How to Repair and Nourish Your Gut | Dr. Giulia Enders  🔗 **Source:** [How to Repair and Nourish Your Gut | Dr. Giulia Enders](https://share.snipd.com/episode/beb56ca9-df56-40fc-a16d-a9fc7b7c8e9f) ## Highlights - **Gut Health Shapes Whole Body Outcomes** - A thriving gut influences mental health, sleep, metabolism, immunity, and weight. - Giulia Enders says the gut's effects can sometimes be more potent than genetics, and it's easy to influence through behavior. Transcript: Shane Parrish What can unlocking a healthy gut do for your life? Giulia Enders It can re-center one of the most important organs we have. And really with that have all these second and third hand effects that you wouldn't even maybe have thought of. All these influences on your mental health, on just your sleep quality, on your metabolism, on your weight, on how you just feel emotionally during the day. It's sometimes more potent than genetics. ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/98980b55-69c7-4820-9665-ef2cea7b8af0)) - **Add Fiber Gradually Using Foods You Like** - Start improving gut health by slowly adding vegetables and fruits you actually enjoy. - Giulia warns abrupt jumps in fiber cause gas and bloating; introduce favorites gradually so microbes adapt. Transcript: Shane Parrish Someone wanted to improve their gut health, what should they eat more of? Giulia Enders I would say eat more of things that you really like, but that are luckily also healthy. That's always the first step. Because what I see oftentimes in clinic was that people would eat these things because they're hurt, were healthy, but they hated them. And then they just stuffed their face with the stupid kale that, you know. And then always I said, oh, no, that's not good. Let's look at like all these vegetables and fruit there. Which ones of those do you like? Because there'll be one or two that you like. And it's often way easier to go from there and then starting having just a bit more of that healthy stuff. Some people really like asparagus. Others will not mind having an onion more, you know, putting it in your sauce when you have like some ready-made sauce, like just things you don't mind or that you really like the taste Of and then have a little bit more of them. And I think that's always the starting point because drastically changing the diet, also putting way more fiber in all of a sudden will just make you gassy or bloated because your gut Is not used to that and your microbes suddenly get all these foods. It's like a forest and then you just dump some fertilizer on it. What's that going to do? Slowly change your diet, but with the things you like and the microbes like. ([Time 0:02:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9ca503b3-abb9-4edf-a5bb-f2965eda5054)) - **Cooling Starches Turns Them Into Prebiotics** - Two fiber types matter: insoluble adds bulk for regularity while soluble/resistant starch feeds microbes as prebiotics. - Cook starches, cool them, then reheat to increase resistant starch and prebiotic effect. Transcript: Giulia Enders Is individual for some people because gut microbes are individual. Some people might have gut microbes that when they eat beans, it's wonderful. They got all their fiber. They do all the nice things. Some other people have gut microbes where they are horribly bloated when they eat beans. And this relies on your gut microbes. So I would say, look at the different vegetables and fruit. If you want to, then go ahead and look for their fiber content. You will always have two types of fiber. One is water-soluble. The other is water-non What does that mean? That means, for example, cereal or the skin of an apple, for example. It has fiber that are not able to fully dilute into something gel-like when they're mixed with water. They'll just stay a bit like sturdy, fibery stuff. And those can mostly not be digested by the microbes because they're tough to really crack up. And they will just form bulk. And this bulk is good because it will knock on the walls of the gut and be like, and the gut is very curious, so it bounces back and this propels digestion. This is really what gets you a regular bowel movement, so it's good to have. But this other type of fiber, the water-soluble one, is usually what makes up the fruity flesh of the apple, for example. And in asparagus, or when you just have carbs like rice and noodles and so on, if you cook them once, let them cool down, suddenly their content of like the resistant starch. And so with that water-soluble fiber rises. So just having your carbs cooked, cool them down, and then you can even reheat them, makes them more prebiotic. ([Time 0:03:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7ca973e3-6adb-4aea-9373-2ebdb142ca7f)) - **Gut Training Shapes Immune Tolerance** - The gut is a central immune training ground where tolerance to foods is learned. - If gut mucus or cells are weakened, immune cells can misinterpret