fail safe to get the body back on track fails to turn off quickly, here’s where the trouble begins. That amazing body, who’s systems are always in constant communication with each other, signals energy bursts of hormones like adrenaline. Now if you’ve been multi-tasking during this stress response within the body explanation, here’s where I want you to come back to me because here’s where you have the power to affect change in your body.

A constant energy surge of adrenaline, when we never allow the body to calm down, creates the release of another hormone, cortisol. And whoa, let me tell you about the ravages of bursts of cortisol that never go down because we’re experiencing constant stress. Cortisol is like a wildfire in your body. Tiny little firefighters are in there trying their hardest to make a dent, but the fire keeps burning and burning. This is the place where your IBD is going to take a hit, every time.

Can you imagine a constant stress fire in your body, one that never goes out. Of course it makes our gut disorder worse. An internal wildfire and IBD don’t mix.

[16:25] With all the stress we are feeling right now, between IBD, motherhood, and Covid, can you imagine how the nervous system reactions and our hormones like cortisol and adrenal levels are wacking out our health. These systems and chemicals have direct links to our immune function and our inflammatory response.

We know Crohn’s and colitis are autoimmune diseases (the immune system literally attacking the body) and we know this illness involves inflammation throughout the body. It’s no wonder we are so impacted by stress.

Now, some people might give up here. Some might say, there’s nothing I can do about it. And to that I say hell to the no. Fear not, awesome mama, because this insight will set you free when it comes to stress. The good news is that the age-old wisdom that says knowledge is power, really is true. Insight about what’s going on with this stress inside your body, can really be the difference from, same old flare-up to thriving with IBD.

The impact stress will have on you depends on two things- how long does the stress last and what level of intensity is the stress at.

When it comes to how long we’ve had the stress, we’re talking about the difference between acute and chronic stress. With acute stress, the stress is short lived. It comes when you least expect it, out of the blue. One minute your fine and the next- wham! It’s the slamming on the breaks when a car pulls out in front of you, it’s the call in the middle of the night telling you a loved one is in the hospital. It could even be an unexpected argument with your spouse when things heat up quickly. With acute stress, we usually feel it physically, whether we recognize it or not. Butterflies in your stomach, heart pounding, sweat forming on your brow. You know the feeling.

Acute and chronic stress affect your IBD in different ways.

With chronic stress, we’ve been dealing with it for a long time. It’s that chronic level of cortisol surge that makes us feel fatigued, depressed, chronically anxious, and physically sick. Chronic stress like homeschooling your kids when you never did that before, leaving your job because your family needs you at home, living in a world of fear thinking you’ll contract Covid at every corner. That’s chronic stress. It’s all about the cortisol. Research shows that high levels of stress in this sustained state is associated with immune suppression, low levels of constant inflammation, grief, sadness, and marital challenges.

Are any of these scenarios familiar to you? If they are, what role does stress play here? And what can we do about it? Do we have any control when it comes to stress? Is there anything we can do about it?

Well, remember, I’ll never be fan of the just don’t feel the stress mentality. That’s just nonsense. But if psychology has taught me anything it’s that while we can’t control what life throws at us, we can control our reaction to it.

[20:43] Have you ever heard of a objective vs subjective experience? Objective experiences are factual, there’s no denying the facts. Subjective experiences are those where matters are more gray. It involves thoughts and feelings and everyone has a different reaction.  I’m a teacher at heart, so when I think of objective vs subjective, I always think of a test. There’s the objective kind with only one right answer, like a multiple choice test, or there’s the subjective test, like the essay portion. I’m always more partial to the essay type, because I like to live in the gray.

The subjective part of stress, our thoughts and feelings behind it, that’s what we can control. It’s not the stress itself that kicks our IBD in the butt. It’s our reaction to it.

Why is it that the exact same experience, like an argument with a friend, can be perceived by one friend as not a big deal, a blip, while the other friend might have a searing, burning memory of what happened.

When we learn to see stress as subjective, we have the power to set stress free.

Experiences are subjective. They’re all about our perception. Stress is subjective too. And how we experience the stress in our life will determine how it impacts our Crohn’s and colitis. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to make me want to work harder at my reaction to the stress in my life. Because there’s actually a piece of it that I can control. Why do you think I work every day to lessen my type A tendencies? It’s a constant battle, but I work at it every day because I know it’s within my power. Maybe you can relate?

Knowing that we have the power to frame our stress to our own subjective experience is a powerful tool. It can take some of the pressure off our initial reaction.

Take our acute stress reaction for example—remember that’s the in the moment, unexpected type of stress. We might feel like we want to explode when a co-worker challenges us on a project we thought was great or when we get into an argument with our partner, or when our kids are trying our patience with sassy remarks. Knowing that stress is subjective, we know that we don’t have to settle for our first reaction. We can take a deep breath and change the course of our response, and thus, reduce our body’s stress response to what’s going on. It’s a win for us, and whoever is annoying us too. Because engaging in petty fights like that is never going to get you the desired result you’re looking for. Both parties just walk away angry and annoyed—and stressed!

And if you’re saying, well all of this sounds wonderful in a perfect world, right? If you’re thinking you could never manage your stress in this subjective way, I get it. I used to think of myself in that way too. The truth is that anyone can do this. We just have to start small, be ok with imperfect baby step action, and celebrate the small wins. I’m a work in progress with this type of stress response too. I’m definitely getting better, but I work at it everyday. And you can to.

I know you can do this mama. You can have a positive impact on your stress and use it to keep your IBD in check.

This 3-Step Stress Management System will give you the tools you need to get started on stress busting today.

[25:16] Let’s talk about the three-step process, you can use when it comes to putting on your stress management toolbelt. We’ll start with the steps and then I’ll give you a real life scenario you can relate to so we can try this out in real time.

#1- When it comes to stress, we recognize it, as early as possible. If we can recognize it at that physiological level, the level I talked about earlier where the feelings start in your gut, move up through your brain and then out into the entire nervous system and into a hormonal chemical reaction where cortisol gets released—if we can notice our stress here first, with the sweaty palms, tingles in the armpits, racing heart, queasy feeling in the gut, etc… we have a chance to put a halt to the stress response before it gets out of control.

Recognize it early.

#2- Whenever we recognize it, we make stress a subjective experience. We address our own thoughts and feelings behind the stress. Why are we reacting this way? What about this moment is particularly triggering? Can you take a step back and let what’s going on marinate for a beat before you react? When stress is at play, taking a beat is always wise. If I have to respond in this moment, how can I reframe what your feeling and let it guide your response? What if the other person’s negative emotions have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them? Does knowing this change your response?

Stress is subjective. Reframe it and make it work for you.

#3- I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but we have to make friends with your stress. Yep, I said it. Make friends with your stress. Let it be your best girlfriend, who talks to you, gives you signals to help you be your best self, gives you warnings when something is off. Isn’t that just the best girlfriend in the world? Who has your back more than stress? When you make friends with stress, you see it in a whole new light. A light that can guide you to positively impact your Crohn’s and colitis instead of letting it bringing you down.

Make friends with your stress.

[28:57] So, there you have it. That’s your 3 step stress response. Recognize it early, reframe it if possible, and make friends with your stress. Let’s put these steps into practice for both acute in the moment stress and more long term stress so you can do it like a mom and rock your stress management toolbelt.

Let’s take this plan to the next level with a real life acute stress example.

Ok, let’s take an acute problem that all moms encounter, like the demands on a mom’s time. We all experience this daily. When we have kids, our time is never our own. Kids need help with schoolwork, kids need to go to dance or football practice, kids wanting a snack, or to be read a bedtime story, or if you have kids like mine, their favorite time to get your attention is when you’re in the bathroom. With 3 energetic boys, any given day in my house is enough to give me stress that raises my blood pressure and my heart rate. Since this used to be a daily pitfall for me where I would end up being at best annoyed mom and on my worst day, yelly mom, I knew I had to get a hold of this before it ruined my relationship with my kids.

I used this very 3 step stress busting plan I just outlined to get this acute stress under control.

Step 1- Whenever this happened, I started to recognize it at the cellular level. For me, if I caught it early, I could feel a tightness in my belly. If it was later on in the stress journey, I had an anxious feeling, almost like I was on hyper alert when the kids started to constantly vie for my time and attention.

Step 2- Now that I recognize it, it’s time for the reframe. How could I see this differently? What could I compromise on and what was set in stone? In a moment of reflection about this stressor, I realized that I was actually the culprit and most of the problem. I wasn’t setting enough boundaries with my kids so they thought I was always in mom mode. I work from home, I homeschool my kids, I take them to activities and break up the arguments, and make sure they’re fed. Too much! I needed to realize my limitations and set a schedule for when I’m in mom mode and when I’m in work mode. Once I set a schedule, I stuck to it. And it was hard- especially when my kids wanted to do fun stuff while I was in work mode. But little by little, (imperfect baby steps right?) they got used to it, I got used to it and I began to feel the stress of always being pulled in different directions melt away.

Step 3- I made friends with this stressor.  I’d be lying if I said this process always works. It doesn’t, but because I’ve made friends with this stressor, because I know my own personal pitfalls with this, I can recognize and course correct quickly when I feel myself getting sucked back into old habits.  Being flexible and open to trying new things has actually made this stressor a confidence booster for me because I realized I had control over it. My kids still haven’t learned not to bother me when I go to the bathroom, but I handled that too by locking on the bathroom door. Bathroom time is my time, no exceptions.

With this stressor, I mainly used the reframe technique, but there are 4 other acute stress busting techniques I mention in your stress management toolbelt- that free resource I mentioned at the top of the podcast. I love the other techniques too. You can check them out when you download my free resource guide at karynhaley.com/stress.

Now, this process I just described for dealing with the acute stress, when as moms our time is not our own, it may or may not work for you. Either your situation is different or you have younger kids. If this is the case, I know there’s still a solution for you. It just might take some brainstorming on your part. How can your partner help out, what about a babysitter, family member or friend? Who can help you lighten your load so you don’t constantly feel the stress on being pulled in a million directions?

How does this process work for chronic stress?

[35:45] Let’s look at the more devastating type of stress chronic, ongoing stress. The kind that will definitely impact your IBD in negative ways. For this kind of stress, I want to introduce you to my client, Abby. Abby has had just about as much stress as she can take. Since coronavirus, Abby has had to quit her part-time job to stay home with her kids, she started homeschooling them and she felt lost, her dad was diagnosed with covid-19 and he lives a plane ride away, she couldn’t see him or help with his care and Abby’s colitis started to suffer.

In step 1 of our 3-step stress management plan:

#1- Recognize. Abby recognized her thoughts and feelings for what they were, chronic stress brought on by sucky life events that were largely out of control. Remember the a-ha moment of insight is key. Abby had been in overdrive so long, she didn’t even know she wasn’t in normal mode. I remember when she had this a-ha moment with me in a session, I literally heard her sigh. I could almost see a weight being dropped from her shoulders.

#2- The reframe. Was there a possibility of a reframe here? There’s so much going on. What could be done? After processing this with Abby, she realized that she was taking all of this on and not accepting help from people in her life who were offering it. Abby was understandably lost in grief, stress, and a need to seem perfect and in control for her kids and family. For Abby, the reframe was in admitting she needed help. Abby’s in-laws who are healthy kept offering to help with the kids, but she kept telling them she had it all under control. When Abby and I chatted, she made the decision that she would take her family up on their offer to help. Abby and I also discussed some dietary changes that might help strengthen her digestive system at this time and she decided to make an appointment with her gastroenterologist to see if he had anything ideas for her as well.

#3- Step 3, make friends with stress. Abby is still working through making friends with her stress. She’s been through a lot, like all of us IBD moms living in the time of Covid, but she’s adapted a few of the chronic stress busting techniques from my stress management toolbelt and she’s working on it every day. Abby loves to dance and sing so she’s taking time to do that every day, whether it’s in the shower, in her car or in her kitchen as she cooks dinner. Abby has started a 10-minute meditation practice daily with grounding meditations in the morning before getting out of bed and gratitude meditations before she goes to bed a night.  These small imperfect steps are making Abby feel a bit lighter already.

I’m so proud of her and I know you can do this too. Remember this concept about stress management is never about getting rid of stress completely, or at all really. And it’s never about perfection. It’s about seeing stress as subjective and knowing we can have power over it. It doesn’t have to make our IBD worse. When we commit to making stress busing a practice that we work at, little by little, tweaking as we go, we are already making massive steps in the right direction.

[40:51] You can take this episode to the next level by downloading my free resource guide: Your stress management toolbelt by going to karynhaley.com/stress. And as always, if you get stuck, reach out. I’m always happy to help. Hello@karynhaley.com

May your gut healing journey be full of a-ha moments and may you always wear your imaginary stress management toolbelt because you never know when that acute or chronic stress might come into your life and try to derail you from the incredible place you know you deserve to be.

Wishing you a cheeky and healthy journey. Bye for now!

Ready to take your gut healing to the next level?

One last thing, if you’re still with me and if you are, you’re definitely my kind of gal, we have to get to know each other better. If you’re tired of living on the hamster wheel of IBD with all the ups and downs between flares and remission, if you’re struggling to get control of your abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea, and other troubling IBD symptoms, go to my website, it’s karynhaley.com, and my mom had to be just a little bit different, spell my name with a Y. So it’s K-A-R-Y-N-H-A-L-E-Y dot com, and schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you gut your life back. It’s a power-packed 30 minutes. You don’t have to live in IBD status quo. There’s so much that can be done to transform your life so you can thrive in motherhood and thrive with IBD. I’ve seen my clients walk this path and it gives me so much joy to take that journey with them.

My entire coaching practice is run online, so you never have to leave your house and you never have to get out of your jammy or yoga pants for us to work together. You know, I’m wearing them too. If you’re ready to take your first amazing step towards healing, I’m ready to chat with you. Schedule your free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session today at karynhaley.com. Click on the Work With Me tab and I’ll see you soon.

It’s important to note that the information in this podcast and in this episode is for general information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The statements made in the Cheeky Podcast for moms with IBD, either by me or my guests, is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before implementing any new treatment protocols, do yourself a favor and consult your physician first. Thank you so much for listening, for being here, for saving the space for us to spend some time together. Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

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Ep 8: The IBD Sleep Connection Interview With a Sleep Expert

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

We know there’s a connection between sleep and IBD, but what is still a mystery is if it’s the Crohn’s or colitis making it hard to get a good night’s sleep or is it our poor sleep that makes our IBD flare. It’s time to get to the bottom of this “is it the chicken or egg” scenario once and for all.

