If you’re feeling sluggish, unmotivated, or having a tough time staying energized throughout the day, it might be beneficial to take a quite look at your gut—specifically the microbes living in it. Given the fact that there are 300 to 400 trillion microorganisms making your gut their home, it’s no surprise that they have a say in how you feel, including how much energy you have.

A diverse and healthy microbiome influences your immune system, mood, and energy levels, helping you feel your best. So in the spirit of upping your inertia and being your most productive self throughout the day, let’s try incorporating more gut-healing foods and living a more well-balanced lifestyle. Here’s how.

How your gut health and energy levels are linked

While the two may not seem directly related, the microorganisms in the lining of your digestive tract play a large role in your mood, sleep, and how much energy you absorb from the food you eat.

A healthy gut leads to happier hormones, specifically serotonin, a hormone and neurotransmitter that carries messages from the brain to different cells in your body. And 95 percent of this chemical messenger is produced in the gut. This connection is known as the gut-brain axis.

A healthy gut leads to happier hormones, specifically serotonin, a hormone and neurotransmitter that carries messages from the brain to different cells in your body. And 95 percent of this chemical messenger is produced in the gut. This connection is known as the gut-brain axis.

Serotonin is a “feel good” chemical, and when levels are normal, you’ll tend to feel calmer, more focused, and happier. It also works with another chemical messenger, dopamine, to promote quality sleep. Melatonin often gets all the credit as the sleepy-time hormone, but your body needs serotonin to make melatonin, which then regulates your sleep-wake cycles.

When the “bad” gut bacteria start to overtake the good bacteria, the balance in the gut microbiome is disrupted and could alter the amount of serotonin produced, affecting mood and sleep in a negative way.

When the “bad” gut bacteria start to overtake the good bacteria, the balance in the gut microbiome is disrupted and could alter the amount of serotonin produced, affecting mood and sleep in a negative way.

Besides balancing your hormones, a healthy gut microbiome and digestive system will maximize your body’s ability to break down and absorb nutrients and energy from the food you eat.

When you eat yogurt for breakfast, that food is broken down into usable nutrients as it travels through your digestive tract. What was yogurt now becomes protein for muscle building, fat for insulation, and carbohydrates for energy. Micronutrients like vitamin D, calcium, and phosphorus are also broken down and transported through the body to the cells that need them.

A healthy gut will help you extract the most nutrients possible from your food, making the most of each bite.

3 easy ways to boost your gut health and energy levels

Several variables come into focus when we talk about gut health, a lot of which we most likely don’t even know yet since new research is continuously emerging. Based on what we know, here are some science-backed ways to boost your gut health and improve your energy levels.

Add more prebiotic foods to your plate

Probiotics get a lot of attention as the good bacteria that will help keep your gut healthy, but without prebiotics, those good bacteria won’t be able to thrive and do their job.

Prebiotics are mostly non-digestible fibers, including resistant starch, inulin, and pectin. These fibers make their way through your digestive tract intact and then act as food for the microorganisms in your large intestine. Your gut bacteria then metabolize and ferment these fibers, giving off beneficial byproducts known as short-chain fatty acids to help fight inflammation and support immunity.

Eating oats, beans, onions, asparagus, green beans, raspberries, and peaches, among other prebiotic foods, will help keep your gut bacteria well-fed. Just be sure to add them slowly if you’re not used to eating high-fiber foods to avoid unpleasant side effects like gas and bloating.

Give fermented foods a try

Now that you’re eating foods to feed the good bacteria in your gut, try adding fermented foods, which can introduce additional beneficial bacteria into your digestive tract. Having abundant and diverse species of microorganisms in the gut can help keep bad bacteria from growing and disrupting the immune system or causing inflammation.

Fermentation happens as microbes like bacteria and yeast feed off of sugars in the food. Acids like lactic acid or acetic acid, or even alcohol are byproducts of this process which can help with preservation, change the flavor, and can even increase the digestibility and nutritional content of the food. Common fermented foods include yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha.

Manage your stress levels

When we think about the gut, it’s too easy to lean only on food as the answer to all our problems. Managing your stress levels could arguably be the most important thing you can do for your gut health, overall health, mood, and energy.

Stress and depression release stress hormones that lead to inflammation and can reshape the gut microbiome, further lowering mood and energy. The relationship between stress and gut health is well-known, so taking steps to keep calm is an obvious choice for improving our energy levels and the gut microbiome.

What is the best way to beat stress? Try some of these cortisol-reducing foods or stress-reducing activities the world’s longest-living people rely on.