harmless foods (like peanuts) and promote sensitivities. Transcript: Shane Parrish What's the link between the gut and the immune system? Giulia Enders Well, there's lots of immune cells residing in the walls of our gut, and they're checking out what's going on. At least, you know, the gut is one of the things. Shane Parrish Is that like the heart of our immune system? Giulia Enders I mean, the immune system has different locations where it's being trained, but the gut is a very large and a very central one, because especially there's all these exchange happening With the outside world. When you look at us from the outside, you would almost think the skin is the biggest surface to the outside world. But the gut is a huge one where you have all these substance skins coming in, crossing the wall into the blood of ours. So that's a quite intense process. And of course, the immune cells will be there to just see what's going on and really be sure that there's nothing wrong happening. And there they also learn tolerance. Usually in an unhealthy gut, that's the training boot camp of tolerance. They'll be like, some peanut came, but it was all right. Our cells are still doing fine. And then all these immune cells are gathering and saying, oh, this is peanut. It seems to be quite okay because we're still doing fine. And it sounds like a really funny process, but it's happening every day, all the time. They're just training this tolerance. And of course, then when your gut cells aren't doing so well, there's maybe little wounds or it's been stressed, so the protective mucus layer is down, then the immune cells might be Wondering, hmm, maybe the peanut is not so good for us because the cells aren't looking so good. ([Time 0:07:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/551b0feb-b554-4f1a-aa77-cb8e9f13011a)) - **Use Fiber And Resistant Starch To Control Blood Sugar** - Eat more fiber to improve metabolic health and reduce sugar spikes that drive hunger. - Enders cites Pacific Islanders gaining weight after rice stayed warm versus cooled rice that increased resistant starch and aided weight loss. Transcript: Giulia Enders Fiber is maybe an overlooked thing because we have managed to produce foods that just have less and less fiber because the caloric density is again higher. That makes the dopamine cells go, yay, then we will rather pick those. But I think the effects of fiber are just so nice. When you look at metabolic health, for example, we've seen one study that I like to quote is when you looked at Pacific Islands where the rice cooker was introduced. People put on a lot of weight. And that one aspect, hypothesis of this paper mentioned and explained, was that the rice was suddenly now not cooked and then cooled down and then reheated, but it was cooked and just Stayed warm. So all the starches and the carbohydrates in the rice were so super fast accessible that the glucose in the blood spikes, goes down, you get hungry, you need another snack. But if you have the rice cooled down, the starch crystallizes again. And then when you eat it, it takes more time and more enzymes to unpack this crystallized starch. So then it slowly gets your blood sugar up and then down again. So you don't have this. And this also is good for your weight, because when they then had people cool down the rice after cooking again, people would also lose weight again. ([Time 0:10:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d63a986a-7aa1-4729-9a55-92a335b688ce)) - **Recover Gut After Antibiotics With Prebiotics First** - After antibiotics, use probiotics for antibiotic-induced diarrhea and prioritize prebiotic foods to help native microbes recover. - Enders warns probiotics can occupy niches temporarily and sometimes delay original microbes returning. Transcript: Giulia Enders People in different life stages are more susceptible to the disadvantages, changes, antibiotics induce. So we see especially small kids and seniors in studies that they have a harder time going back to their microbiome after a round of antibiotics. Then we have all the adults in the middle area of this. For them, it's like 50-50. Some of them will actually go back quite well, and others will never replenish the microbes they've lost. And some of them might have been even like some nice family inheritance pieces, so to say, that they will not get back that used to protect them of certain diseases or things before. So it is not with an easy hand that you should administer antibiotics just for every cold you have. And especially in the United States, I have to say, we see that this is a problem that is maybe responsible for the high number of people having problems with their gut. So that being said, what can you do? Of course, you can have probiotics, especially when you start having diarrhea while you're being on antibiotics. We've seen studies that probiotics help with antibiotic-induced diarrhea. So especially for