In this episode, we’ll tackle the gut/sleep connection head on as we go straight to the expert source. Dr. William Brim, sleep expert, joins the podcast to shed light on this important topic for all of us suffering with IBD.

I asked Dr. Brim about:

• The gut/sleep connection: Why do we struggle with sleep when we have IBD and is our poor quality sleep having a negative effect on our IBD?
• The unique role our circadian rhythm plays for our microbiome
• The surprising truth about over-the-counter sleep aids like Melatonin, Gaba, and CBD Oil
• The best 4 sleep must do’s to ensure we sleep like a baby

And so much more!

After this episode, you’ll be geeking out on all things IBD and sleep. Dr. Brim provides cutting edge research information that will give you multiple a-ha moments. You’ll never look at your gut/sleep connection the same again.

Episode at a Glance:

• [3:13] Dr. Brim, our sleep expert, is a Health Psychologist and speaks nationally and internationally on the topic of sleep. Dr. Brim has trained over 5,000 clinicians in non-medical treatments for sleep disorders.

• [09:06] Dr. Bill says that there’s really no question that reduced sleep causes an almost immediate change in the gut microbiota. A recent study showed that after just 2 nights of being sleep deprived, there is a significant increase in bacteria in the gut such as Corio bacteria, ACA, and an increase in firmicutes.

• [18:30] Disruptions to the circadian rhythm can result in increased inflammation as well as increased gut permeability. This can then increase our chances of having an IBD flare-up.

• [21:18] Probiotics can improve the gut microbiota and therefore improve the inflammation response in our gut. Because of your improved microbiome, this small step can also improve the quality of your sleep.

• [26:39] The more you stress about not sleeping well, the more negative impact it will have on your IBD. You have to take it in stride, treasure good sleep, and protect it as best you can, but don’t over-compensate if you have an occasional bad night sleep and get worried that you have insomnia. That worry will always create more insomnia.

• [31:06] Dr. Brim explains “worry time.” Set aside time each night to get your anxious or stressful thoughts out of your head before going to bed, outside of the bedroom. If you get in bed and all those thoughts pop back in your head, get back out of bed, go back to that quiet place and write your worries down again. When you feel sleepy again, go back to bed.

• [33:24] Are melatonin, Gaba and CBD Oil effective sleep aids? Dr. Brim explains the upsides and downsides of these popular over-the-counter treatments.

• [47:12] There is no panacea when it comes to sleep, but there are several tips everyone can take away to help them have good sleep. Dr. Brim shares his 4 best sleep hygiene tips to help everyone get a better night’s sleep.

• [59:28] Power naps or snooze fests? Which one is better for us with IBD. Dr. Brim says that either are OK, actually, as long as they don’t affect our sleep at night.

• [1:00:02] Dr. Brim disses the idea that blue light makes it OK to watch TV on your device in bed. Sure, the blue light may diminish your melatonin, but it’s not enough to suppressive your melatonin enough to make you sleepy and the activity of watching TV in bed, keeps your mind racing and is terrible to do just before bed.
• [1:11:18] Go to karynhaley.com to schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you get your life back.

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Episode Links:

• Find a qualified Behavioral Sleep Provider

How Does IBD Affect Sleep? (or should we say how does sleep affect IBD)

[music]

0:00:04 S1: INTRO You’re listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space for moms with Crohn’s and colitis to connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Hayley, IBD Health Coach, Integrative Wellness enthusiast and mom of three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years. I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey into it, like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music]

Win your own Kitchen Arsenal Prevention Recipe Guide!

Welcome, welcome to the episode, mama. Before we get started today, I wanted to let you know that you can win a copy of my kitchen arsenal preventive and kitchen arsenal cure recipe guide to kick that cold or flu right to the curb. Before it starts, I love this guide, I love it because it’s so important as we’re heading into cold and flu season right now, of course, with the added stress and the added pressure of a pandemic on our hands, we just can’t lose our immune system enough right now. And these rescue remedies, they’re full of ingredients that you already have in your kitchen, but I usually reserve it just for my clients. I’m sharing it with you today so that you can get your hands on these must-have sickness buster recipes.

0:01:41 S1: All you have to do to get the guide is leave a written review for The Cheeky Podcast for moms with IBD on iTunes, take a screenshot of your review and email it to me, email it to me at hello@karynhaley.com, with the subject line: PODCAST REVIEW, and I’ll send you your kitchen arsenal preventive and kitchen arsenal cure recipe guide as my way of saying thank you. Thank you for listening and thank you for reviewing the show. My email again is hello@k-a-r-y-n-h-a-l-e-y. dot com, and I can’t wait to reward you for leaving your review.

Alright, let’s get into the episode. I’m especially looking forward to today’s episode because it’s my first interview on the podcast, I love adding in another voice to our IBD mom experience, especially with a subject that I’m not that well-versed in, but super curious about. today we’re talking about sleep, sleep and IBD. What’s the connection here? There’s so much to dig into. Lately, the whole gut and microbiome has been under a great deal of focus, and that’s beautiful because it’s led to some really interesting research. One of the areas of focus for this microbiome is how it affects our sleep, and we’ll explore this and many other sleep-related topics with today’s guest.

0:03:13 S1: So let’s go ahead and get into it. Let’s find out a little bit more about today’s guest. Our guest today is Dr. William Brim, he’s a Clinical Health Psychologist and behavioral sleep expert. He’s the director of a National Department of Defense Training Center, and has trained over 5,000 clinicians nationally and internationally, in non-medical treatments for Sleep Disorders, he conducts research and has published numerous articles and book chapters on PTSD and sleep disorders. He regularly presents at national and international conferences and has testified in numerous civilian and military courts, and provides consultation and coaching and behavioral interventions for sleep disorders. Welcome to the show, Dr. Brim.

0:04:06 S2: Hi Karyn, I was wondering if I was ever gonna make it on your podcast…

0:04:09 S1: Well, of course. You’re my first interview. Oh, there you go. I have to tell you, there’s one thing that’s missing from your bio, you forgot to mention that you have an absolutely fabulous IBD health coach for a wife…

0:04:24 S2: Best in the world.

0:04:27 S1: That’s me so… Full disclosure for our dear listeners, Dr. Brim is actually my husband, so I thought he would be the perfect to have first on the show. What’s really cool, and Bill, I’m sure you agree with this, what’s really cool about us is that both of us being in the healthcare field, sometimes I get to work with you on your presentations when it comes to all things gut health. And when it comes to sleep, you actually work with some of my clients before to help them when they have sleep challenges, so we have this kind of cool thing going where we get to work with each other a lot, and I think it’s fun.

0:05:07 S2: I come to you for questions about sleep and the gut all the time.

0:05:13 S1: Well, I’m gonna keep you in charge of sleep and I’ll be in charge of the gut. So welcome, I’m really happy to have you here. I thought I would start with just going over the format, so everybody knows what we’ll be doing today. Okay, so we’re gonna start with a couple ice-breaker questions, these are just some completely fluffy questions, totally easy to answer, but I find that they’re interesting questions because they will let us know a lot about your inner personality, so to speak, and then after that, we’re gonna just dive in, we’re gonna dive in and talk about all things sleep. How does sleep affect IBD. What I think is interesting is it’s kind of this chicken and egg thing, what comes first, so how does sleep affect our IBD? And how does our Crohn’s and colitis affect our sleep? So what I’d love to do today is get into all of that with you, and then lastly, I’d love to finish with a lightning round just really quick off the cuff questions that I know people have when it comes to sleep. We might get to some of those during our talk, but just in case, I would love for us to do that lightning round at the end, How does that sound for you? Sounds great.

0:06:27 S1: Okay, I have my questions. What you’ve written down here. Okay, I don’t need to look for the ice breaker questions ’cause I know what those are. Let’s get started with our ice breaker questions. Okay, completely fluffy a promise. Question number one what is your favorite ice cream flavor?

0:06:45 S2: Moose tracks. No cookies and cream. No, no, Rocky Road. No, can I say ice cream?

0:06:57 S1: All ice cream in a… I think you did all of the Ben and Jerry’s flavors, so that… We are Ben and Jerry’s lovers in our house.

0:07:05 S2: And they have a great… Now they have the dairy-free Ben and Jerry’s too.

0:07:11 S1: Yeah, they do. They make it with cashew milk. It’s really delicious. Actually, I don’t have it a lot because it’s still a lot of sugar in it, I tasted it on…

0:07:21 S2: You put enough cookies and cream in and it’s good.

0:07:23 S1: Yeah, exactly. Well, I don’t, but you would… Right. Alright, so an eclectic mix of ice cream flavors, so I guess that tells us something about your personality, I’m sure. Okay, second question, second question is… Cats or dogs? Dog. Of course our viewers don’t know that, but I know that because we have a dog.

0:07:50 S2: We have a beautiful golden retriever, Luna. Who was around here somewhere?

0:07:54 S1: Do we have any other pets?

0:07:56 S2: Oh yes, we have a whole household of pets, we have birds, we have bearded dragons, dogs, we have them all…

0:08:05 S1: Yeah, and I’m sure everybody can see… Well, if you’re seeing this on YouTube, you can see if you’re listening, you don’t see us, but we’re actually in different rooms of the house. We’re not together. What happens when we’ve done this together before, and when we do it together, you get that echo-y kind of noise when we both have our computers, so I’m in my podcast space in… Bill is in his presentation space, so we’re actually in different rooms, but we’re in the same house and we’re hoping that the kids are going to give us this time so that we can talk about all things gut and sleep. Okay, so let’s go ahead and just dive in and I wanna get straight to the sleep, talk about the sleep and gut connection, so when it comes to the sleep and gut connection, I know there are probably a lot of problems that we could talk about. What are the biggest challenges that you’re seeing when it comes to sleep and gut disturbances…

There’s no question, reduced sleep will impact our microbiome.

0:09:06 S2: Yeah, I think there’s really no question that reduced sleep causes an almost immediate change in the gut microbiota. There was an interesting study a few years ago where researchers had normal healthy adults go two nights with reduced sleep opportunity, so they were reduced to only four, about four hours total time in bed, so they were sleeping less than four hours, and they compared them to themselves when they only had… When they had two nights of normal sleep opportunities, so about seven and a half hours of sleep, and then they took the stool samples from them at the end of both opportunities and they compared the stool samples following each period, and they found that after just two nights of reduced sleep opportunity, there were significant increases in bacteria in the gut such as Corio bacteria, ACA, and an increase in firmicutes that can lead to obesity and type two diabetes, and that was only after two nights of reduced sleep. And a lot of people that struggle with sleep problems obviously have more than a couple of nights of sleep, so the more chronic that sleep problem becomes, the more build up of these bad gut bacteria can be…

0:10:24 S2: And this is what we kinda call… You know this better than I do, what you would call intestinal dysbiosis, probably it would be the best word, which is just a fancy way for saying your gut biome is all kind of jacked up… Right, right, and we know that stress, depression, anxiety, poor sleep, disturbed circadian rhythm, all these things result in a disruption to a healthy Gut micribiome, and we know that altered microbiota may affect the function of both the nervous system and the immune system. And that reduces your ability to cope with psychological stress, physical stress, it makes you more vulnerable to stress, and it’s clear that poor sleep and gut dysbiosis are correlated with obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndromes, and most importantly, probably for IBD is inflammatory diseases.

0:11:23 S1: Wow, I can’t believe how much information we’ve been able to gather with this whole… All the new research on the microbiome, isn’t it crazy, like just how many pieces you can connect it to all stemming from the microbiome, and of course, when you’re talking about this for quality of sleep, even for a couple of days, and you’re talking about the effects of it on the gut and then it leading to inflammation, that just really makes me think about us, of course, the IBDers, because we’re the ones that this inflammation, inflammatory, bowel disease. So how does that fit into everything…

0:12:02 S2: Yeah, I think… For me, I think of sleep is like that old canary in a coal mine saying, When we have sleep problems, it’s often one of the first indicators that something’s out of balance in our body, sleep… Our ability to sleep is kind of like an early warning system, and there are several studies that suggest that poor sleep can be an early warning sign of an impending flare or sub-clinical inflammation itself, so before you’re even aware that you’re having a flare or that there is inflammation that warning signal of disruption to your sleep could occur, and if you’re not getting good sleep, you have a two-fold higher increase of a flare compared to people with IBD who are getting a good night sleep, so we know that poor sleep leads to inflammation, even like sub-clinical inflammation can lead to poor sleep disturbance, so I’ll mention sleep disturbance and sometimes I’ll mention sleep deprivation and sometimes I’ll mention insomnia, and those are really three different things, sleep disturbances when you’ve just not gotten a good night’s sleep or something’s interfered with your sleep, sleep deprivation is when you’re not giving yourself enough opportunity to sleep, you’re reducing the opportunity to sleep, and insomnia is when you have the inability to sleep, even when you’re giving yourself a lot of opportunity for sleep, and all three are known to worsen acid reflux, they can lead to ulcers, they lead to increase in the risk of fatty liver disease, and they can exacerbate symptoms of lupus and arthritis and may even increase the risk of colon cancer.

0:13:52 S1: Wow, I know you and I have had this conversation before. What’s more important getting your sleep or in food, because of course, you and I would have that conversation and you know, I hate to admit it to you, but it’s amazing to me just how important sleep is, it’s crazy, all of the disruptions that can happen in your body… And when it comes to IBD, those are just massive. The inflammatory response, the immune system response. It just makes me wanna go to sleep, get a nap, make sure that I’m doing it right, which you know, sometimes I struggle with… We all do right? We all struggle with that. Something that has been just kind of going around in my mind as you’ve been talking, is this circadian rhythm… Right, I’m sure when you talk about sleep, you talk about the circadian rhythm, so how does that fit into this whole picture here?

0:14:48 S2: Yeah, well, let me ask you this, what is the most rhythmic thing that you can think of on the planet… And please don’t say the boy band BTS or something like that.

0:14:59 S1: I don’t even know what that is. What is the most rhythmic thing on the planet? I feel like this is a test. What happens the most consistently, the sun comes up and down is that what you’re looking for, you… Yeah, exactly, exactly.

0:15:15 S2: It’s the rhythm of the rotation of the earth, right, that rhythmic rising and setting of the sun. And we’ll see how this plays a key role in our sleep and in our health, but this rhythm is so regular and so consistent that it affects nearly every living thing on the planet, the plants orient to the sun, animals whether they’re nocturnal, which means they’re waking active at night or diurnal like us, and awake and active mostly during the day, all have consistent rhythms that are oriented to this rhythm of the Sun, every cell in our body, and this is where it gets really important. Every cell in our body has a rhythm, not necessarily a 24-hour circadian rhythm, but a rhythm that’s maintained by a mass of a master clock that’s in our brain, and this master clock has to be set every day by exposure to bright light or to daylight, things like body temperature, hormone release like melatonin, which helps regulate the timing of our sleep, growth, human growth hormone, which fuels our growth as kids, but also as adults, it maintains our tissues and our organs, which is also key plasma cortisol levels, which is a steroid hormone that is key to our body stress response and helps to regulate our bodies sugar levels, metabolism, memory formation, and it helps with anti-inflammation, among other things.

