Wellness, Gut Health, Sleep

Improve Your Gut Health, Immune System & Sleep With This ONE Simple Change

It's the middle of winter, wet and snowy outside, but the kids are exhibiting thehair-pulling signs of cabin fever. So… what do you do? I get it — sometimes (let'sbe real, oftentimes) the last thing I want to do in the dead of winter is wrangle mytwo-year-old into her snow gear for 15 minutes, only to spend a total of 96 secondsoutside before she's ready to go back in.

The messy post-snow mudroom chaos doesn'thold much appeal to most of us (me included!), but there are a few things that canshift our mindset toward feeling more inspired to get outdoors, even in less-than-idealweather.

We all generally understand that outdoor time is great for our health in a diversenumber of ways. But even knowing the benefits, sometimes that's still not enough toget us out the door. In the spirit of The Nest, we're not here to give you a genericlist — we want to dive into some lesser-known facts that bring real value to your life.

Beyond the usual perks of fresh air, less anxiety, and improved lung health, here are3 major things that shift positively the more we're outside.

1. Improves Your Gut Microbiome

When it comes to our gut microbiome, diversity is the name of the game — cultivatinglots of different types of beneficial bacteria is the goal. So many things influencethis: the food we eat, past antibiotic exposure, how we were birthed (vaginal vs.cesarean), and how much we move. Another big one? The amount of time we spend indiverse outdoor settings.

This is theorized to happen as microbes in nature land onour skin and we ingest them somewhere throughout the day. Visiting every state parknear you may not be realistic (it certainly isn't for me, with small kids and a businessto run), so here are some easy gut-enhancing habits:

• Drive with the windows down when traveling to different parts of town.

• Instead of the same park out of convenience, visit one on the other side of town now and then.

• Be barefoot outside as much as realistically possible.

• Keep the windows open when weather permits — even in winter, just 15 minutes a day.

• On walks with the dogs, kids, or yourself, go off the pavement and walk in the dirt and trees. (Shoes are fine — simply being surrounded by nature with some bare skin showing is enough!)

2. Improves Immune Function

So being outside more can make me less prone to allergies and chronic illness? Yes! Ina study on teenagers in Finland, those who lived in more biodiverse areas showed fewermarkers for the specific antibodies associated with allergies.

This doesn't mean thatif you live in an apartment with no yard you're out of luck — simply combat it byexposing yourself to different outdoor areas on a regular basis. As with anything,consistency is the key to success. Introduce new environments as often as realisticallypossible, and enjoy the benefits that come from your efforts.

3. Improves Sleep

A lot of wellness talk revolves around "hacks" to improve our health, and when it comesto sleep, our circadian rhythm enters the conversation. In a nutshell, our circadianrhythm is the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle —we wake bright-eyed in the morning and grow drowsy as the sun sets.

When that rhythm isthrown off by artificial light too early or too late in the day, it disrupts our cortisol(stress hormone), blood sugar, and melatonin (sleepy hormone) — and eventually our sleep.

Exposing our eyes to sunlight (or infrared light) in the morning helps suppress melatonin,keeping us energized and letting cortisol rise. At sunset, natural light exposure helpsincrease melatonin, bringing on sleepiness right in time for bed. And if you're in Montana,where the winter sun doesn't rise until 8:30–9am and sets around 4pm, infrared light toolscan help support appropriate red-light exposure.

That was a lot of information (which I love — knowledge equips us with the confidence tomake more informed decisions for ourselves and our families!). I hope it gives you sometangible things you can freely incorporate into your daily routine. As a mom, wife, businessowner, and friend, I know the feeling of being stretched in a million directions — adding onemore thing can feel downright impossible.

But the beautiful part is that so many of thesehabits already fit into the routines we've established. We're already running errands, so rollthe windows down. I'm already up at the crack of dawn, so it's simple to step outside andwatch the sunrise for 90 seconds. Cultivating true, lasting health really is simple — and whilesimple doesn't always mean easy, it does mean that minor tweaks to our routines can majorlymove our health in the right direction, no matter how busy we are.You 're doing an amazing job,Dr. Jordan & Dr. Pete