children also and the elderly, as I said, but also with grown-ups experiencing diarrhea, that is an indicator probiotics could be helpful. Then we see that when you take probiotics after a round of antibiotics, there is two effects. One is that they can help lower your pH value by, for example, bifidobacteria or lactobacillus, who produce these acids, can have a beneficial effect because, you know, again, good Bacterias thrive in those environments. Others might not. So it will help. But it can also have an effect that they take up niche and room of your initial microbes. And then when you stop taking them, they're gone. And yours don't return the same way because they were being like kind of like pushed to the side. So it's not only a good thing. ([Time 0:20:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e1f36ef2-b9ac-4b0d-a879-94740298f871)) - **Seek Medical Help For Red Flag Gut Symptoms** - See a doctor for sudden severe abdominal pain, black or bloody stools, unexplained weight loss, or prolonged diarrhea. - Enders lists night sweats and new severe constipation as additional red flags needing medical evaluation. Transcript: Giulia Enders Well, the typical warning signs are just like heavy, like extreme, like really pain that you don't usually have or don't know, then we always have the black or the bloody stools that You should get checked out of. Weight loss, night sweats, those are like the really severe common months. But also things like if you have a tendency towards diarrhea and it lasts more than three, four days, then I would also think of having that checked. ([Time 0:22:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e2e30d9-4b11-49e9-9856-b10cb95bb755)) - **Elevate Feet To Mimic Squatting For Easier Pooping** - Change toilet posture by elevating feet to approximate a squat; this straightens the rectoanal angle and reduces straining. - Enders references studies and patient reports that a 30-degree leg lift eases bowel emptying and lowers hemorrhoid risk. Transcript: Shane Parrish We pooing wrong? Giulia Enders There is an aspect that is a bit disadvantaged. And this is this seat of toilet that looks like a chair, you know, and we sit on it in a posture that we usually know from, you know, sitting on a chair. And our body has the smart mechanism of having a muscle going around the end of the gut and then, you know, holding it back a little bit so that we stand or when we sit in that position, not All of it is like immediately in the position to come out. So it creates this curve. When we put our legs up a little bit, you could say like a 30 degree angle from just being horizontal, then this gets loosened up. And then there's not this curve anymore, but it's rather a bit straight. And, you know, this is just the natural position when we squat outdoors when we go to the toilet. And this is then a better, anatomically speaking, a better way to go to the toilet because you need less pressure and you're not pressing against, you know, your own muscles holding Stuff back. And this way can reduce the risk of hemorrhoids or diverticulosis, which we see less of in countries where people still use a squatting position when they go to the toilet. So it is a good idea to maybe try to emulate this and you can do so with a little stool in front of your toilet where you just, you know, put your feet on. I've heard now so many people report back to me that this has helped them or that they really miss it now when they go elsewhere. They will use like the tiny bin in the hotel toilet to put in front of the toilet so that they have this position because it just feels more natural. And there's been a study on that by Dov Sikirov, a researcher who compared these different sitting positions and could show that it's much easier. Or it also feels better for people that they really got everything out when they are rather in that position than in a normal chair, stool position. ([Time 0:23:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ff51aa1d-a21c-4e33-95a0-59cd31bab034)) - **Constipation Means Incomplete Emptying More Than Frequency** - Constipation is failing to fully empty, not just infrequent stools; causes include low fiber and coordination problems at the rectum. - Enders notes many cases improve markedly with simple fiber, water, and behavioral tweaks. Transcript: Giulia Enders Constipation is the problem of having the feeling you're not really emptying all the way when you go to the toilet, of having a too hard, too difficult time to go to the toilet. You really need a lot of force to get stuff out or you even need to like help a little bit, manipulate so that you can get it out. It can be too hard. So these little pieces of stool like a goat would have, for example, is a good indicator that it has just spent too much time in the gut already got all the liquids and then some more. So it's really like dehydrated a little bit. Those are different aspects and