immune system – Chronically Living

Should I Be Taking Prebiotics, Probiotics, or Eating Fermented Foods?

I don’t know about you but I find that what I eat really affects how well I’m feeling. For example, back in 2019 I went to Costa Rica with one of my best friends. Neither of us had ever eaten healthier in our lives. Everything was farm or ocean to table. Fruit was literally picked off the tree. There were no preservatives in anything. I could pretty much eat anything without any problems. Unfortunately back at home that can be harder to do because of costs and availability. There has been so much talk over the past several years about the benefits of probiotics, and more recently on prebiotics. And then I was falling this Flo Living diet last year that emphasized eating fermented foods during certain parts of your menstrual cycle. So this got me thinking, what should we be taking/eating?

Since this isn’t an easy question to answer, I thought we’d just look at the benefits of each. Let’s start with prebiotics. So this week on the podcast I had on Beau Berman from Layer Origin, and they specialize in prebiotics (though they also make probiotics) and he gives a very thorough explanation of what prebiotics are and the benefits of them, so I highly recommend checking it out. Here’s the Apple link, the Spotify link, and the web link. My quick summary is this, prebiotics helps stimulate the growth of gut bacteria that are important for digestion and can improve the immune system. Some of the benefits are:

pay help prevent colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease
helpful in relieving constipation
may be helpful in preventing obesity and lowering cholesterol
and may improve your ability to absorb minerals such as calcium and magnesium

Check out the podcast for more on prebiotics (and probiotics).

What about probiotics? These can promote a healthy balance of gut bacteria, but they don’t stimulate the growth of what’s already there (basically you’re introducing new strains – listen to the podcast for more on this). Here are some of the potential benefits:

prevent and treat diarrhea
may promote heart health
may reduce severity of some allergies
may reduce symptoms of colitis and Crohn’s
boost the immune system
may help you lose weight
may help with mental health – some strains have been linked with improvements in anxiety, depression, and OCD

Image from: https://stock.adobe.com/ca/search?k=probiotic+bacteria

Finally, there are fermented foods. Fermented foods are full of probiotics, so they are similar to taking probiotic supplements in many ways (with the benefit of getting to eat food instead of taking pills or powders). Since they are similar to probiotics, they also improve the digestive and immune systems because they add new bacteria strains to your gut. Here’s some benefits:

helps to manufacture vitamin B and synthesize vitamin K
may help with lactose intolerance because they break down lactose in food, so foods like yogurt are easier to digest
and may help with mental health as they have been linked with the production of serotonin in the brain

Image from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/fermented-foods-for-better-gut-health-2018051613841

My conversation with Beau has inspired me to try out probiotics, and for me, I think I’ll stick with fermented foods as opposed to taking probiotics because they are honestly more delicious. I think it really comes down to each of us figuring out what works for us and what seems to be helping. Talk with your healthcare team before making any changes because they may have some suggestions on which route to go. Everyone, keep making the most of it!

It’s about finding what’s right for you.
(Me in Costa Rica, 2019, eating vegan chocolate mousse on my birthday).

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Expressive Writing for Health & Mental Health

I love writing (hello, this is a blog after all) and I’ve always found it to be helpful for me in my own life (and health) journeys (that and music). I came across some research on the mental and PHYSICAL health benefits of expressive writing, so I did a bit more digging and damn, we should all be doing more of it! And hopefully, this post will inspire you to do some. Hearing that there are mental health benefits is probably less shocking than that there are physical health benefits to expressive writing, so we’ll start there, but before we get into that, let’s quickly establish what expressive writing is. Expressive writing is simply writing about our deepest thoughts and feelings about an event or situation, without holding back. When people do this, it is often through journaling, and is often free-writing, without too much thinking about it. It can be done on the computer or by hand, really whatever you prefer. The leading pioneer in this research is Pennebaker (too many articles to site them all), but I’ll site some of the other research on the subject (which also references him) at the end of the post.

Buying a journal (or using an online one) can get you in expressive writing mode.

Okay, so the mental health benefits:

reduces stress
reduces symptoms of depression
reduces post-traumatic symptoms
improves mood
improves focus and concentration – including in people with ADHD
improves working memroy
improves emotion regulation (which is our ability to control the quality, frequency, intensity and duration of our emotional responses to situations)
and it increases our self-awareness

If these aren’t good enough reasons to do some expressive writing, then maybe the physical health benefits will convince you:

decreases the number of doctor’s visits you’ll have
reduces the number of days spent in the hospital
reduces the overall number of hospitalizations – i.e., people with cystic fibrosis
reduces blood pressure
reduces chronic pain – i.e., cancer and chronic pain conditions
reduces the severity of inflammatory conditions – i.e., rheumatoid arthritis, lupus (SLE)
improves immune functioning – i.e., cancer, HIV
improves lung functioning – asthma
improves liver functioning
improves and speeds up post-operative recovery
improves overall physical well-being

Image from: https://frugalentrepreneur.com/2017/12/what-to-offer-your-employees-to-improve-their-wellbeing/

And then, if that’s still not enough for you, there are some other general benefits:

reduced number of “sick” days from work plus faster return to work if you were layed off
increased GPA in university students
improved sporting performance in athletes

Even improve sporting performance! Me and some friends after a curling tournament in 2019.

