Greetings.
Eric Bakker, New Zealand naturopath.
Thanks for coming back.
I've got a viewer here in Canada, a young guy, and he said to me, "Eric ... " What was
the question again?
He got a question, and he knows, wants to how ... He said, "I want to know how to repair
and heal my gut so I never get sick again."
This is a young guy.
I think he's about 20 years old.
He's got a lot of gut issues.
Well, I've done a ton of videos on this channel, as you probably have seen.
There are probably 950 videos coming up close on this channel.
What I want to talk about is just in a broad sense about some of my experiences on repairing
and healing digestive problems.
I don't go into like exact, specific kind of areas, but just common observations I heard
from a lot of people over the years, all the thousands of people that I've seen with gut
problems and how I've seen many people heal in remarkable circumstances with some basic
changes that they made.
These weren't complicated changes.
They didn't involve a whole bunch of money and tests and weird, crazy, wacky diets.
These are just some basic changes that they made.
There are many reasons why you could have a digestive problem.
Let me just pull this blind down.
That sun's getting a bit powerful out here.
There we go.
That's better.
Yeah.
Summertime here in New Zealand.
We've still got summer.
If you are 20 years old, for example, you are going to have an entirely different digestive
problem potential than if you're someone like me, early 60, and then when you get to 80,
you'll have different challenges again, so different types of problems will present themselves
at different ages.
The people are, and the different lifestyles that they lead.
All we're going to talk about is just general overall stuff here.
I just did a whole bunch of videos, for example, on hypochlorhydria or underactive stomach,
which I commonly see with stress, for example.
Very commonly seen in over-stress, especially males.
I did a whole bunch of videos on leaky gut.
I've also done many videos on constipation, on how not to get constipated, how to get
well from constipation, but if we really want to repair and heal the gut, we've got to understand
the importance of the right ways of thinking and living and how our lifestyle affects our
digestive system.
This is what I commonly find lacking on the internet, commonly find this lacking in most
videos I've looked at and most blogs I've read, and not only that, but also most physicians
that I work with in a clinical sense.
We tend to purely look at the digestion as some kind of mechanical thing that works.
We eat food, and it works, and we need to give drugs or medicines, because the processes
are affected.
Most people can entirely repair their digestive tract without any kind of medication whatsoever.
It's a beautiful system, and it works extremely well, particularly if the mind is in a much
more relaxed state, when the digestive system processes are operating.
I find people complicate things far too much in medicine.
They think too much and they try and really get down to the nitty-gritty and try and work
out why one particular process isn't working.
Once a person starts to develop anxiety or fear about their health, then it starts escalating,
and this is when things really start to change.
The person starts thinking about the problem.
They start taking a drug every day that reinforces their belief they have got a problem, and
then that problem will lead to a secondary problem and a tertiary problem, and before
you know it, they're very sick.
Many people I've seen who are sick with digestive problems started with something very simple,
a simple thing that could have been fixed up a long time ago.
It's like a problem in a car.
If you fix it then, it saves you all those expensive repair bills down the track.
They start off with something simple, and then they take a medication for it, and then
unfortunately that medication will have dire consequences, because they don't stop that
medication, and then eventually they require a second drug and then a third, and before
you know it, they've got a wrecked health.
They're tired.
They can't sleep properly.
They've got all these symptoms, and that's when they come to me.
The older the person is, the harder it is, often, to undo a lot of those problems.
With young people, I prefer them not to fall into the hole into the first place, is to
understand how their way of thinking and their way of relating to other people in their occupation,
the mode of living, how that can really affect their digestive system.
When something goes wrong with your gut, have a careful think about what went wrong and
what caused it to go wrong, and try and understand the cause and the effect.
If you can undo that cause or go back there and fix it, that can often resolve the problem
like that.
A little bit of thought in time can save a hell of a lot of problems down the track,
basic things like that.
For example, if you've got heartburn, if you're a young guy, because what I was about, I think,
in my late 20s, I had bad heartburn, but it was my own stupid fault, because I remember,
at one stage when I was studying, I drove a truck and I ate crappy food in my first
year of study.
I was stupid.
I was even drinking cold beer in the morning.
I mean, it was really hot, and I wasn't thinking.
Yeah, it's a dumb thing to do, and of course I developed heartburn, and I thought, "God,
I'm an idiot.
What am I doing this for?
I used to live healthy.
Now I've slipped.
I've slipped down.
I'm doing this stupid thing," so I stopped that and the heartburn went away.
It's simple.