can have different causes. For some people, it's just in the very end that they're having a hard time coordinating it really getting out. For others, it's all the way before that, that it's too slow, that somewhere it's being not transported fast enough. And that can happen with a low fiber diet where you just have pizza and pasta and white flour and that's it, So there's different causes for that. But a way to handle it is almost always easy and has really great results. And I've personally never experienced a patient that didn't get better with just some simple tricks here and there. And then, of course, there are some severe cases where really something's off, motility disorders, where since birth you've had a super horrible hard time to go to the toilet. And there we need to be a bit more creative, but there's also wonderful solutions for that now. ([Time 0:26:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f004b8d3-9b4d-475c-8b2b-69b01f15da64)) - **Chew More To Reduce Stomach Workload** - Chew food thoroughly to reduce stomach workload and improve digestion signals to the brain. - Enders emphasizes chewing matters less for ultra-processed foods that quickly disintegrate into sugars bypassing normal digestion. Transcript: Shane Parrish How important is chewing? Giulia Enders Chewing is a good thing if you want to take some work off your stomach, off the hands of your stomach, because the stomach really then has to get all this muscular work going if things are Not chewed correctly. And its exits, so to say, will only let very tiny particles through. So if you don't chew well, it has just a bit more stuff to do. ([Time 0:28:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0808e0b2-67c7-43bd-b430-5e975fa63a25)) - **Ultra-Processed Foods Hijack Dopamine Reward** - Ultra-processed foods exploit dopamine by packing high calorie reward into tiny packages, promoting repeat consumption. - Enders argues current era focuses on harms of ultra-processed additives more than earlier single-nutrient advice. Transcript: Giulia Enders So when you look at all these advices we get all the time about food, right, there has been an error for something like the Taylor Swift errors, you could almost say. There's been the error of having low fat in order to not put on weight. There's been an error of having everything less sugar, sugar substitutes. Now, when we look back at these discoveries, scientific opinions, you could say, but of course with evidence, then you can say, well, they're not entirely wrong, but they really weren't Entirely true also. And what we're looking at now, which era are we in now? I think this is now the era where we say, probably it's about the ultra-processed foods that are bad. We still have some of the remaining advice, like, of course, don't have too much sugar. That's still a very good advice. And I think here, the nice thing is to have a clear amount, which is 25 grams. This is what the World Health Organization say. This is the amount of sugar you can have without it in the long run affecting your health. And then when you look at fats, it's still true to say it's good to have like poorly unsaturated fats or good olive oil. Don't heat it up too much because then it breaks apart and can reshape chemically, not be so good anymore. But those are the things that still keep standing. But the rest of it, people say, well, rather have the full fat yogurt, you know, because not engineering it so much. Also, the way it is digested is a bit more natural to the body and doesn't have all these horrible effects, we earlier thought. And now when we look at people having diets without all these additives, we see how healthy they are. And we see even when we have people stopping their usual diet with all these processed foods and going back to a more natural diet without all these additives, we can track all the effects And right away shown that it's much more healthier for their body, that it's good on them. ([Time 0:29:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/22aa9eb4-45f4-4291-b42b-9898ce902de3)) - **Check Ingredients And Avoid Specific Additives** - Use the ingredient list as a quick heuristic: fewer ingredients and avoid methylcellulose, polysorbate 80, and carrageenan. - Enders checks labels and aims for an 80/20 balance of whole foods to processed items. Transcript: Giulia Enders And i do this all the time and sometimes i'm really surprised is what i find when i look on the ingredients lists some things marketed as super healthy um and then you look at like this nice Uh it has all these foods and all this fiber, and you look and it has like 40% sugar. That is like, what? Or some drinks, they are, oh, it's super healthy, wonderful juice, blah, blah, blah. And it has more sugar than Coca-Cola has. I'm a bit like drawn to doing this now when I buy these ready-made foods, and I have them as well. I think it's really difficult to cut them out entirely. Whatever