0:16:44 S2: All are regulated on this circadian rhythm. And circadian rhythm plays a key role in good quality sleep, when we have consistent sleep, that helps to keep our master clock in tune with our body and keeps all of those… All of our cellular activity in tune with our body.

0:17:05 S1: I love that, and that’s such a good explanation, because I know everybody’s heard about the circadian rhythm, but to hear about how it all works and how when we have to have a good circadian rhythm, it makes such a difference to our overall health. Absolutely.

0:17:20 S2: I mean, you know you have good rhythm when things are regular, right. When you’re hungry, about the same time every day when your period is regular, when your bowel movements occur regularly, when you’re sleepy about the same time every day, many of you probably wake up about the same time every day, even on your days off, even when you could sleep in. And this is because your master clock is in tune, you’re consistent with your wake time, you’re consistent with your exposure to light, but there’s a lot of ways that our rhythm can get disrupted. Shift work is the big one, right? But so is having an inconsistent bedtime and wake time, many sleep disorders and medical conditions disrupt the circadian rhythm as well.

0:18:07 S1: You are so good about that 10 o’clock every night. And then there’s me. So I know that’s definitely something I could work on, right? And it probably affects my circadian rhythm, and I’m guessing that just having IBD alone might affect my circadian rhythm, would I be right about that?

When our circadian rhythm is disrupted so is our gut.

0:18:30 S2: Yeah, I think absolutely, and it’s a two-way street, I think, between the circadian rhythm and the disruption… Circadian rhythm and IBD. But anyway, when this rhythm is disrupted, imagine that someone out on the dance floor that has no rhythm. This rhythm of this imbalance can lead to a range of adverse metabolic effects, it can increase the amount of pro-inflammatory gut bacteria, and the imbalance also promotes increased gut permeability, and this is a big word, like this translocation of bacterial components across the epithelium, the consequences basically of this is that you have metabolically active tissues that are exposed to like chronic low-level inflammation, and that can result in metabolic signaling and disruptive metabolic signaling, and then further inflammation, and then you’re back to that dysbiosis, poor sleep, stress, dysbiosis cycle where your gut is affecting your sleep, your sleep and lack of sleep is causing you to be stressed out, and that stress is releasing cortisol cytokines, which are telling your body’s immune response to turn on and or inflammatory themselves, and then back to that your gut biome again. And so we get in this cycle that we talked earlier, and it increases inflammation throughout the body and increases the risk of a flare for those with IBD.

0:20:10 S1: I have to tell you, it just sounds all pretty grim. It sounds pretty grim for those of us with IBD, I came to this conversation thinking I was gonna talk to you about the chicken or the egg and what it really doesn’t seem to matter because it’s all this cycle that just this endless negative cycle.

0:20:26 S2: I think it’s a… It’s a two-way street though.

0:20:29 S1: Tell me, you have some good news here is… I hope you do.

0:20:34 S2: Well, I know, and this happens all the time, it always feels outside of our control, like How am I supposed to do something about that, how can I possibly change my gut microbiome, how can I affect my master clock in my brain? You can’t just say, Oh, you should increase your healthy gut microbes and just kinda go and just kind of imagine it, or maybe at least… At least not directly so, but the good news, I think, is that there are things that are in our control that we can do, and I’ll suggest probably a couple of things that have scientific support on…

0:21:13 S1: You are my science guy.

Probiotics play a big role in helping our inflammation and our sleep.

0:21:18 S2: But I think one of them is more in your area and that I can suggest them for you, and then one is a little bit more in my area, and you may wanna talk some more about the first one and the first one is the fact that some probiotics, we know, act on the enteric nervous system, which is basically essentially your gut and at the and the immune system, and then they can improve your stress response, they can reduce that cortisol release that I talked about, and pro-inflammatory bacteria, which is a bad thing, and then improve the guts ability to make neurotransmitters, which help with mood, like anxiety and depression, and melatonin, which helps with sleep regulation. The second thing, and so you can talk some more about those types of things, and then the second thing has to do with improving your sleep to the best of your ability, and there are several things that you can do that you have control over in that area.

0:22:23 S1: Well, in terms of the probiotic, I just have to agree with you that… And from everything that you’ve said even before then, it all just kinda leads up to this, you started by talking about how we… Even when you talked about that study, how even from two hours of two days with sleep deprivation, it actually impacted your microbiome and the bacterial balance in there, so it completely makes sense that if you take a probiotic, it’s going to help with the whole microbiome in it probably will even help you sleep better, and I know… I know that it will also help your IBD symptoms, so all of that completely makes sense to me.

0:23:01 S2: Yeah, I agree, and I would say just remember that good sleep happens when we’re healthy and when we manage our stress, and when we’re consistent and regular with our healthy sleep behaviors, I think sleep happens right. You can’t not sleep. And for this reason, I think a lot of people take sleep for granted, but there’s a host of enemies out there that are waiting to steal little bits of our good sleep and our health, and even though good sleep happens naturally, I think we have to be a little bit paranoid and a little bit willing to fight to defend our good sleep, even though you will fall asleep if you wanna sleep… Well, that’s in your control. Right.

0:23:47 S1: Right, that makes sense. Now, I have to switch gears just a little bit here, because in preparing for this episode, in this interview, I have to confess, I don’t know why, ’cause I knew it was with you, but I just got a little bit nervous about it. Typically, it’s me and the camera… I’m doing an interview and it’s with you, so… I don’t know, it made me a little nervous. So over the last weekend, I went to our IBD mom tribe, The Gut Love Community, and so I ask them what do they doing… What do they wanna know? What did they want to know about sleep and what questions would they have for the seed expert, so is it okay with you if I just share some of those questions?

0:24:26 S2: Let’s give it a try.

0:24:27 S1: Okay, so our first question comes from Maria, and Maria says, How important is a good night’s sleep when you IBD. Is it more important for us with IBD than non-IBD ears to have good quality sleep?

0:24:43 S2: Yeah, I think a lot of that’s like what we were just talking about, I think it’s absolutely the case. Everyone is affected by a bad night sleep, right, everybody has an impact from a bad night sleep, whether it’s an acute impact and it just affects your next day or it becomes kind of a recurrent chronic problem that has longer lasting effects, we know that poor sleep results in a whole host of physical and psychological problems, and that kind of cascade includes inflammation all throughout your body, and as I had mentioned earlier, I think there is such a clear correlation between sleep and IBD that poor sleep can actually predict a flare, so I think absolutely it’s important to get good sleep and to try your best to have an environment that… Again, like I said, where you fight where you treasure sleep… Where you fight for it and you don’t just take it for granted.

0:25:48 S1: Yeah, so we definitely have to prioritize it, and I can speak from my own experience, I’ve seen it with clients, to where they just… You go through a period in your life that’s particularly stressful, or maybe you’re a new parent and you’re not getting enough sleep, it is so tough, it will always… You know, it always, when I am under that chronic stress, I just know it’s going to affect my sleep… And then it’s gonna affect my IBD, and so I’ve learned over the years to really treasure it, and even if I’m going through a time when I can’t get the sleep that I need, I make sure that I prioritize naps. I don’t know, you might have an opinion on that, but I definitely will. Just try to make sure I get enough sleep. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can. ’cause we’re all human and so imperfect action, right?

The more you worry and stress about not sleeping, the more it will negatively impact your sleep.

0:26:39 S2: And it’s important to note too, that everyone has a sleepless night every once in a while, it’s not unusual to have a sleepless night, and the biggest concern is not to over-react to that sleepless night to over compensate for it, or to get worried and add anxiety because I mean, who hasn’t said, Oh, I got an awful night sleep last night, and tonight I’ve gotta get a good night sleep, or I’m gonna feel bad the next day, or I’m gonna fail, or I’m gonna have a car accident or whatever. And it’s really hard to sleep when you’re going, Oh my God, I’ve gotta go to sleep right now, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to state right now, that’s not conducive to good sleep, right. So you just have to kinda take it in stride again, treasure, good sleep, protect it as best you can, but don’t kinda over-compensate if you have an occasional bad night sleep and get worried that you have insomnia.

0:27:33 S1: You just… Perfectly segue into the next question. The next question comes from Karyn. And Karyn incidentally is Karyn K-a-r-y-n, just like me. Karyn … She has a question about sleeping anxiety, so it’s a perfect set-up for what you were just mentioning, are any hacks or restless sleep when you go to bed with your mind racing… That’s a big one, right? Karyn mentions that she already does some breathing before bedtime and she writes down her tasks, the things she asked to do for tomorrow, she’s wondering, is there anything else you’d recommend for those racing thoughts at bed time?

0:28:16 S2: Yeah, absolutely Karyn. And I’ll tell you, first of all, that you are right on track. One, in fact, I would say the most common concern of people that have sleep problems is being anxious or worried, it’s one of the most common things we hear, either that the anxiety or worry interferes with falling asleep or you wake up in the middle of the night, and you start worrying and you can’t get back to sleep, but you’re on the right track with what you’re doing. So what we typically recommend is what I call worry time, or what it’s called worry time, and that’s where you set aside time, like you do to jot down your worries, and people tend to have a couple of different worries, right, they just have these generalized worries about life and things. And who doesn’t have that? Now, especially right, so you have these general worries and then you have specific things like, This person is ill, or I have this specific problem, or like a to-do list where I have to do this tomorrow, I have to do that tomorrow, I have to do this tomorrow, and when you’re lying in bed trying to go to sleep and you’re having those worries or those thoughts, or you’re making those lists, have you ever actually gotten out of bed and done any of those things? Probably not, you just lay there in bed and you kind of ruminate and perseverate on them, right.

0:29:34 S2: So Karyn’s doing exactly the right thing that we recommend, which is have some worry time, set aside time to get those worries and thoughts out of your mind, if it’s a did list so you don’t wanna forget anything, write it down, write down that to-do list. If it’s just general worries, set aside some time, go into a quiet room, set your phone aside, tell your family or anybody that’s in the house that turn your phone off and set aside some quiet time and just do a brain dump, get all those worries and thoughts out of your head. Just kinda get them out because… And the reason why we want you to set aside that quiet separate time is because why do you think… As soon as you get in the bed, all those worries pop in your head, it’s because that’s a quiet time, you don’t have the distraction of the TV or the phone, or the kids or whatever, and so your mind hates that vaccum, so… All those thoughts and worries are gonna rush in, so what we wanna do with worry time is exactly what Karyn’s doing, which is set aside time, get those worries out of your head, then you have a routine, have some kind of boundary between your worry time and going and getting in bed, so I usually say, Do your worry time and then brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your pajamas, do your relaxation exercise outside of your bedroom, and then if you’re feeling sleepy, go get in the bed.

Set aside “worry time” each night, away from your bed, to get your negative or anxious thoughts out before getting into bed.

0:31:06 S2: Then the second key is, so all those things, the worry time, the writing things down, getting things out of your head and doing relaxation are… Great, so my number one recommendation is to make sure you’re doing those outside of the bed and outside of the bedroom, and give yourself some boundaries from a border between doing that worry time and getting in bed, so you kind of relax between them and then the second piece to it is, if you get in bed and all those thoughts pop back in your head, you need to get back out of bed, don’t lie in bed and worry, get back out of the bed, go back to that quiet place if you want to, you can write them down again, do another brain dump and then do another relaxation exercise, and then if you feel sleepy, get back in bed, but don’t spend time in bed worrying, or else you make the bed a place where you worry rather than to

0:32:03 S1: A so good. So good. And there were actually a couple of things that were going through my mind when you were talking about that, that I just wanted to mention. And one of those is that I bet… And you could tell me if I’m wrong about this, but I bet this whole anxiety and worry before we go to bed has gotten worse in recent years because we are constantly connected to something, whether it is social media or our phone or the TV or a podcast, right. We’re constantly connected to something, and so when it’s time to go to bed and we shut all that down, now we’re like, Okay, mind racing. Yeah, exactly. Right, so I bet that’s actually got worse. Oh yeah, and then the other thing I just wanted to mention is that when you said when you… When you can’t sleep or you’re worrying and get out of bed, I go and do what you need to do and then come back… I always remember you saying, What is the bed for? Sleep and sex, and that’s it. Don’t do anything else in the van, so certainly you don’t wanna be worrying when you’re in bad, ’cause then you’re gonna connect all of those together.

0:33:08 S1: Absolutely. Yeah, cool, awesome. I think Karyn will appreciate that response.

0:33:13 S2: Okay, I sound… It sounds like Karyn is doing… They’re absolutely the right thing. The thing to make sure you’re doing is separate that worry time from the bed.

0:33:24 S1: Yeah, exactly. Love it. Okay, Aisha says, What are your thoughts on melatonin, CBD oil or GABA? Those sleep aids. Do they work? That’s your question.

Do sleep aids like Melatonin, CBD Oil, or Gaba work?

0:33:38 S2: Okay, this is a tricky one. My answer is yes, no, and maybe… And that’s not in order, again, that’s not an order, that’s for all three of them. Well, let me try and take them in order, and I think the… First of all, melatonin. So melatonin is the one that most people are aware of. Yeah, so let me briefly explain what Melatonin is, melatonin is a hormone in our body naturally makes melatonin, the precursor are… Interestingly, the precursor for melatonin is serotonin, which a lot of people are familiar with is a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate mood and is made by our gut and so you have… If you have reduced serotonin, you may have reduced melatonin, and that may affect the timing of your sleep, but the important thing is that melatonin is a hormone that is naturally released as the sun starts to set it as it gets dark outside, and melatonin is a signal that sleep is coming. It’s basically a darkness signal, asleep is coming signal, it’s not a hypnotic like an Ambien or something like that, that I hate to use the word but knocks you out.