Okay, so how does this all work? I mean, I understand how it can improve some of the mental health problems we may experience, because we’re writing about our thoughts and feelings. But how does it improve our physical health? Well, actually the two are related. Remember that stress has a HUGE impact on our physical health, and the mind and body are connecting, meaning that anxiety and depression can also feed into (and trauma can cause) physical health problems. The processes of expressive writing are as follows:

it allows for cognitive processing and restructuring of painful events and situations – cognitive restructuring changes how we perceive emotional stressors (both internal and external)
it allows for repeated exposure – which is controlled re-experiencing of events and situations so that they have less influence over our minds and behaviours

Image from: https://www.avalonintegrativewellness.com/blog/what-is-cognitive-restructuring/

Improving our bodies, improves our minds and vice versa. Here’s the podcast episode on it.

How do we engage in expressive writing? According to the experts we need to write about our deepest thoughts and feelings, without holding back, about situations or events or really anything relevant to us at this moment that are painful. This could be anything from having cancer, to spending time in the hospital to going through a traumatic event. When we sit down to write, it should be for 15-20 minutes at time, without stopping, and be done on 4 consecutive days. Just doing that is enough to lead to all the benefits I listed earlier. It’s possible that more consistent writing could have more improvements, but I honestly didn’t find much on that. So, I’m curious, who’s going to try out some of this expressive writing to see if it helps?

I want to remind everyone that in addition to this blog, if you’re looking for more information to improve your health, I have a podcast: Chronically Living and how to make the most of it, which is available on Apple, Spotify and everywhere else you get podcasts, including this web link. I also have a YouTube channel for those of you looking to incorporate more mindfulness as it has a number of benefits for your physical and mental health as well: Kelsey L Harris Meditations.
Until next week, keep making the most of it!

References:

Baikie, K.A., & Wilhelm, . (2018). Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 11(5), 338-346. https://doi.org/10.1192/apt.11.5.338
Lepore, S-J., Greenberg, M.A., Bruno, A., Smyth, J.M. (2002). Expressive writing and health: Self-regulation of emotion-related experience, physiology and behaviour. In S.J. Lepore & J.M. Smyth (Eds), The writing cure: How expressive writing promotes health and emotional well-being (p. 99-117). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10451-005
Stanton, A.L., Danoff-burg, S., & Huggins, M.E. (2002). The first year after breast cancer diagnosis: Hope and coping strategies as predictors of adjustment. Psycho-Oncology, 11(2), 93-102. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.574

The Power of Words

I know most of us are probably familiar with the phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” and I definitely think that is true. Not just because I’m a writer (I love to write everything – this blog, self-help books, fiction novels and short stories, poetry, screenplays/teleplays) but because there is research that shows that writing (and very specifically journaling) is good not only for our mental health, but our physical health as well. This is one reason Chronic Illness Warriors might want to jump on the journaling bandwagon.

So the whole reason I wanted to write about this is because I was re-reading a textbook for my practicum (basic counselling skills, etc) and one of the interesting things that I read was that a researcher named Pennebaker found that people who record “troubling experiences in diaries showed better immune system responses and significantly better health than those who did not.” Now, I’m not saying I think that any kind of writing is going to suddenly magically cure any of us and we’ll just feel 100% better by doing so. The research though is super interesting. I think that most people can acknowledge the mental health is helped by sharing our story – through therapy, support groups, and writing/journaling. I personally find it just good for my mental health to do any kind of writing, including creative writing, whether or not it directly has to do with my struggles (let’s face it, every writer has a character who is more like them). It can feel good to journal because it can allow you to process, be reflective, and just get something off your chest, and it’s particularly effective if you are struggling with your mental health on top of your physical health.

This kind of journaling has many benefits including self-compassion.

In terms of physical health, researchers have found journaling to help with viral infections such as Hepatitis (so yes, potentially even Covid-19 as well). There was also a study that looked at gratitude journaling by those with heart failure, and found that morbidity was decreased and inflammation was reduced in the majority of patients. Now obviously more research always needs to be done but it is an interesting and promising start. How exactly does it all work? Well, that’s not 100% clear but journaling can lessen overall stress (for those reasons I stated for mental health) and stress and immune functioning are related, so it kind of makes sense that like some other mindfulness activities, journaling (or perhaps other forms of writing) can be helpful. I’m all about the “even if I just feel better today” (or for a few hours) attitude. Why not help ourselves in the present moment? All we really have is this moment, because the next one doesn’t exist yet, and the last one has passed. In this moment, if journaling helps me feel better and potentially helps my body and mind function better, than maybe that’s a good reason to make today the day you start a journal.

I think this tattoo of mine really sums up how important I think writing is (because why else would I have tattooed it on my body!)

Have a good week and keep on making the most of it!