half God is able to do that, applaud to you. But i think if you have a good like 80 20 ratio you're good so 20 processed foods or stuff from the supermarket fine and then if you manage to get you know to the 80 of like real foods that come Like that from the soil or the tree good balance but yeah check out the ingredients list and I check for MCM. This is the methyl cellulose and the polysorbate 80, so PS80, and carogens. It's really sometimes almost horrible to look at what substances are in these products. So really go for the companies that look out for your health as well. ([Time 0:35:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c9ddb465-9b8b-44cc-81ab-5426f6dc3144)) - **Alcohol Produces Distinct Disruptive Poop Signal** - Alcohol disrupts gut microbes, nerves, and immune cells producing soft, foul-smelling stool dubbed 'beer schiss'. - Enders describes the next-morning stool as a clear feedback signal of alcohol's acute gut impact. Transcript: Shane Parrish Like how would it manifest itself in our poop and our digestion? Giulia Enders Of beer schiss, which means when you have too much beer, then you will just have this un-good poo where you're like, oh, this is beer schiss. It's too soft. It smells funky. It's something where you realize that wasn't a good idea, you know? And it's a mixture of alcohol annoying the immune cells, alcohol not being good on the nerve cells, alcohol getting chaos into the microbiome. So all of this comes together and gives you this weird text message on your toilet in the next morning saying, what was that? ([Time 0:37:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/01bdb497-d088-4fbd-8378-8e56d1cb5c38)) - **Time Your Coffee And Try Decaf For Better Sleep** - Limit caffeine timing and consider decaf to keep sleep quality intact while retaining polyphenol benefits. - Enders recommends finishing caffeinated coffee by early afternoon and testing decaf for sleep improvements. Transcript: Giulia Enders With coffee, it contains polyphenols and contains antioxidants. So it is not necessarily a bad thing. The thing that can be problematic is the caffeine in it. If you have lots and lots of caffeine, it has an effect on your dopamine system. Not like drugs, but it elevates the response of the dopamine system. So that's actually also what you really wish for. The email of your boss saying wonderful work feels just a bit better, a bit more motivating. You're just a bit more like active fit in the day. And this is good, nice to have. We like to have it. But in too large of an amount, and that is the case when people then really have sort of withdrawal when they don't have it on vacation or somewhere in the plane or whatever, then this becomes, I think, a bit problematic. And then you might think also of sleep because we've seen all the studies and rarely ever is science so clear on one point. There's always multiple opinions usually. But with coffee, there's really not been a study where you don't see an effect. People will say, but I have no trouble falling asleep. But then you see in all the measurements, the quality of sleep after falling asleep is poorer. And then what do you need in the morning when you wake up? Coffee. So it like becomes this visual circle where I think this is a main factor that then can influence the microbiome. The pondyphenols an antioxidant, wonderful. They are actually good for the microbiome, you could say. But you can have them with decaf coffee just as well. And then when you have your coffee within a time window, select 12, 2 p.m., 4 p.m., perfectly fine. And then you will be able to sleep wonderfully. ([Time 0:37:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c24779d3-6b7b-4762-abb4-ced2c5cee029)) - **Experiment With Meal Timing To Reduce Belly Fat** - Experiment with eating windows and snack timing to reduce visceral fat or improve how you feel. - Enders notes some people improve by leaving a longer gap between meals or avoiding late-night eating. Transcript: Giulia Enders There's different approaches to frequency of food intake. For some people, they will really notice a difference when they keep a window of four hours in between meals. They will say, oh, this is so much better for me now. For others, they don't. They get too low blood pressure. They don't feel so well. And so it is, again, something where I would rather people listen to their own instincts and then have a healthy snack than say, oh, snacks are not good, so I shouldn't at all. There is some different opinions on the time frame, like should we only eat from 11 in the morning to 7? Should we only eat when there's daylight out? Should we only, you know, have breakfast, very large amounts of food and then small dinner? Should we, you know, there's all these different theories. And I don't think there's a common thing that is a solution for everyone. One fits all. I think there's not something like that. But it is good to experiment