0:35:11 S2: Melatonin is not a sleep aid, it’s a timing aid, and so because of that, a lot of people think of it, because a lot of people think of it as a sleep aid, they take it in correctly and so they it and then they expect it to knock them out within, say, 30 minutes. It doesn’t work that way. If you wanna take melatonin, melatonin is helpful to make feel sleepy, when you wanna feel sleepy, it helps you with the timing of sleepiness, so most people would take it a couple of hours before they want to fall asleep, so if your bedtime is generally around 11 o’clock, then you would probably take melatonin around 9 o’clock, and then it just slowly starts to signal your brain to start kind of quieting and… So I would say that if you’re taking melatonin, you’re taking melatonin as a sleep aid to knock you out within a couple of minutes, it’s probably not gonna do that, but it can help with the timing of sleep, especially helpful for jet lag in particular, but it’s not an inert substance. So there are side effects from taking melatonin, even though it’s over the counter, there are interactions with other medications, even though it’s over the counter, so I always recommend that folks consult with a prescriber before they…

0:36:40 S2: Take melatonin. Sure, so that’s melatonin. Okay, CBD, there’s really not a lot of research on CBD. CBD can help, and there’s some good research on CBD regard helping to reduce anxiety, so if somebody’s anxious, it might helpful for that… What I can say is that there’s more research about THC, which is the psychoactive substance part of marijuana, there’s a lot more studies about THC, and we know that it does help people to fall asleep… But it also does affect the… What we call the sleep architecture. There’s a rhythm, we’ve been talking about Circadian Rhythm, which is like a 24-hour cycle, but there’s also a cycle of rhythmic it to your sleep as well, and we call that rhythmic or the sleep architecture basically. And we know that THC (marijuana) has an impact on that sleep architecture, it can cause you to have more light sleep, it can affect your REM sleep, which is when a lot of people dream, and so it can affect those things, so even though it might help you fall asleep, it can disrupt your sleep over the course of time.

0:38:06 S1: So it’s kind of hit or miss, we know less about CBD, but again, CBD may be helpful for people to particularly have kind of anxiety and kind of the calming effect of that… I’m thinking that if they have anxiety before they go to bed, that’s possible, not that I’m not… You can hold you to this or anything, but it’s possible that it could then help them get to sleep if anxiety is their main trigger, and just as a side note, I do have some clients that take it and swear my in for sleep, so I’m guessing it’s probably the anxiety component that’s helpful for them.

0:38:45 S2: And I think that’s a great point, and what I’ll say is that I said, yes, no, and maybe… And the maybe part of that is that it can be very individual. Just because I say, no, studies show… Well, studies mean that you’ve given this to hundreds of people and it probably worked for some people, it probably didn’t work for other people, and there may have actually been adverse events for some other people… Right, right. If these things work for you and you’re taking them right, and you are consulting with someone about taking them, especially if you’re on other medications and things like other supplements like that? Then they may be helpful for you, and if they are, then that’s great. I’m not saying you kinda know to them, and by any means.

0:39:29 S1: It sounds like specifically with CBD, we just need more research, it just hasn’t been a more research or be helpful.

0:39:35 S2: Absolutely, and it’s under way, there’s a lot of research going on, and again, as marijuana in particular is being legalized and then there’s medical marijuana that’s been around for a lot longer than that, there is a lot of good research where they’ve actually given people what they call blind research where the person is getting… They don’t know if they’re getting the real CBD or they’re getting a placebo and needed as the researcher, and then they can delineates a lot of the research right now is just kind of me being given CBD, I know I’m getting CBD. And then self-rating, Oh, I feel better. And so the research is getting better, but I think there is some good solid basis for that… Yeah, now GABA is interesting because we know even less about GABA of how it works, and especially what is the benefit of supplemental GABA. Now, GABA is an amino acid. It’s a what we call an inhibitory neurotransmitter, I kinda think about it as the breaks for the brain, right, it helps to kinda slow you down, it helps to reduce stress, it helps to increase kind of a feeling of relaxation, and so…

0:40:53 S2: All those things sound good. When you’re trying to go to sleep, decreases increased relaxation, that should be conducive to sleep, and that’s kind of the idea, but again, GABA is made naturally by the body, and what we don’t know is… it occurs naturally in some foods as well, and so… But what we know is by digesting supplemental Gaba, does that actually go into the system and is it utilized by the body in the same way that naturally occurring GABA is, or is it just you’re paying money to take a supplement that just goes out the system… Right, we just don’t know what the uptake is of supplemental Gaba, but Gaba does help with sleep, it does help with relaxation, it does help to reduce stress, and it’s naturally occurring kind of endogenous to our body, Again… and there is some good studies, as I’m just thinking about it, of GABA, not necessarily Gabi by itself, like GABA along with 5 HTP, being taken together, being helpful to… Okay, if you’re using it under the guidance of someone and you’re aware of the kind of potential side effects and interactions, it may be helpful to one answer, but it was a great question.

0:42:27 S2: Yeah.

0:42:27 S1: There you know what, Aisha isn’t the only one wondering that question I get asked about those three supplements all the time, so I’m sure that helped a lot of people…

0:42:36 S2: Again, when you’re not getting good sleep. It’s really, really painful. I mean, people don’t think of insomnia as a pain condition, but I’ve worked with enough people who literally will say I am physically in pain because I didn’t sleep, and if you’ve had a couple of sleepless nights or if you’ve even had multiple days of not being able to sleep for whatever reason, or you’ve traveled and you’ve just kind of been jet lag, it does physically hurt, you do kinda a risks. Yeah, and so it’s not surprising that when people aren’t sleeping, they’re desperate to feel better.

0:43:16 S1: You can even be delirious from lack of sleep.

0:43:18 S2: Absolutely, and so I think that… Sorry, I think that desperation leads people to reach out to anything that they hear that might help, and I think you have to be cautious. There are very few things that we know work for most people with regard to sleep, and I can talk a little bit about those, but I gonna get there in a… A lot of people that are willing to take advantage of people that are desperate to get good sleep, so just to have your eyes open to your research and work with someone to see what works well for you.

0:43:57 S1: Okay, alright, good advice. So thank you. I have one more question from Jenna, and her question is about Ambien. We haven’t… I don’t think we talk… We maybe touched on it a little, but she says that she’s been on Ambien for a while now, and she’s wondering… Is it damaging? I guess, I think what she’s saying is it was working for her to sleep, but she’s wondering about her gut because she has colitis, so Is it damaging her gut? Can talk about that?

0:44:27 S2: Alright, a reminder that I’m not a physician. I don’t know what the saying is, I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn or whatever it is, the last night, so I’m not a physician, so I know, but I won’t talk about specifics. I will tell you that Ambien is a sleep aid, and it is an effective sleep aid for many people, what we do know is that it does lose its effectiveness for sleep over time, so if Jen has been on it for a long time, it may not be working as well for her? For her sleep, so you’re always wondering those… Ambien is not a medication that you’re intended to be on for long periods of time, ideally, people should take it for a couple of weeks or a month at the most, these are not intended for long-term use, and many of the studies have not looked at the long-term use lines, another sleep aid that has been tested for a little bit longer, but again, long-term for these sleep aids is like six months.

0:45:32 S1: You and I, we won’t mention any names, but we have a friend who’s been on Ambien for 10 years…

0:45:39 S2: Yeah, it’s not doing what it was at one point in that situation, but with regard specifically to… And IBD, I can’t really say what I can say is that things like diarrhea, constipation, nausea, upset stomach, those type of things are side effects of ambient, and so it might be hard to kinda tease those apart, it could be masking symptoms, it could be causing symptoms, and so it can cause those things as side effects, the other thing I would say to keep in mind is that, again, Ambien is not in an inert substance, it is a medication and it does have interactions with other drugs or other medications that a person might be on, especially like pain medications and things like that. So I think the best course of action is check with your physician, check with your prescriber, and if you’re concerned, it might be worth taking a break from the Ambien or finding a different medication.

0:46:42 S1: Alright, awesome, sounds good. This has been so helpful for everyone, connecting the IBD sleep dots. I love it. The one thing we haven’t really touched on, and I think it would be valuable for people are just like, what are some actual rituals or tips, like things you could tell us about… Good sleep hygiene, I guess that’s the word, right. What the… Yeah, what are some general tips that you can give us just to make sure that we’re all doing the best we can with sleep?

There is no panacea when it comes to sleep, but there are several things you can do to make sure you have quality sleep each night.

0:47:12 S2: Sure, yeah, I think… First of all, I have to say that there is no panacea… I kinda said this before, there is no panacea, and these tips that I have to share are not a panic either, they’re not a treatment. If you have a sleep problem, if you have in Sami, you have sleep apnea, those types of things, you need to get help for those conditions, the… These tips are essentially behaviors that good sleepers do, and they may help you with your sleep, and to have a healthy gut, they can help to break that dysbiosis cycle we were talking about, so that’s the caveat that I have to give. My first tip is, hands down, the most important advice that I can suggest is to, like we said earlier, treasure your sleep, protected from all enemies out there that are trying to steal your sleep. Don’t take sleep for granted. As many of you know who have struggled with insomnia or sleep deprivation or who do shift work, sleep is a precious commodity that sometimes you have to consciously protect, you have to put effort into protecting your sleep, don’t put effort into sleeping, but put effort into protecting your sleep.

0:48:28 S2: So let me give some specific tips, and these are, again, these are just tips, these are things that good sleepers often do naturally, that might help reduce sleep problems, but again, they’re not treatments for sleep disorders if you have… if you have sleep apnea, if you have another sleep disorder, talk to your primary care doc, ask for a referral to a sleep specialist, don’t just take the medications, you go to your primary care doc and they say, Here, try Ambien ask to talk to a sleep specialist first, or look for a sleep specialist yourself that can help… You can start at behavioralsleep.org, they have a great provider Search tab that is just folks that have been trained in behavioral sleep, so behavioralsleep.org and use their provider search can help. So tip number one have a consistent bed. I can hear it already boring… No one wants to be told when to go to bed, our kids don’t like to be told when to go to bed, we don’t wanna be told when to go to bed, and we don’t wanna be told him to wake up either.

0:49:31 S2: But of those two of bedtime and wake time, probably having a consistent wake time is most important. Interesting, having a consistent wake time is key to that circadian rhythm, ’cause remember what resets that master clock every day. Right, light sunlight. So the more consistent you are with getting up, getting up at the same time every morning, even on your days off, get some exposure to light, go take a walk, go sit by a window, get up, turn on lights, move around and let your body know that it’s time to set the clock for the new day. Get up regardless of when you went to bed, if you had a bad night sleep, are you stayed up late, don’t sleep in… It will mess up your clock, you’ll feel worse over time, kind of that jet lag feeling all day, save up that sleepiness. So that are more likely to be able to sleep well the next night, the more consistent you are, the better you’ll feel, and the more in tune every cell of your body will be.

0:50:38 S1: Got it. So that was a number?

0:50:42 S2: Do you want another… I’ll give you another one.

0:50:48 S1: Yeah, absolutely. Give us as many as you can.

0:50:50 S2: I kind of alluded to this already when I talked to Karyn, have a down time before bed. I know, again, I can hear it already boring. Today, too many of us rush around doing a thousand things, doing chores, checking email, doom surfing on social media, and then we realize… Yeah, I just heard that in a couple of weeks ago, we’re kind of caught up in all these activities and then we realize it’s time to go to bed and we’re like, Oh my God, it’s time to go to bed, and I have to kinda run and we dive into bed because it’s bed time, we don’t pay attention to our body, and when our body says It’s sleepy, we pay attention to this external thing, time and say, Oh, it’s bed time, I have to go get in bed even if I’m not sleepy… Good sleep unfolds naturally when you’re sleeping, and it’s hard to be sleepy if you’ve just been running around and you’re all physically and emotionally wound up, you have to shoot… If you have a bedtime that you’re shooting for, then why not have a wind down time that you’re shooting for? It doesn’t have to be that long.

0:51:55 S2: It can be very simple, brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your pajamas, do some kind of… Spend a few minutes relaxing, do some light stretches, do some breathing exercises, do meditation, read a book, limit your screen time during this wind down time, and when you feel sleepy, get in bed, listen to your body, don’t get in bed when you’re tired… If we did that with all getting bed every right away, Don’t listen to your body and when you’re sleepy, go get in bed and then allow yourself to fall asleep quickly within 10 or 15 minutes, so that’s my second tip.

0:52:36 S1: We’ll take another one.

0:52:37 S2: You already told you already took some of the excitement out of this one, but you won’t say this one’s boring because this one is the bed is for sleep and sex on… Right now, I have your attention.

0:52:48 S1: Sorry, I didn’t know you were gonna say that one.

0:52:53 S2: I seriously… Have you said it… And we’ve heard this before, right, the bed is for sleep and sex only, and all I had that sleep should only happen in the bed, the bed is for sleep, and sleep is for the bad… Sex can happen anywhere, right? But sleep is for the bed, we get into this habit of doing too many things in the bed besides sleeping, and when that happens, the bed becomes a place where we do everything but sleep, it becomes a cue for activities besides sleeping. It can be watching TV, it can be reading, it can be doing work, looking at the news or looking at social media, most commonly, it just becomes a place where we become frustrated and anxious… Right, and if you’ve ever been exhausted and gotten in bed and turned off the lights and you’re like, Oh, I can’t wait to get in bed, and you crawl in the bed and then suddenly you were all of a sudden weren’t sleepy because you’re mind racing with hundreds of things, like we were talking about earlier, this is a good sign that your bed has become paired, it’s become associated with the bed has become a queue for being anxious and worried and awake instead of being sleepy and going to sleep.

0:54:10 S2: And like I said earlier, you usually don’t get out of the bed and do those things, you don’t do anything about those things you’re worrying about, you just kinda sit there and you toss and you turn, you get frustrated and the bed becomes that place where you feel anxious, so if you do feel sleepy, what’s interesting is that if people do get out of bed, they often go sit on the couch and then they fall right to sleep it… If you’ve ever done that, right, you can’t sleep in the bed and you get out of bed and you go downstairs, or you go in the other room and you sit on the couch and you’re instantly falling asleep as… That’s the best proof ever… Right, that the bed has become associated with being awake and worrying, and the couch has become where you go to sleep, right. If you ever need more proof and you’ve made the couch where you sleep in the bed where you worry, so only sleep in the bed, don’t treat your bed like a couch and don’t treat your couch like a bed… Always keep them separate. This is a really common issue that comes up with a lot of people with medical concerns too, so it’s kind of related to that, so I wanna mention that…

0:55:17 S2: What if we have to get up to go the bathroom? During the night?

0:55:20 S1: I forgot to ask that. Yes, thank you for bringing that up.

0:55:24 S2: The same thing applies, and that’s why I bring it up at this point, ’cause the same thing applies, if you get up to go to the bathroom in the night and you’re sleepy after you go to the bathroom, you’re sleepy, getting… You get back in bed and go back to sleep. That’s great. That’s perfect, but if you don’t go right to sleep, get out of the bed, don’t just lie there trying to make yourself sleep, don’t try and force yourself to sleep, don’t stay in bed worrying about going back to sleep, get up. Go sit on the couch, relax. Do something boring, but don’t fall asleep on the couch. If you start to feel sleepy sitting on the couch, get up and go get back in the bed, and if you get in the bed and all of a sudden you can’t sleep again, then you might wanna think about going back to the couch and doing something boring until you feel sleepy again and you may repeat this pattern and you may end up having a bad night sleep… Right, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna save that sleep that sleeping is up and you’re gonna have a better night sleep tonight.