If you can understand the reasons why things happen was an action that you performed, you're
a smart person, because you saved yourself a lot of bother and a lot of misery, but unfortunately,
a lot of people aren't like that.
They'll keep performing the same thing, go to the doctor who won't even question about
the cause, give them the drug, and then that's the beginning of the misery.
Don't fall down that track.
If you've got a problem, especially if you recently developed a problem, that's the best
time to resolve that problem.
All right?
That's what I want you to think.
That's, in my opinion, one of the first things you want to do to prevent getting digestive
diseases, and that's how you're going to repair and heal the gut is number one.
Let's write that one down.
Cause and effect.
Okay?
Let's just say that's point number one.
Think about those links between a recent problem and the outcome.
If that's number one, number two then will be, let's just say you've had a problem long-term
and you can't remember what all the causes are.
Think about all the medications you're taking at this point.
Are there any medications you could cut off?
Are there any lifestyle changes you could make?
You may be my age, like close to 60 and have like five different health problems that you've
had for so long, you've had for 20 or 30 years.
Then the first thing you're going to want to do is lead a more stress-free life and
start taking things off your plate.
Okay?
If you're doing stuff that you don't really want to be doing, if you've got a job you
don't really like, if you've got a relationship problem with someone, you want to try and
resolve it.
When people stay sick, it usually means there's something that allows it to keep going in
perpetuity, so you need to make some changes in your lifestyle.
Please think about that.
Are you a happy person now?
I don't think you'll be happy.
There'll be something about your lifestyle that needs changing.
Point two, make changes as required.
Okay?
This is especially for people who have been unwell for a long period of time.
You need to make some different kinds of changes.
Think about the two or three big things in your life that could do with change.
Maybe the most important change you need to make is the one up front.
You're going to be surprised about how your health changes when you make a change in your
life.
All right?
It could be a temporary flare-up, but then the digestive problem will get a little bit
better.
You're thinking, "What the hell is this going on about?
How can the way I think and my problems have any effect on my gut?"
Huge effect, because the way you're thinking with the primary brain is affecting the secondary
brain, the gut.
In turn, when this is feeling crappy and sick, this is going to be affecting the primary
brain, so it's a two-way street.
Okay?
You can make the change up here more quickly than you can make down here, so you need to
make that change.
With change comes change.
The definition of insanity, doing the same stuff every day and expecting a different
outcome.
You got a job you don't like, maybe you need to make some changes.
You got a problem with a teenager or a mother-in-law or a neighbor, you need to make some changes.
You need to remove these obstacles.
These are stress obstacles that need to go.
I've written about this at length in my book, but now I want to talk a little bit about
this on the video.
Think carefully.
I can guarantee you, if you're watching this and you've been sick a long time, there's
some problem that needs resolving that's not food-related, that's not related to your health.
It's more related to your lifestyle.
Right?
That's the second point.
Make changes as required.
The third point we'll talk about for healing the gut and getting really good is, be honest
with yourself.
Are you drinking too much alcohol?
Are you eating occasionally crappy food?
Are you doing something, but giving yourself messages that you're doing everything okay?
Maybe you're not being perfectly honest with yourself.
Maybe you're having a drink once a week and telling yourself that that's perfectly fine.
Okay?
Maybe you've got bad relationships with people but tell yourself that that's perfectly fine,
to trash other people or to be mean to other people, mean to one particular person, but
yet keep that from other people.
Mean to your neighbor, but you keep that from other people.
Mean to yourself, but keep that from yourself, and that could mean trashing yourself emotionally
and psychologically or nutrition-wise, but you're thinking that everything is perfectly
fine.
That's point number three.
Are you honest with yourself?
Point number four is what I call balance in life.
All right?
The balance.
Do you have enough downtime?
Have you enough relaxation time where you just sit around and relax?
Are you a person who constantly has to be doing something?
Are you getting enough sleep?
Again, this is point number three, be honest with yourself.
Many people don't get enough sleep today.
I just read a fantastic article on how people, when I grew back in the '70s, the '60s and
'70s, got a lot more sleep than people do today.
What's your balance in life like?
Is it like this, is it like this, or is it like this?
Work and play.
Relaxation and work.
You can't do nothing, and you can't do too much.
You got to get the balance just right.
Sleep is the most important thing when it comes to recovering the body from a digestive
problem, an emotional problem, a psychological problem, a physical problem, any kind of problem.
Sleep often helps to repair them.
I'm amazed, because everyone today's got a mobile phone, and everybody looks at ways
on how to quickly recharge their mobile phone.