with it and really find out for yourself. And for example, when you look at visceral fat, like this sudden belly coming in in your 40s or something or afterwards, then oftentimes you see some improvement when you actually watch The times where you eat. ([Time 0:39:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/793bb5c7-00e9-4244-8042-322d7879bba7)) - **Gut Cleanses Can Help But Carry Real Risks** - Gut cleanses can feel restorative for some but carry risks and should be occasional resets, not routine. - Enders shifted from skepticism to cautious acceptance after patients reported joint pain and IBS improvements post-cleanse. Transcript: Giulia Enders In the beginning, I have to be honest, I didn't like it at all because I thought it's so invasive. It's people thinking their gut cannot clean itself because usually after two weeks, a gut really replenishes all its cells. So if you just eat healthy for that time, you're good, you know. But I have to say, I've heard so many patients saying that it helped with like pain in the joints or with other things that I'm still not thinking it's this perfect solution for everything. It does have risks. We've seen patients with trouble after or complications, not many, but it's not without risk. But for some, they feel that it's good for their health. And I'm a person that says that is the main thing. That is what health is about. So if someone reports that, then I say, okay, good. But still, it shouldn't be done too much. It is, I think, something to resort to when things have gone really wrong and you sort of feel like you need to reset. We've experienced patients, for example, with irritable bowel syndrome after a colonoscopy being suddenly way better. And it's not because of the colonoscopy, I think, because we just checked with the camera for a few minutes. But it's maybe because they really cleaned everything out and could restock their microbiome a bit easier than they could have if everything's just stuck in place and you just throw Some different foods on it. ([Time 0:41:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2b3e308c-5d9c-4113-8413-2192f64d71f5)) - **Fix Sleep And Stress Before Buying Supplements** - Prioritize sleep, stress reduction, whole foods, and movement before spending heavily on supplements. - Enders warns supplements often provide marginal gains and sometimes harmful effects in large studies like vitamin E in smokers. Transcript: Giulia Enders So I think supplements and this whole fascination about them tickle me in a specific way. Once, again, as I said, if someone takes something, notices an immediate shift, says, oh, I really immediately feel like this because of it, then go for it. Check if all the dosages are right and if the quality is good, because there can be some troubles with that, but then I'm not against it. But that being said, we see that normal, healthy grown-ups usually don't necessarily benefit from it. Some supplements even have disadvantages effects in big studies. Really, I'm talking big studies like vitamin E at a higher risk of people who smoke having lung cancer. So what was that all about? It's because you don't know all the effects one's substances will have on you. And there might be things that just occur naturally. And if you have them powdered up or concentrated or whatever if it's still an amount that's reasonable but what I find people will miss while they're being on this whole supplement journey Is they really go for all these nice slogans but they miss the bigger picture and the bigger picture is the picture that we have so much solid research on and it's the things your mama told You it sleeping well, it's eating well, it's dealing with your stress well, you know, having some joy in life also accounts to that movement. And those are the things. And this is the big bug. This is the 80% of your health. And then some supplements might do one or 2%. They're good to you. But usually they don't do so much more than this. ([Time 0:43:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/54298480-1e4f-40ed-86ea-7a5813f39531)) - **Take A Gentle Walk After Meals** - Walk after meals to lower blood sugar by moving glucose into muscles and avoid brisk stressful walks that raise stress hormones. - Enders recommends comfortable post-meal walks to aid metabolic handling of nutrients. Transcript: Giulia Enders Will say that this helps you with your blood sugar because activating your muscles can really take blood sugar and nutrients into your muscles and get them to work right away instead Of just putting them in storage, so to say. So it's a hormonal metabolic reason. If people stress too much, like if they walk and their heart rises and they breathe really fast, so it's a stressful walk, then it's not necessarily good because stress will then do opposite Effects. But if you really have a comfortable walk, that's what you want after a meal. ([Time 