0:56:22 S2: Makes sense. Yeah, and then finally, I’ll just mention really quickly, my last tip, and that’s related to your bed in your bedroom, right? Your bed in your bedroom should be a refuge… Right, and I don’t mean like an animal refuge where you have a bunch of exotic animals like we do, or even house pets in your bedroom, your bedroom should be quiet and peaceful, and my client, if you’re in an environment where there’s a lot of noise than a white noise maker or a fan would be okay, because what you want with noise is something that’s consistent in volume and tone, it doesn’t change, it’s just kind of really steady, you don’t wanna use a TV to fall asleep because again, that’s associating, that’s using your bed as a couch, plus the TV, the volume goes up and it goes down, and if you have it on a timer, it shuts off and all those changes and noise can disrupt your sleep. A noise maker or fan? That’s okay. It should be cool. It should be dark. Our body temperature is naturally decreasing as we sleep, and if your body can’t cool down because the room is too hot or your covers or your bed kinda hold the heat in, your sleep will be disrupted, so make sure that you have a nice, cool, dark bedroom, and a good comfortable mattress is helpful, right?

0:57:47 S2: Don’t worry, you don’t want a mattress, it’s too hard or too soft, you want one that’s comfortable for you, and I guess I would say don’t get hung up on the mattress thing, a lot of people have this in their mind that they have to sleep in the bed in their bedroom. And I often say, if you’re more comfortable sitting up slightly, say in a recliner because of either chronic pain or overweight or any of those kinds of things, that’s fine, as long as you can sleep there, undisturbed… Where is your best sleep? But all these things, if you don’t sleep in the bed, all the same rules apply to where you do sleep… And you can sleep on the couch if you want. But all the rules apply to the couch, that should be where you sleep, that’s the only… Where you sleep, you don’t do anything in there, it should be quiet, it should be cool, it should be comfortable and you don’t hang out there except for when you’re sleeping, that’s just your sleeping place. So those are my tips.

0:58:41 S1: Got it, it. Those tips are fantastic. I think that they’re apropos for everybody, right? They’re perfect. Yeah, that was a perfect way to end it. I have a quick lightning round. Okay, this is just yes or no. If you feel like you wanna add a little bit to it, you can feel free, and actually, I have 10 of them, I think we’re gonna end up skipping some of them because you’ve already answered a lot of these that I had put in my Lightning Round, so… Number one, Okay, this is what you didn’t answer, power nap or snooze Fest for IBDers. You know how most people can do a 10-minute power nap and they say that’s best for them, but for IBDers can we do a snooze fest…  or is it still best for us to do the power nap?

What’s better, a power nap or a snooze fest?

0:59:28 S2: Yeah, I usually say with regard to naps, my short answer is, naps are fine, unless you have a sleep problem, if you have a sleep problem and you’re using naps to compensate for that sleep problem, all you’re gonna do is exacerbate that sleep problems, so when patients… When I work with patients or clients who have insomnia, no napping is the rule while they’re in… While they’re in insomnia treatment, but as far as getting good sleep for people with IBD, if you’re not having insomnia, a nap is great, and I… I usually recommend about either a power nap, if you have less than half an hour or so to sleep, then take a power nap, keep it to 10 to 20 minutes, right. Otherwise, take a two-hour nap. Right, and that has to do with that rhythmic it that I talked about when we sleep, if you’ve ever kind of fallen asleep and you intended to a 10-minute nap, but you woke up after an hour and you kind of felt sluggish and slow and you can’t really get started again, right? That’s because you woke up when you were in deep sleep, and if you let yourself take a nap for an hour and a half to two hours, you’ll be back to kind of…

1:00:42 S2: You’ll wake up and lighter in a lighter stage to sleep and you won’t wake up feeling kind of all sluggish and things. So I recommend 10 to 15 minutes or 90 to 120 minutes.

1:00:54 S1: Okay, cool. I think you mentioned this one, noise makers, you said Yes, it’s okay. Noise makers are. Okay, I was on about that. Consistent in tone and volume. Yeah. Okay, are over the can, we talked about the supplements separately, but I keep seeing these supplements like sleep aid supplements, nano medicine, but supplements at the health food store where they’ll have melatonin and GABA and I don’t even know what else, but all a myriad of sleep aids in that… Yes or no? No. No. Okay. Natural light. Alarm clock, yes or no?

1:01:36 S2: If that’s good for you and that helps you wake up feeling refreshed, I think it’s okay. There’s no evidence that they’re any better than any other kind of… alarm clock.

1:01:45 S1: Okay. It’s TV and be okay. If you have the night time like you know, I’m talking about the blue light that… Okay, no. I guess or no, but I have to hear more ’cause you know I do this.

Finally we have an answer to the question about whether we should use blue light devices at bedtime!

1:02:00 S2: Yeah, so the problem is not… So there’s two issues, the blue light part, everybody got excited about the blue light screens, admit this light that’s in the blue range, and we know that blue light suppresses melatonin, and we talked earlier that melatonin is supposed to be signaling you that it’s time to be sleepy. So if you have blue light that suppressing melatonin, then it’s gonna make you not feel sleepy, and the reality is that that’s true, but the reality is that the dose of blue light that you would need to suppress your melatonin enough to cause a problem is probably not the most powerful thing, the most powerful thing is what you’re doing on that device, right? So if you’re watching a TV show and you’re getting caught up in it, that engagement, that kind of cognitive arousal, that mental arousal of that activity, if you’re playing a video game… Does a blue light… Suppress, melatonin. Yes, but probably the bigger problem comes from the activity you’re doing on that device, then from the blue light, a lot of people feel like they have to fall, I have to fall asleep to the TV, but you will find in the long run that watching TV on the couch in your living room, and then when you feel sleepy going and getting in your bed will help significantly in the long run.

1:03:28 S1: Yeah, got it. Okay, you mentioned about being… You can proper yourself up, I think you said if you’re overweight or something else, you mentioned how people with IBD, we’re talking about heartburn and reflux or pain is what… Yeah, you mentioned chronic pain. Is it OK to sleep up, you know?

1:03:56 S2: Yeah, again, I think if you’re comfortable and you’re able to maintain quality sleep in that position or in that recliner or whatever, then… Sure, I think absolutely, but again, I would try and be as consistent as possible, that is your bed, so you’re consistent with getting in there, you’re consistent with getting out of there, and you don’t do anything in that recliner or change whatever, but sleep.

1:04:24 S1: Okay, got it. Sleep Number beds… And I don’t mean to pick on sleep Number beds, but all the beds that say you’re gonna have the best sleep ever if you choose our mattress, I think you touched on this earlier, but not really anything to that… Yes. No, what do you think? You find what’s comfortable for you. Okay, and if that’s a Sleep Number bed, then go for it, and if that’s whatever they do in some other country, then that’s all good too.

1:04:55 S2: If I had insomnia, I would not go out and buy a Sleep Number bed believing the gimmick that it’s going to cure my insomnia, comfort is great, and if a Sleep Number bed is what makes you comfortable, that’s great. But sleep number beds, cooling beds, cooling pillows, heavy mattresses, heavy Comforter, all these things are mostly gimmicks is at least as far as helping you with a sleep problem.

1:05:22 S1: Pick the one that’s best for you. It sounds like.

1:05:25 S2: Okay. Is it true that we shouldn’t eat two hours before bed… I think about this because of IBDers, and our food in our gut, stop eating two hours before we go to sleep. Yes, I think part of what regulates our circadian rhythm, besides the bright light is eating of our meals and the timing of our meals, so would say what’s more important is being consistent in your eating, and if having a very light kind of thoughtful snack, a couple of hours before bed time helps you to feel a little more drousy here as part of your evening wind down time, then I think that’s okay. But I would certainly not eat a heavy meal in a couple of hours of going to bed…

1:06:14 S1: Okay, and along with that things, eating or drinking things to make you feel drowsy is in a wives tale… Drink warm milk? I think it’s warm milk can help you go sleep, that’s a bad thing for us with IBD because oftentimes milk is inflammatory, so… Yes.

1:06:32 S2: I never argue with wives, old or otherwise, Find something that is comforting to you, that’s part of your wind down time, and if that… If you’re able to tolerate milk and that’s something that feels good to you, then… Sure, do that. A nice relaxing nonverbal tea is accreditation.

1:06:55 S1: I am a big advocate of tea, I think tea can help you find out… I love a Chamomile tea before going to bed.

1:07:00 S2: That something that’s non-caffeinated, that you can make a part of your routine, and then again, if one of the things that you think is waking you up in the middle night is you’re really hungry or something, and you think as a Light healthy snack might be helpful then. I think a thoughtful healthy snack before that is fine.

1:07:18 S1: Yeah, I’m gonna skip my last one, I had one last one, but I can answer it myself, see, I learned on this podcast here, is it true that if you’re having trouble sleeping, you should get out of bed… Yes, the answer is yes! And then when you’re sleepy, then you can get back in bed… How did I do? Perfect. Awesome. Oh my goodness, it has been such a pleasure. A joy, you know, I love working with you. So any excuse that I can have for us to work together, I love it, so that you so much for being my first podcast guest.

1:07:52 S2: Thank you for having me. 1:07:54 S1: I feel like we’ve only just begun. We’ve only scratched the surface here, so we’re gonna probably have to have you back again, I’ll gather more questions and you know where to find me… Hopefully, you’ll join us again. Thank you, Dr. Bill, Good night. Thank you so much for being here, for spending this time on the time on The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, thank you for just sharing the space with us today Until we chat again, I’m gonna wish you a cheeky and healthy… If I could clear my throat, IBD journey. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for joining me today and for listening to today’s episode. When it comes to IBD, I know there’s a lot of resources out there, and I’m truly honored that you chose the Cheeky Podcast to get your IBD information today. If you found this information helpful, please give us a rating and review, it helps other moms find the podcast and see what we’re doing over here to help IBD moms everywhere. And if you feel called to do it, share this podcast with an IBD mom who you know could really use an uplifting message today, because that’s what we’re all about over here at the Cheeky Podcast.

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Ready to take your gut healing to the next level?

One last thing, if you’re still with me and if you are, you’re definitely my kind of gal, we have to get to know each other better. If you’re tired of living on the hamster wheel of IBD with all the ups and downs between flares and remission, if you’re struggling to get control of your abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea, and other troubling IBD symptoms, go to my website, it’s karynhaley.com, and my mom had to be just a little bit different, spell my name with a Y. So it’s K-A-R-Y-N-H-A-L-E-Y dot com, and schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you gut your life back. It’s a power-packed 30 minutes. You don’t have to live in IBD status quo. There’s so much that can be done to transform your life so you can thrive in motherhood and thrive with IBD. I’ve seen my clients walk this path and it gives me so much joy to take that journey with them.

My entire coaching practice is run online, so you never have to leave your house and you never have to get out of your jammy or yoga pants for us to work together. You know, I’m wearing them too. If you’re ready to take your first amazing step towards healing, I’m ready to chat with you. Schedule your free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session today at karynhaley.com. Click on the Work With Me tab and I’ll see you soon.

It’s important to note that the information in this podcast and in this episode is for general information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The statements made in the Cheeky Podcast for moms with IBD, either by me or my guests, is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before implementing any new treatment protocols, do yourself a favor and consult your physician first. Thank you so much for listening, for being here, for saving the space for us to spend some time together. Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

[music]

Ep 7: Seven Gut Healing Diets Even a Foodie Will Love

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Would eating certain foods help heal my IBD?

What food should I be eating to help my Crohn’s and colitis?

With so many diets that are supposed to heal, how do I choose the best one for me?

If you’ve ever found yourself asking any of these questions, this is the episode for you. We’re breaking down the 7 best gut healing diets, talking about the main foods associated with each diet, and finding out who their best for. Let’s end the, “what should I eat to heal my gut?” question once and for all!

We’ll talk about:

• How anyone can become an IBD Foodie, even if you’re currently a Standard American Diet connoisseur (like I used to be)
• The best 7 gut healing diets worth considering
• Spoiler alert: there’s no all or none diet, it’s about doing the best you can. And there is no ONE diet when it comes to IBD, there’s only the best diet for you based on your symptoms and your lifestyle
• Grab your episode FREEBIE right here. 7 IBD Foodie Diets Explained

And so much more!

After this episode, we’ll end the confusion, uncertainty and overwhelm that comes when you just don’t know how to get started with a gut healing diet. This information will take you from hell no to let’s go. You’ve got this mom friend and I’m right by your side.

Episode at a Glance:

• [01:50] When it comes to being an IBD Foodie, it definitely doesn’t come easy for me. Learn about my Standard Italian American Diet roots that almost kept me from learning to use food as medicine.

• [03:52] It’s tough to stay away from some of the food that I know harms by digestive system, but the food I get to eat is also delicious, exciting, and exotic in some cases. Thinking about your IBD food as something completely new (and not something inferior) is key to your IBD Foodie success.

• [06:36] There is no one size fits all diet. Your IBD Foodie Diet is about finding the eating plan that works best for your symptoms and your lifestyle.

• [09:25] When in doubt, the Whole Foods approach is the perfect place to start.

• [12:30] If you know you are sensitive to gluten and dairy (and many IBDer’s are), a Whole Foods, plus the removal of gluten and dairy can give you much symptom relief when it comes to healing your IBD.

• [17:22] The Paleo Diet is similar to the Whole Foods approach, but also removes grains, a common gut disruptor for those of us with IBD.

• [21:28] The Specific Carbohydrate Diet was made with you in mind.

• [24:15] What’s the difference between the SCD and GAPS?

• [28:40] The SIBO Specific Diet can be a God send to those suffering from IBD and Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth.

• [32:08] None of these diets need to be your FOREVER. Just your NOW.

• [33:50] The Autoimmune Paleo Diet is the most restrictive eating plan, but the good news is that it’s a short-term plan, plus with this restriction comes the opportunity for immense healing.

• [37:41] If you’re ready to take your IBD Foodie life to the next level and really learn how you can put what we talked about today into action, you’re going to want my free resource, 7 IBD Foodie Diets Explained. It will give you all the information you need to get started on the diet of your choice today. KarynHaley.com/diet

• [40:49] Go to karynhaley.com to schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you get your life back.