We recently upgraded our mobile phones, and now we've got this like pad where you can
put your phone on, and it charges the pad up.
The sales guy was saying, "You can charge your phone up really quick now, like in an
hour or two hours.
It charges really quick."
It's almost like people now today want to get things done really fast.
That's how they approach sleep as well.
They want to get sleep done quickly and over and done with so they can go back again to
technology or back to doing stuff, but that's not what rest and relaxation is all about.
It's not being on the cutting edge of sleep or the cutting edge of anti-stress.
All right?
It's leading a life of leisure.
It's learning to become a more relaxed person in general.
It's very important for you to understand this concept, because being a leisurely person
and a relaxed person stimulates the anti-stress system of the parasympathetic nervous system.
We call it the rest and digest system.
The fight or flight is the sympathetic.
That's the charge up mode, the stress mode.
The relaxation mode is the repair, the recovery, the healing mode, and it's the mode I'd like
people watching this video to be much more in tune with, the relaxation mode.
You can't relax in bed with a mobile phone playing World of Warcraft.
All right?
You can't relax lying in bed with an iPad, looking at videos on YouTube.
That's not relaxing.
Relaxing, in my mind, is like all the quiet spot.
It's going somewhere where you're not involved in technology.
It could be on a trip or a vacation where you don't have any mobile crap with you at
all.
You're relaxing with nature, relaxing with people.
You're not, got stuff in your hands that you're fiddling with all the time.
That is the leisure we're talking about.
It's lying down in bed and just relaxing, to nice breathing on the bed or on the floor
on a regular basis.
This is what's going to kickstart the healing response in the body and allow your chronic
digestive system problem to recover.
You can't recover sitting there looking at a video.
It's not going to happen.
The mind's too engaged.
Try and get that concept really into your mind.
It's just not going to happen otherwise.
All right?
That's what I call the balance.
Point number five I think I should talk about is the breathing response, and this forms
part of the balance.
Many people just don't breathe properly.
They breathe too quick.
They breathe too shallow.
They haven't got a nice, slow, deep breath that comes in.
I had a very interesting discussion with a yoga teacher on Skype only a few days, a very
famous yoga teacher about breathing, and she's telling me that the people that she's noted
who have the best postures and the best health have got the best breathing cycles of all.
She said, "What I'm talking about with my clients [inaudible 00:14:41] that breathing
is what is one of the most important things you can do properly, apart from eating properly,
is breathing properly."
You can't breathe in bone broth.
You can't breathe in non-GMO foods, okay, or stuff like that.
We're talking about a natural process, just breathing in air.
It's got nothing to do with what you eat.
It's got to do with how you breathe, because breathing is the most powerful stimulator
of the relaxation system of the body called the parasympathetic nervous system, so if
you really want to boost that healing part up, you need to learn how to breathe properly.
Very slow, deep, nasal breathing.
A yoga teacher can probably help you.
I'll just write down this word here, which I want you all to go and have a look on Google.
It's called Buteyko.
Buteyko.
Professor Konstantin Buteyko, he's a very well-known Russian professor who taught this
particular method of breathing.
It's very famous in many countries around the world.
In my opinion, it's one of the most powerful things I've shown many people and got them
to go to a Buteyko practitioner to learn how to breathe properly, and they've come back
and told me their anxiety disappeared, they're sleeping better, that weight loss, appetites
improved, many things improved just from breathing properly.
It's almost insane how simple this is, but yet it's so profound in its effect.
Simple things done properly in life give you the best outcomes when it comes to health,
not complicated things.
Point number five is, I call it breathing.
I hope you understood some of these points that we spoke about today.
There are some very important points that are going to influence your health profoundly
in time, if you can just take some of this advice on board and just have a good think
about it, the sticking points in your life.
Cause and effect.
We talked about that in point number one.
Remember?
Some of the issues that you face because of something that caused that problem.
Think carefully and try and remedy that cause, and then often the effect will resolve itself.
Okay.
We also talked about balance.
We talked about, are you being honest with yourself?
We talked about breathing.
A lot of the discussion today was about lifestyle, so as you noticed I didn't talk that much
about the different types of foods to eat when it comes to the gut.
I've mentioned in a previous video it is important, but it only makes up a small percentage of
recovering from a serious digestive problem.
Try and take some of these points on board and have a good think about them.
Please watch some of my other videos that expand more on these topics that we've just
discussed.
I'm pretty sure that it's going to be able to help you out.
Even if you get one tiny piece of information out of this video, that could be a game-changer
for you.
Thanks for tuning in.