0:45:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5fbac830-4d02-48b0-bba8-f4b2c5dfbe77)) - **One Easy Change That Improves Gut Health** - One simple daily change: choose a vegetable you like and cool/reheat starches to increase resistant starch. - Enders frames this as high-impact, low-friction steps anyone can implement immediately. Transcript: Giulia Enders Something easy that the person likes and maybe cooling down your starches before you reheat them or just before you eat them. And then pick one vegetable that you like and just have it a bit more often. And then I think, you know, we haven't talked about these things so much, but I like to have people know that isn't about disinfecting your hands all the time. One of maybe most important hygienes you can have is stress hygiene. And understanding your way of going about stress in terms of hygiene, I think, is actually very beneficial for the gut. ([Time 0:50:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/721643be-9fe4-49d5-a406-677d1d3e0f52)) - **Stress Hygiene Is As Important As Hand Hygiene** - Stress hygiene matters as much as hand hygiene because chronic stress alters blood flow, mucus, and microbial selection in the gut. - Enders explains stress narrows gut blood vessels, thins mucus, and favors microbes that thrive on stress hormones. Transcript: Giulia Enders We see is that there's an effect of stress that differs depending on how long the stress goes on for. Short stress is not necessarily bad because it's like challenging your body. It's like doing a spout of exercise where you're just like doing something very difficult and then you're going back to calm mode again. But stress that lasts longer than this has more unhygienic effects because it's not only a little challenge and then going back. When you look at the gut with the camera and then you really stress out the person, the walls of the gut go pale. So they would usually be pinkish because there's all this blood going on. Blood flow is going great, you know. But when stress happens, the vessels really go small and the gut doesn't get so much energy anymore because your system is giving all this energy to your brain and muscles to solve the Problem or run away, you know. And then when you're in stress, your gut will really give up all of its energy. It's very good-willing, good-natured organ that says, oh, there's this big problem, can't digest in all, you know, carefulness now. If you're really stressed, some people even throw up or have nervous diarrhea. And that is just to get all these tasks out of the system so you don't have to deal with digestion now. And so you can use the energy for problem solving. The bad part is if this goes on for too long, you're really abusing this good-willed organ. And it doesn't have enough blood flow and energy to build enough protective mucus. So your stomach might be sensitive or your food particles get too close to the gut and you're not having enough blood flow to get all the immune cells in the right direction. Your immune cells might even get more aggressive. This can have to do with a lack of sleep. This can have to do with the mucus layer being too thin. So suddenly they're exposed to all these things. So they're like, watch this. I don't like it. So they get aggressive. And so your gut can get sensitive to food suddenly or have problems that it wouldn't have otherwise because it just doesn't have the resources to deal or do its job in the way it would usually Do. And over a few weeks, that can have very detrimental effects. And also some microbes, and that is maybe the most hygienic part of it all, they thrive on stress hormones. They are really able to deal with them very well, and others are not. You're kind of making an atmosphere for your gut. We're selecting gut microbes that thrive in an environment of distress, and those are not necessarily the good ones we see, at least in studies now. So seeing stress as something unhygienic, I think, is very accurate in that framework. And if you disinfect your hands, you're just making a lot of room. Suddenly everything here is dead. And whatever comes next, if you touch a funny rail or something from the air flies there, now suddenly has room. So if someone's sick and you're touching it, or pretty sure you touch something dirty or something, go ahead. But the most important stress, I think, is not disinfecting your hands, but really looking out for your inner stress hygiene. Shane Parrish So we shouldn't be putting hand sanitizer on our hands like 10 times a day? Giulia Enders Maybe not 10 times a day. I have to say I really like my skin microbes. You should really wash your hands when you go home, when you touch your face and your mouth and so on before that. But other than that, I don't think it's so beneficial. You just select some creepy ones that don't care for the sanitizer. ([Time 0:50:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84b911c9-1bd0-4f64-bea9-01860871740d))