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Episode Links:

• Free Resource: Karyn’s 7 IBD Foodie Diets Explained
• Allison Siebecker’s SIBO website
• Monash University’s FODMAPs website

7 Gut Healing Diets Even a Foodie Will Love

[music] [00:05] INTRO You’re listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space where moms with Crohn’s and colitis connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Haley, IBD health coach, integrative wellness enthusiast, and mom to three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years, I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey and do it like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music] [00:50] What’s up mama, Karyn with you today in ep 7 of the cheeky podcast for moms with IBD to talk about one of the most juicy topics– food. But not just any kind of food, my friend, my favorite kind of food—gut healing food.

Over the last 12 years, I’ve become quite the IBD foodie, but I definitely didn’t start out that way.

[01:50] I grew up with an Italian mom- homemade sauce was a weekly staple in our house and so was Italian bread, and mashed potatoes, and pizza and cannoli, spumoni ice cream and Italian cookies—Oh the Italian cookies–at my wedding reception, at Salvatore’s Italian Gardens—yes, if you’re picturing glitz and glam with lots of chandeliers and crystal and European statues—that was my wedding reception—and for dessert it wasn’t enough for my Italian family to have the traditional wedding cake, and Jordan almonds at every place setting and baked Alaska for dessert, no-no, we also had to have Italian wedding cookies, mostly because it was Italian protocol but also just in case someone was still hungry after all that dessert!

What my non-Italian husband and his family must have thought about this wedding, the wedding I had dreamed about as a little girl, literally the reception package was called the wedding of your dreams, dreamt about before I even before meeting  my husband. So, yes, if the food at my Italian wedding gives you any insight into my foodie life before I became an IBD foodie, trust me, I get what is was like to be a Standard American diet Foodie. I don’t come from granola, health nut family stock. If that’s you too right now, I want you to know that you can still be a foodie when you become an IBD foodie, it’s just a different kind of foodie when you choose food as medicine.

[03:52] I’m certainly not going to stand here and tell you IBD healing food isn’t a sacrifice, because it is. I’d be lying if I told you different. My mouth still waters when the take out box of pizza enters our home and I know I won’t be eating it or when my teenage son, who makes all the Italian dishes of my youth makes his  scrumptious lasagna, but my mouth also waters when I make my IBD foodie almond flour pizza with caramelized onions and roasted red peppers, or my own no bread Thanksgiving stuffing, or my dairy free cashew cream cheesecake. Those are all delish too!

There just different. So, before we go any further into the specific IBD healing diets and how they might work for you, know that the best way to become an IBD Foodie is to:

Be committed and dive in with gutso. If you’re going do it, do it. The mama who gets pulled into it or dabbles one day and indulges in mac and cheese the next, will always regret her decision. Wait until you are ready to get started and then completely commit.

Think of your new food and your old food as completely different—don’t think of it as a substitute or a less than version. It’s not less than, it’s just different. think of your grain free pizza as something completely new, exotic, and exciting. And something you have the privilege to try. It’s a slight mindset shift, but it will have a huge impact on how you move through our new IBD foodie life. And whether you stick with it.

Be ready to embrace seasoning and spices you’ve never heard of or tried before. The right seasonings can take a meal you might think of as boring, to delectable and delish and something you’ll even share with friends and family who never even know just how healthy it is.

[06:36] With that said, let’s dive in to your 7 options for gut healing diets. Of course, you know that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is going to be one of them. Many moms with IBD think the SCD is the only option out there. It’s the one touted as the best diet for IBDer’s. But the truth is, there is no one size fits all diet. There’s loads of Crohn’s and colitis friendly food to consider. It’s about picking the diet that works best for your symptoms and your lifestyle. Only you can decide what’s best for you. And it will usually take some trial and error when your new to the world of IBD diets.

There’s most assuredly more than 7 options out there, but these are the top 7 I work with most. And there’s so much information within each one of these diets that I could take a whole episode (scratch that, multiple episodes) for each one. But today is more about an appetizer smorgasbord—where you’ll get a little of this and a little of that. Just enough to tempt your tastebuds and your mind.

If you want to go deeper and find out more about a particular diet, I you can download my free guide 7 IBD Foodie Diets Explained—it will take this conversation deeper for you with suggestions for further reading about each diet, specifics about who the diet is best for and a section I call what’s on the table and what’s off the table so you know exactly what you can and can’t eat on each eating plan.

Go deeper to find out the best IBD healing diet for you!

You can access to this free deeper dive resource by going to karynhaley.com/diet. That’s karynhaley.com/diet or you can find the link to this freebie in the show notes for episode 6.

[09:19] We’ll start with the least restrictive approaches first and continue on to the more restrictive diets as we go. I always tell clients, start with the least restrictive option when it comes to diet. If that works, great! If not, you can always go deeper until you find the diet that works best for you.

The least restrictive IBD Foodie diet is the Whole Foods approach.

So IBD Foodie diet #1 is the Whole Foods approach. I know you’ve heard about this way of eating. It’s touted as the best eating plan for everyone, not just those with IBD. In a gutshell, the whole foods approach cuts out pretty much everything in your pantry. With this approach, you stay away from boxed, packaged, and canned foods in favor of foods in their whole and natural state. Processed food, refined sugar like high fructose corn syrup, chemicals, dyes, artificial flavors are all off the table. Food in its natural and whole state is the key.

The Whole foods approach is high in whole fruits and vegetables, (berries, leafy greens) quality protein (chicken or fish) and fats (from avocados or healthy nuts and nut oils), it usually includes smaller portions of carbs like gluten free grains quinoa and rice as well. But gluteny grains that make sourdough bread may also be included for its health benefits. Usually GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) and unfermented soy are off the table too and organic is preferred in a whole foods approach.

For some people, this is enough to help bring their IBD into remission. Staying away from high amounts of sugar, most gluten, processed food, and all the chemicals in food is enough. Whether this diet works for you usually depends on your disease activity as well as other health factors. In my practice, I actually have an 8-week Deep Dive Gut Rebalance program for this way of eating. And I have it because for some moms with IBD it can be a first line of defense for standard American diet mamas who are pretty mild in their disease activity, or who are ready to commit fully to whole foods, but want to go through this step before deciding whether to make bigger changes to their diet. If you’re currently on the standard American diet and this whole food as medicine approach is new to you and you want to start as slow as possible with an IBD foodie diet, whole foods is a good starting place.

Many moms with IBD can be sensitive to gluten and dairy.

[12:30] Moving on to Approach # 2 is the Whole Foods diet, plus the removal of Gluten and Dairy.

Again, this appeals to the moms who have mild disease activity, ones just moving on from the standard American diet, but especially moms who already know they are gluten and dairy sensitive. With this approach, you start with the whole foods diet, and add on these 2 key pieces—no gluten or dairy.

When it comes to gluten sensitivity and this IBD foodie diet, it’s best if there’s not even the occasional gluten, like you might find with the whole foods only approach, instead it’s eliminated completely. The thing about gluten which is a protein found in many grains like wheat, barley and rye– is that it’s very common to for IBDer’s to have difficulty digesting this substance. There definitely needs to be more research to find out about the exact mechanisms at play here in terms of gluten and IBDers, but we know that in many individuals, gluten can be a gut disruptor, and lead to intestinal permeability, also known as leaky gut, and it can further aggravate your IBD due to its ability to increase intestinal bacteria. Many people with Crohn’s and colitis feel better when they follow a gluten free diet so it’s always worth a trial period away from it. Usually 3 weeks to 3 months is recommended.

Now the diary removal with this eating plan is an interesting conversation. We know that dairy can be inflammatory for many people and when you already have an illness that involves inflammation, you may not want to push your luck here. We also know that we are the only species to drink another animal’s milk. When you think about it, that’s kind of weird in and of itself isn’t it? What I’ve seen in my practice with dairy is that many people do see improvement with their IBD symptoms when they remove it.

But what’s interesting about dairy is that unlike gluten, there seems to be a continuum of what people can tolerate. For some, just a splash in their morning coffee or tea is all they can tolerate. For others, they might tolerate a small glass of milk with food, but not on an empty stomach. For others, no dairy works. Dairy tolerance can be very individual. Common symptoms dairy sensitivity might include feeling bloated or gassy, sometimes with smelly gas or having diarrhea after eating. For some it isn’t about the gut at all. They might have chronic Sinus or allergy issues, excessive mucus or even heartburn from dairy sensitivity. With dairy, there’s two potential culprits that might affect you. There’s the milk sugar itself- that’s the lactose like in lactose intolerance but there’s also a protein found in dairy (the casein) Some are more sensitive to the lactose over the casein, but many are sensitive to both.

The great news for those with dairy challenges is that there’s so many dairy alternatives now. Most people with dairy sensitivity find an alternative they like- cashew, almond or coconut milk are just a few possibilities. There’s even cheese alternatives that taste good, one of my favorite being a brand called Siete- they are in most grocery stores in the U.S. but you can also buy online. Their non-dairy cashew queso dip is delish.

The whole foods plus gluten and dairy free approach is great for anyone with IBD wanting to try a less restrictive gut healing diet, that removes two of the most common gut disrupters, gluten and dairy. You might notice some big improvements.

Is the Paleo Diet the gut healing approach that’s best for you?

[17:22] The 3^rd IBD foodie approach is the Paleo diet. This eating plan has gained in popularity in recent years. It’s even available on the grocery store shelf in pretty much every grocery store. Remember, we’re going in descending order here with restrictiveness so the Paleo a little bit more restrictive than the whole foods gluten/dairy free approach because of course it includes everything I mentioned earlier but also excludes grains, legumes, dairy, most sugar, and white potatoes as well. This diet is high in whole veggies, fruits, quality meat and fat, organ meats, sweet potatoes are included but rice and quinoa are not, and other grains are not. This is your first on our list of many other gut healing diets that go beyond the gluten free grains to say no to all grains.

So that makes this is a good time to explain the why behind a grain free approach for IBDer’s so you can decide if you want to stay away from grains too. First of all, in the world of paleo—were talking about eating like our paleolithic ancestors. These prehistoric beings hadn’t yet cultivated crops, so that’s one of the reasons there’s no grains on the paleo plan. For us IBD gals, grains can be damaging to our digestive system. They contain proteins called lectins as well compounds called phytates. These compounds can promote inflammation and inhibit digestion so you can see why grains might cause problems for us specifically. The specific carbohydrate diet, which also restricts grains goes even beyond this reasoning to avoid grains and we’ll talk about that in just a minute. One last important thing to note about paleo is that Sweeteners are have restrictions. Your main sweetener on paleo is maple syrup, but raw honey, real stevia and coconut sugar can also be used. White sugar would never be used.

There’s a lot wrong with what our doctors are telling us about the food we eat.

In talking about these first 3 gut healing diets, the whole foods approach, whole foods plus gluten/dairy free and then paleo, I’m reminded of how so often we’re told by medical professionals that diet has nothing to do with our illness and what we eat will make no difference to how we feel. Sure, you might be told eat bland, but that’s the extent of the conversation.

When we talk about this and you hear about the complications you can experience from things like gluten, dairy, grains, and sugar—with impacts like disrupted digestion, inflammation, possible leaky gut– And we also know that staying away from processed food can have the oppose effect on our digestive system, how is it possible that the food we eat doesn’t affect our Crohn’s or colitis. It makes no sense! We have to have a paradigm shift here. We have to include food in our IBD wellness plan. We have to talk about this and spread the word. I feel like lately we’re in the middle of a shift here, even for our doctors. I hope so. What we eat matters and can have a big impact on how we feel. It doesn’t need to be your only approach, but it must be part of your overall approach.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet was created with YOU in mind.

[21:28] We’ve made it to the #4 diet on our list of IBD Foodie diets.

Number 4 is the big kahuna—the specific carbohydrate diet. The SCD actually very similar to paleo—with the whole foods approach and emphasis on fruit, veg, quality protein and fat and does not include gluten, grains, refined sugar and most dairy, but in some ways, it takes things a step further as it really hones in on the gut and IBD health. Elaine Gottschall, who made the diet famous in Crohn’s and colitis circles used this very diet successfully with her daughter who had colitis, so unlike the first 3 we’ve talked about today, this is the first one that was really popularized with us in mind.

What’s the difference between paleo and SCD? Well, some foods on the paleo are not allowed on SCD and some foods on SCD are not allowed on paleo. Take dairy for instance—dairy is a no go on paleo, and most dairy isn’t allowed on the SCD, but homemade lactose free fermented dairy in the form of yogurt is allowed on SCD. In fact, it’s the crux of the diet due to its probiotic/gut flora balancing properties. Another difference is the sweeteners. Maple syrup is allowed on paleo, but not on SCD due to it being a disaccharide which is more of a complex carbohydrate and harder for us to break down by our digestive system. Honey, as a sweetener, is allowed though because it’s a monosaccharide and easier for our digestive system to digest.

You see, in SCD land, it’s not about eating like our paleolithic ancestors, it’s not about eating a whole foods approach, it’s about eating in a way that encourages the easiest digestion of the food we eat and promotes the best bacterial balance for our entire body.

See how this diet is tailor made for IBDers? Slight differences, but for some with IBD it matters a lot.

What’s the difference between the SCD and the GAPS diet?

[24:01] Moving on to Diet #5 on our IBD Foodie list is the GAPS diet—gaps stands for gut and psychology syndrome. This diet, created by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, was based off of the SCD so it’s very similar, but as its name suggests, it was created more for psychological challenges like anxiety and depression and also autism and ADHD. Interestingly, it’s also helpful for Crohn’s and colitis and if you are a believer in Hippocrates wisdom that all disease begins in the gut, you can see why it’s become a go to IBD foodie diet too.

GAPS is so closely linked with SCD that the differences are subtle. GAPS includes the homemade fermented yogurt, but Dr. McBride recognized that many people with these types of challenges can be sensitive to dairy and advised that we wait a little while, until our symptoms are more stable before adding in the lactose free (but not dairy free) yogurt. Dr. McBride also keeps fruit at bay in the beginning of the diet. Fruit contains sugar, yes natural sugar, but sugar non the less so fruit consumption is restricted in the beginning to give the gut time to rebalance the sugar and bacterial balance within the digestive system. Remember, sugar feeds bacteria—more sugar—more bad bacteria. Less sugar, even from fruit = a better bacterial balance.

Chicken soup a staple on the SCD is rich in gut healing bone broth properties is changed to meat stock on GAPS- Again, very similar, but cooked with less water and less time is more for when you’re in gut healing mode instead of remission according to Dr. McBride. The last notable difference between SCD and gaps is the fermented, probiotic rich cultured foods like sauerkraut, and kefir, and eventually fermented, cultured veggies to help with that bacterial balance in the gut. Truthfully, I think Elaine Gottschall would appreciated this angle on gut healing, but it’s just more emphasized on the GAPS diet.

How are we doing?

Is the difference between SCD and GAPS making sense? Have you been thinking about trying any of the diets so far? These are definitely the most popular 2 in the world of gut healing IBD diets. Remember one is not better than the other, there’s just the diet that works best for you—both symptom wise and taking into account your lifestyle.

As you can imagine, there’s a huge learning curve with diets like this—definitely more than the whole foods approach. There’s also more cooking at home and more ingredient restrictions. But on the flip side, there can also be more of a healing reward. We have to balance all of this when deciding on the best gut healing diet for you.

Remember, if you want to take this a step further and really sus out what this would look like for you, go ahead and download my resource guide: 7 IBD Foodie diets explained. It breaks down the specific food- what’s on the table, what’s off the table, who the diet is best for, and gives more information for further study to help you decide where is the best place for you to start. If any of these diets appeal to you, you can download your guide by going to karynhaley.com/diet or by clicking the link in the show notes.

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) may be holding you back from true IBD remission.

[28:40] OK, home stretch time.  IBD Foodie diet # 6.

Remember, we get more restrictive as we go. That can mean more healing for some with more complicated IBD challenges. These next couple can be a god send and they could be the answer for you. #6 is called the SIBO Specific diet.

Have you heard about this eating plan? The SIBO Specific diet, created by SIBO expert, Dr. Allison Siebecker, takes the FODMAPS diet and the Specific carbohydrate diet and mashes them into one. Now, let’s back this train up just a couple feet and all get on the same page before we move on and talk about the specifics of this diet.

First, let’s chat and get brief overview of SIBO. SIBO stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth—it’s exactly what it sounds like, an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. If you follow what we’ve been talking about this whole episode with regard to IBDer’s having an imbalance of bacteria in their intestine, you can absolutely see that people with IBD are prone to this bacterial overgrowth in their small intestine. Since we are focused on the small intestine with SIBO, I definitely see this gut struggle more with Crohnie’s and those with colitis since their disease can occur anywhere along the GI tract and often finds its way to the small intestine. 

When it comes to SIBO, there’s a diet that’s been very helpful called the Low FODMAPs diet. FODMAPs stands for—all the acronyms in this episode. You know I love a good acronym- FODMAPS stands for fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polysaccharides. FODMAPs. If you’ve got a really good ear, you’ll remember back when I spoke about the SCD, I mentioned disaccharides. These saccharides rear their ugly heads again and wreak havoc on our digestive system. A diet low in these short chain carbohydrates and sugars can be very helpful in easing SIBO symptoms.

You might be wondering why I would bring this diet up here. We’re talking about Inflammatory bowel disease, not SIBO. But like I mentioned, IBD and SIBO can go hand in hand. If fact, with my clients, I see it all the time. Many people with Crohn’s or colitis also suffer from SIBO and that’s where the SIBO Specific Diet comes in handy.

It’s basically a combo of the low fodmap and specific carbohydrate diet. I love this diet for mamas who have both IBD and SIBO.

None of these diets are your forever. They are just your NOW.

It is quite restrictive, but the good news is that it’s not meant to be on forever. Usually, once symptoms clear up, you can move to a less restrictive diet. Like all of these diets—accept the whole foods approach which I always recommend, it’s not forever, it’s just for now. As you are able to add in more foods, you should always take that opportunity to add variety and health to your eating plan.

One last side note about SIBO, just like with all of these gut healing diets, the SIBO specific diet is just one part of the healing plan. Yes, it’s a crucial part, but there’s other supplements and lifestyle factors, possibility medication, that are included to bring your disease into full remission. Going into those specifics on this particular episode goes beyond our focus for today, but the good news is that we’ll get there in other episodes—so much to talk about when it comes to healing IBD!

BTW, there’s links to Dr. Siebecker’s website if you think you might have SIBO and want more info and also to the Monash website if you want more FODMAPs info in the show notes. Love those sites. Definitely worth a peek if you believe you have SIBO.

The Autoimmune Paleo Diet takes our immune system and inflammation into account to help us heal our gut.

[33:50] The last IBD Foodie diet we’re going to talk about today, the last one for your consideration is diet #7. And diet #7 brings us circling back to the paleo diet, only this eating plan, called the autoimmune paleo, it takes the autoimmune aspect of our disease into account. Think back to paleo, very whole foods approach, eating like our paleolithic ancestors, no grains, legumes, beans, or dairy, certain sweeteners allowed, high in veg, fruit, high quality protein and fat, organ meats, but where paleo is more a lifestyle diet for those who are interested in eating healthy, autoimmune paleo is more about healing by removing the paleo foods that might cause inflammation for a short period of time to allow the body to restore microbial balance, correct nutrient deficiencies, and release toxins, before moving into the traditional paleo way of eating.  Paleo allowed foods like nuts, seeds, chocolate, eggs, nightshades… get removed to allow the body the time it needs to fully heal. These foods are then added back in when the time is right. Most people who start with autoimmune paleo, transition to a paleo approach and stay there as long as they feel well. Maintenance time back on the autoimmune paleo is used for body resets if necessary.

So, there you have it, the top 7 IBD Foodie diets explained—in an appetizer smorgasbord kind of way. Is there a lot more you should know if you want to begin one of these eating plans? Absolutely. The idea behind this episode was to let you know what’s possible. I hope that its got your juices flowing about what could be possible for you.

Wait a minute, I’m a vegetarian. Which gut healing diet is for me?

You probably noticed that in this episode, I never mentioned the vegan or vegetarian diet. This was actually purposeful. All of these diets can be adapted for vegans and vegetarians. Whole foods, SCD, Paleo, FODMAPs—they’re all doable for vegans and vegetarians with some modifications. That’s why I didn’t give these diets their own gut healing category. If you follow a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, you can adapt any of these IBD foodie diets as your own. It does take some careful thought and planning as some of these diets are structured as meat intensive, but it’s doable, so don’t give up. You can go for it too!

It’s time to Do it Like a Mom!

[37:41] So, as always we’ve come to the part in the podcast where we talk about how are you going to do it like a mom. #1- You are going to Download my resource guide 7 IBD Foodie Diets Explained at karynhaley.com/diet or click the link in the show notes. #2-You’re going to peruse the information and let it sink in. You can do this by making yourself a pro/con list just like Rory from Gilmore Girls (great show if you haven’t seen it) and then #3- you’re going to pick one and get started. Just do it. After you pick the one that speaks to you right now (not forever just now), go for it with gusto. Dive in with all your heart. Think of each new food as something completely new, not a substitute, but something completely new and exciting, you’re going to use spices and seasonings liberally…. And if the one you pick isn’t the right one for you, you’re going to switch it up a little.

Keep trying. Keep taking chances, keep your healing journey moving forward.

As always, be the tortoise. This isn’t a race, baby steps always win the day.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was your gut health mama. Build it, stone by stone, step by step and you will get there. You will get there and I’ll be there with bells on to give you virtual hugs and high fives.

You can do it. I believe in you.

As always, If you listened to this episode and still have questions or if you download the guide and want some help figuring out what’s best for you, that’s what I’m here for. The beauty of this IBD mom tribe is that we support each other. I’m here for you. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.

[40:19] Thank you so much for joining me today and for listening to today’s episode. When it comes to IBD, I know there’s a lot of resources out there, and I’m truly honored that you chose the Cheeky Podcast to get your IBD information today. If you found this information helpful, please give us a rating and review, it helps other moms find the podcast and see what we’re doing over here to help IBD moms everywhere. And if you feel called to do it, share this podcast with an IBD mom who you know could really use an uplifting message today, because that’s what we’re all about over here at the Cheeky Podcast.

[music]

Ready to take your gut healing to the next level?

One last thing, if you’re still with me and if you are, you’re definitely my kind of gal, we have to get to know each other better. If you’re tired of living on the hamster wheel of IBD with all the ups and downs between flares and remission, if you’re struggling to get control of your abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea, and other troubling IBD symptoms, go to my website, it’s karynhaley.com, and my mom had to be just a little bit different, spell my name with a Y. So it’s K-A-R-Y-N-H-A-L-E-Y dot com, and schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you gut your life back. It’s a power-packed 30 minutes. You don’t have to live in IBD status quo. There’s so much that can be done to transform your life so you can thrive in motherhood and thrive with IBD. I’ve seen my clients walk this path and it gives me so much joy to take that journey with them.

My entire coaching practice is run online, so you never have to leave your house and you never have to get out of your jammy or yoga pants for us to work together. You know, I’m wearing them too. If you’re ready to take your first amazing step towards healing, I’m ready to chat with you. Schedule your free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session today at karynhaley.com. Click on the Work With Me tab and I’ll see you soon.

It’s important to note that the information in this podcast and in this episode is for general information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The statements made in the Cheeky Podcast for moms with IBD, either by me or my guests, is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before implementing any new treatment protocols, do yourself a favor and consult your physician first. Thank you so much for listening, for being here, for saving the space for us to spend some time together. Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

[music]

Ep 6: Use the Gut Brain Connection to Your IBD Advantage

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The gut-brain connection is a fascinating topic, but for IBD gals, concepts like the gut-brain connection, the second brain, and the vagus nerve get catapulted to a whole new level.

Join me on this podcast episode, as we geek out on all things gut-brain connection, and then we take it even one step further by finding out the latest on what Harvard Medical School doctors are saying is different about how those of us with IBD can use this gut-brain phenomenon to our IBD advantage. Seriously awesome information!

We’ll talk about:

• The typical gut-brain connection everyone has
• How IBDer’s have a slightly different gut-brain connection than non-IBDer’s
• How you can use this difference to your IBD advantage

And so much more!

After this episode, you’ll know the exact steps you can take to use the gut-brain connection and your vagus nerve to help lessen your IBD symptoms. Powerful stuff!

Episode at a Glance:

• [02:53] The gut-brain connection is so vital to our overall well being and our gut health. Learn about how the second brain in our gut controls our thoughts, feeling and emotions.

• [05:61] According to scientists at Harvard Medical School, this gut-brain connection is especially true for people with IBD because we already have distress in our intestines, so anything we feel with this gut brain connection, we will actually feel it deeper,

• [07:29] Harvard Medical School scientists also show that when we have IBD, we actually respond to therapies that focus on stress reduction, anxiety reduction, depression, intervention more readily than our non IBD counterparts.

• [09:51] We can harness this vagus nerve to our advantage. We can hone and improve the connection our gut and brain has, and we can lesson our IBD symptoms by learning how to affect change at this level.

• [10:26] Belly breathing has been shown as one of those therapies that can help reduce stress, anxiety, depression, even our pain response, inflammation levels, and it can even strengthen our immune system, plus belly breathing goes even further than just gut level healing, it can also lower our heart rate and our blood pressure.

• [13:40] Belly breathing technique number one is the 4-7-8 breath. Let’s try this technique out together.

• [17:11] Belly breathing technique number two, is called Four Square. Four Square is a steadying and grounding breath. Let’s try this technique together.

• 19:15 Our last belly breathing technique is called the Double Exhale breath. It’s good for breathing to relieve panic or anxiety or even really strong pain that you’re having. Let’s go ahead and try last this technique together.

• [24:24] How you can do it like a mom? You can do this like a mom by picking one of the techniques, commit to trying it daily, for the next seven days, and observe how you feel. Extra points if you teach it to your kids too.

• [26:11] Go to karynhaley.com to schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause troubleshooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you get your life back.

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Episode Links:

• Harvard Health Publishing Gut-Brain Connection
• A Study: Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain-Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders
• What Does the Vagus Nerve Do?
• Diaphragmatic Breathing and Your Vagus Nerve

Use the Gut-Brain Connection to Your IBD Advantage

[music] [00:05] INTRO You’re listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space where moms with Crohn’s and colitis connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Haley, IBD health coach, integrative wellness enthusiast, and mom to three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years, I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey and do it like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music] [00:52] Well, hello, dear one, welcome to episode number six in the cheeky podcast. In this episode, it’s time for us to have a total psychological geek-out session, I get positively giddy with this topic, I’m not even kidding, I get just fascinated by the whole world of psychology in the Study of Brain… I studied it as one of my majors in undergrad, and then I studied Health Psychology in graduate school, so today’s topic for me, it just puts me completely in my happy place when I get to marry psychology and IBD. It’s true. It’s elation for me.

And we’re going to uncover some absolutely fascinating information today, I can’t wait.

So let’s dive into our topic for this episode, the gut brain connection and how we can use it to our IBD advantage.

Is the Second Brain More Important Then the First One?

[01:45] Let’s go ahead and start with this connection between the gut and the brain, have you heard that we don’t actually just have one brain in our body, we have two, and we have this brain, of course, the one that everyone is familiar with, the one on our head, but we also have one that’s often termed by scientists who study that gut brain axis as the second brain, woo-hoo-woo, the second brain and this brain is housed in our gut.

As you can imagine, growing up with a mom like me who was on the one side, a gut health enthusiast and then also a lover of all things, psychology of the brain, my kids were always hearing about this gut brain connection, and of course, the second brain.

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

[02:43] I remember when my youngest was in first grade. He was learning all about the parts of the human body in school, when they got to the brain, he raised his hand and he promptly asked the teacher, When are we going to talk about our other brain? So this thoroughly confused his teacher, and then a 20-minute argument ensued between my kid and the teacher… And, after that, I got a call from said teacher asking me what nonsense was I teaching my kid at home. Thankfully, after a little bit of chatting about it, after hearing my explanation, the teacher became intrigued and she was open to me coming into the classroom to talk to the kids about this second brain of ours, so I think that it was definitely a cool learning experience for the kids in his first grade classroom, but it was also a learning experience for me because I learned that I might need to tell my son that talking about the second brain school isn’t always going to be a welcome or an understood topic.

So the second brain, the one it’s housed in our gut, it’s not like there’s actually brain matter there, but it does deserve its name. Did you know there’s actually more nerves housed in the gut than there is in the brain, did you know that our gut actually has a thinking and feeling mechanism? How else can we explain a gut feeling? How else can we explain the butterflies in our stomach before an important doctor’s appointment? How can we explain the nauseous feeling we get in our gut when we hear bad news? How about the physical pain we might feel in our stomach when we’re stressed out? The guy is called in the second brain because we actually think and feel there, and the reason we do is because of an amazing nervous system pathway that connects to the brain and the gut, called the vagus nerve. I love talking about the vagus nerve. This communication super highway, it’s constantly sending signals back and forth, connecting the thoughts and the feelings we’re having between our brain in our gut… Go ahead, go ahead right now and just touch the back of your head at the base where your head ends and your spine begins… I’m doing it now, so we’re doing it together, go ahead and touch there. This is the beginning of this nerve system circuitry, this is the beginning of that vagus nerve, I’m talking about. This mass nerve ending system, it begins here, but then it spindles its way through several organ systems down through our body, it goes through the heart, and then it makes its way into the digestive system, and it ends in the colon, the gut brain axi and the second brain, it wouldn’t be possible without this super communication highway, that biggest nerve.

[05:55] For most people, the cool factor of the vagus nerve and our second brain, it ends there and… That’s pretty cool, right? I’m thinking you’re agreeing with me, that it’s a pretty cool system that we have this connection between our gut in our brain, but here’s where the situation gets down right ingenious for those of us with IBD.

Those Harvard Geniuses Know More Than We Do.

According to scientists at Harvard Medical School, this gut-brain connection is especially true for us because we already have distress in our intestines, so anything we feel with this gut brain connection, you know those butterflies, the nausea, the stress, the pain, because we have intestinal distress, we will actually feel it deeper, people who have GI disorders, we perceive pain more acutely because our brains are more responsive to pain signals from our gastrointestinal tract, and when we feel stress or anxiety, it makes the pain in our gut feel even worse…

Seriously. Fascinating, right?

You might be thinking, well, dang that kind of sucks for me. It’s great that now I understand why I feel those gut emotions so deeply, but there’s only negatives associated with it, there’s no positive, there’s more pain, more stress, more anxiety, there’s no positive spin there… Here’s what I where I want to challenge you. I want to challenge your thinking on this a little bit, because on the surface, if we just look the surface here, it might seem like a downside, but actually I think it’s pretty cool that we know ourselves, so well, most people don’t have a clue.

Most people don’t have a clue how they’re gut and brain connects, they don’t feel it like we do, they don’t feel it with the kind of intensity we feel, the kind of intensity we feel with these feelings and emotions.

The Best News of All.

So on the flip side of this bad news is that because of that, we feel things so deeply in our gut, and according to those same Harvard Medical School scientists, when we have IBD, we actually respond to therapies that focus on stress reduction, anxiety reduction, depression, intervention more readily than our non IBD counterparts.

So there is the flip side. There’s the cool part here.

[08:23] And studies abound, it’s not just the smarties at Harvard, other smart scientists who have replicated this work in their own research, they’ve also replicated the psychological approaches that are helpful to decrease digestive symptoms, and now you know, now you know the why behind why psychology and IBD, they go together when the psychology of all of this can really be our best friend here.

Now, so often, so often doctors want to dismiss us with statements like, You’re just too emotional, or those symptoms, they’re all in your head, or the pain you’re describing… I know it isn’t that bad, but we know different… We know now that our bodies are actually designed that way, and I propose, I propose it’s time for us to use this design to our IBD advantage. Now we have the insight. And insight is great, right? We know the why, we have the insight, knowing why something is happening and it’s the first step, but it’s only just the beginning, if we know we have a strong gut brain, vagus nerve connection, if we know we’re more likely to benefit from psychological intervention here, now we need to think about what do we do about it.

What Can We Do to Use This Information to our IBD Advantage?

[09:51] Can we, maybe harness this Vegas nerve to our advantage, can we actually hone and improve the connection our gut and brain has, could we even dare I say lesson our IBD symptoms by learning how to affect change at this level? This neurological level?

Yes, yes, yes, we can. We can even get started on that right here, right now, with one of the absolute easiest techniques out there, no special equipment needed, just you and your breath. When it comes to truly affecting this gut brain connection and helping our IBD symptoms, belly breathing, that breathing from the diaphragm, it’s been shown as one of those therapies that can help reduce stress, anxiety, depression, even our pain response, inflammation levels, and it can even strengthen our immune system, plus belly breathing goes even further than just gut level healing, it can also lower our heart rate and our blood pressure, that’s just too many wins for me, you gotta count me in, I hope it counts you in too. Deep breathing is a technique that I use all the time. I love this method, I have been using it for years now, and I’ve grown to absolutely love it. And reap the benefits from it. In my IBD life, using the gut brain connection to our IBD advantage, number one, it works within the moment, acute stress, acute pain, acute anxiety, acute depression, when that just hits you, you least expected it hits you, it’s acute, it’s strong, it’s in the moment and deep breathing can work for that.

Number two, when you do it regularly, it will also work for the chronic type of issues you might be having like ongoing stress, ongoing pain, anxiety and depression, you might be feeling. And best of all, number 3 here with this belly breathing technique, the one I’m going to show you today, you can do it anywhere. Any time. Any place. And no one even knows you’re doing it. Awesome sauce. Can I get an Amen? Let’s do it. Let’s go ahead and do it. Let’s get started using my top belly breathing techniques right now, I’m going to teach you my top three.

[12:28] Alright, are you comfortable? It’s always great to be comfortable when you do belly breathing, so just kind of wiggle around in your seat or if you’re walking around the kitchen, take a seat for a second. If you’re driving in the car, be careful with this because I don’t want you to get too comfortable, but get comfortable.

Alright, are you ready for a transformation?

Let’s do this, let’s do this like a mom, and let’s do it wherever you are right now. Belly breathing technique number one is the 4-7-8 breath. I like to start this breath out with an out-breath, just to clear the lungs, so go ahead and take a breath in and out.

Okay, with this breath, we breathe into our nose for four seconds, we hold it for seven seconds, and then we let it out through our mouth for eight seconds. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Let’s do it.

It will be even better for you if you place one hand on your belly, right where your diaphragm is, because you want to make sure that’s where the breath is coming from, not from up in your chest, so go ahead if you can, if you’re not driving, place a hand on your belly.

If you can, and you’re in a place where you can do it, it also is helpful to really go in and to go in and we close our eyes. So go ahead and just close your eyes, let your breath release again with a whoosh or a sigh, and breathing through your nose for account for two, three, four. Hold it, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And out through the mouth… two three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Good job.

Now, I want to mention two things to you, two things that will help you take this breath to the next level, number one, if you can… When you’re doing this breath, you want to go ahead and put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, right behind your front teeth, go ahead and do that now, so you can kind of get that feeling. And this is called fire point, it’s an energy point in Chinese medicine, you can keep your tongue there throughout the breath, and then the other option for you is to let out a louder than normal whooshing sound when you exhale out. Okay, both of these options for this breath are just that, options because it depends, if people are around, I said You could do these breaths anywhere and you can, but sometimes it’s a little bit difficult when you’re making loud noises, so you probably don’t want to do this using the whooshing sound in a work meeting or at a family dinner, but if you’re by yourself, I would go for it, go for it. With those two options, let’s go ahead and try the 4-7-8 breath one more time together with these two things, with the tongue on the roof of your mouth, right behind your front teeth, and with the whooshing sound. Here we go, ready? hand on your belly, close your eyes if you can. relax and breathe in. Two, three, four. And hold it. Two, three, four, five, six, seven. Let it go two, three, four, five. 6-7, 8. How’d you do?

Nice, good job.

Okay, my advice for the 4-7-8 breath is to do it first thing in the morning before you even get out of bed, four times in a row, and then four times in a row again before you go to bed. It helps you unwind.

It’s amazing, it’s amazing how this particular breath, it helps you wake up in the morning and get sleepy at night, plus I’ve also used it successfully in the moment with that in-the moment, pain or in the moment stress, when I feel like I’m going to lose it that kind of stress.

You’ve probably never had that feeling as a mom but just in case you ever have it… Yeah, you can use this breath there too.

Breathing Technique # 2

[17:11] Let’s talk about belly breathing technique number two, it’s called Four Square, Four Square is a steadying and grounding breath. That’s why I love it, because as mom’s so much of the time… We need some grounding, right? Or just kind of living “aahhhh” the time. I can’t think of a better way to describe it than “aahhhh”, so that grounding, that centering, that steadying breath can be really helpful.

It involves breathing in for a count of four, holding for a count of four, breathing out for a count of four, again, holding for four, and then repeating. See how rhythmic that is, it’s an all-in counts of four, so it’s very… a rhythmic type of breathing, it’s very… Steadying, grounding and calming. Let’s go ahead and give this one a try. Remember, if you’re at a place where you can get comfortable and close your eyes, hand on your diaphragm, can breathe in two, three, four. Hold two, three, four. Let it out. Two, three, four. And hold two, three, four.

One more time. In two, three, four. Hold two, three, four. And out two, three, four.

How did that go for you?

I think that that one I was counting a little bit fast, I would love for you to just when you’re doing it on your own, I’d like for you to do that just a little bit slower, like one, two, three, four more like that, but you get the idea for grounding. For centering. For stabilizing… four square, it’s a good one.

Okay, so just like the 4-7-8 breath, this one you would want to repeat with a repetition of four… That’s a great place to start. And see if it works for you. You can use it anytime, anywhere…

One More Breath Exercise Before We Wrap Up.

[19:15] Our last belly breathing technique, it’s called the double exhale breath.

It’s good for breathing to relieve panic or anxiety that you’re having that, acute panic or anxiety or even really strong pain that you’re having, it will work on the panic and anxiety to help move you away from the panic, and I love it because it helps you in relaxed stages, it helps you relax yourself in stages, when you’re having a moment, when you’re having that panic or anxiety moment and you feel your heart is racing and you feel like you just can’t calm down. There’s just no way that you could go from 10 level to one in one breath.

So this particular breath lets you calm down slowly, and I love it for pain as well, especially abdominal pain, when you’re feeling that pain, it’s never going to go from 10 scale to one in one second, right? Or even in one breath, so with this technique, you go down in stages once you work it in stages, so when you’re having either of those issues, I really like the double exhale breath.

The Double exhale breath, it involves a good belly breath in for a count of two, and then you breathe out that same amount of time doubled, so from two, you would breathe out for… For the next breath, we breathe in for three seconds, and then out for six seconds, and then you can see the pattern here for the next one in four seconds and out at… We continue In and Out, multiplying by two with every inhale exhale until we start to feel more calm, more relaxed, and  until we start to feel like we have less pain. Let’s go ahead and try it. We’re going to start with a two four breath, and then a 3/6 and then a 4/8. alright, are you relaxed? Are you comfortable? Do you have your hand on your diaphragm, and if you can, you can close your eyes, let’s go head and breathe in to… I like to hold it for a second here, and then let it out, two, three, four, hold for a second and breath in to the hold and out two, three, four, five, six, hold. And breath in two, three, four. And hold and out. Two, three, four. You can do it 6-7-8. how’d you do? Good job. So you can see, that’s how you would use that breath, it’s always in for a count and then out for double and keep increasing it, see how that goes in those stages.

[22:10] Alright, there you go.

There you have it, the three belly breaths that you can use to get your gut brain axis in check and use it to your IBD advantage.

Let’s Recap.

Let’s go ahead and you recap everything we talked about today, number one, we all have a gut brain connection, the connection occurs through a nerve circuit communications super highway called the vagus nerve. Number two, because of this connection, we have what scientists refer to it as the second brain housed in or get, just tell your kids not to mention it at school.

Number three, we’re a little different than our non-IBD counterparts because we feel things like pain, stress, anxiety and depression more deeply, we feel it more deeply in our gut than others, the situation can be damning for some, not for us, because we know how to strengthen this highway of super communication.

Number four, we can use our psychology to decrease our stress response, our anxiety response, or depression symptoms, inflammation levels, it can help our immune system, our pain levels, and ultimately we can use it to our IBD advantage.

One of the easiest methods we can employ to bring this change about is deep belly breathing, there’s many types of breathing exercises out there, but the three that we learn today are the 4-7-8 breath, the four square breath and the double exhale breath.

So how are you feeling?

[23:54] I hope you’re feeling relaxed. If these breathing techniques are completely new for you, you might not be feeling any positive response yet, it can take some time, keep at it, Keep trying it, and it will become more natural, it will become easier for you. And over time, you will begin to notice that it helps with many of the symptoms you experienced both physical and emotional symptoms.

Lastly, we’ve got to close this out by talking about how you can do it like a mom. You can do this like a mom by picking one of the techniques, commit to trying it daily, let’s say for the next seven days, observe how you feel, observe what you think about it, and if you’re feeling extra inspired, go ahead and teach one of these techniques to your kids… My favorite, the favorite one I like to teach to my kids is the 4-7-8 breath, I’m often heard in the house saying something like, Would you like to take a moment with a 4-7-8 breathing? I think a consequence might be coming your way, sometimes kids and especially teenagers, they just need to take a moment to collect themselves before saying something they might regret. And by the way, it works for adults too. I’ve used it there as well, don’t forget, pick one of the belly breathing techniques we talked about today and try it out, try it for a week, and if you do… Will you please let me know how it goes? Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

Thank you so much for joining me today and for listening to today’s episode, when it comes to IBD, I know there’s a lot of resources out there, and I’m truly honored that you chose the tacky podcast to get your IBD information today.

If you found this information helpful, please give us a rating and review, it helps other moms find the podcast and see what we’re doing over here to help Moms everywhere. And if you feel called to do it, share this podcast with an IBD mom who you know could really use an uplifting message today, ’cause that’s what we’re all about over here at the Cheeky podcast.

Are you Ready to Take your Gut Healing to the Next Level?

[26:11] One last thing, if you’re still with me, and if you are, you’re definitely my kind of gal, we have to get to know each other better, ’cause if you’re tired of living on the hamster wheel of IBD with all the ups and downs between flares and remission, if you’re struggling to get control of your abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea and other troubling IBD symptoms, go over my website, it’s Karynhaley.com, and my mom had to be just a little bit different of my name with a Y… So it’s K-A-R-Y-H-A-L-E-Y dot com. And schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause trouble shooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you get your life back. It’s a power-packed 30 minutes. You don’t have to live in IBD status quo. There’s so much that can be done to transform your life so you can thrive in motherhood and thrive with IBD.

I’ve seen my clients walk this path, and it gives me so much joy to take that journey with them. My entire coaching practice is run online, so you never have to leave your house and you never have to get out of your jammy pants for us to work together, you know, I’m wearing them to… If you’re ready to take your first amazing step towards healing, I’m ready to chat with you, schedule your free 30-minute IBD, root cause trouble shooting sesh today at Karynhaley.Com. Click on the work with me tab and I’ll see you soon. It’s important to note that the information in this podcast and in this episode is for general information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The statements made in the Cheeky podcast for moms with IBD, either by me or my guests, is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before implementing any new treatment protocols, do yourself a favor and consult your physician first. thank you so much for listening, for being here, for saving this space for us to spend some time together until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

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