Spring has finally sprung! While this time of the year is often looked forward to, especially for those in colder climates, many suffer from spring fever. Today, we are going to dive into how your gut changes with the seasons and how spring fever affects the gut (and vice versa).
What is spring fever?
Spring fever is not a medical diagnosis, but it is common enough for doctors to recognize when someone is dealing with it.
For some people, spring fever is a reaction to the pollens floating around in the air this time of year. Things are awakening, reproducing, and blooming. Along with the blooms come excess pollen in the air, which can trigger an allergic response in some people. Many people will feel:
- Itchy, watery eyes
- Runny nose
- Scratchy throat
- Minor cough
While seasonal allergies are what many people call spring fever, these aren’t the only symptoms of spring fever. Spring fever can have more to do with your mood. While the two sometimes go hand-in-hand, spring fever can also show signs like:
- Irritability
- Fatigue
- Low motivation or extremely high motivation
- Restlessness
What you may not know is that your gut health can dictate how difficult it is to handle your spring fever symptoms.
How does the gut change during spring?
Each time the seasons change, our gut health changes with them. Different fruits and vegetables are available throughout the year, and as they change, so do our diets. As our diet changes, our gut microbes adjust to accommodate whatever food is available at that time to help our immune systems stay healthy.
During spring, we have more fruits and vegetables available to us than we do in the winter. This makes our gut microdiversity shift and helps supplement healthier bacterial strains.
We also experience significantly more sunlight in the spring. This affects our circadian rhythms, which our gut health is highly influenced by. Sunlight is extremely beneficial for our health because it:
- Boosts vitamin D production
- Alters our gut microdiversity in a positive manner
- Sun exposure is associated with a lower risk of most diseases
- Improves mood
- Balancing melatonin and serotonin levels, improving our sleep/wake patterns
With the nicer weather, people tend to be less sedentary, which has major benefits for our gut health. The more active people are, the more healthy microbes they have in their guts. This helps to fight off inflammation and keep the body healthy. After being cooped up all winter, the warm weather invites us to get off the couch and move around outside.
This increase in energy is often where the restlessness and irritability come from. Inside our bodies, different hormones are being released to prepare our bodies for spring. Unless you’re extremely in tune with your body, you’ll just feel irritated and not recognize that it’s actually a great boost of energy.
So when you start feeling irritated, take that frustrated energy outside and get some exercise to see if you feel better.
The more we move, the thirstier we get. This is another great thing for our gut health. If we are thirsty, we drink more water, which helps clean out stagnant toxins.
All of these things result in better gut health and the start of a healthy cycle of improving gut health.
However, some people who deal with seasonal allergies might not notice these benefits. Dealing with seasonal allergy symptoms can inhibit the beneficial cues that the season is changing. This is due to the inflammatory response that happens during allergic reactions.
When your body responds to an allergen, it alerts the immune system that something is wrong. So, the immune system goes to the sites where the allergen is coming into contact with your body.
Since pollen and other springtime allergens are such small molecules, they mostly affect the eyes, nose, respiratory tract, and skin. All of these areas have microbiomes that respond to the allergen and ignite the immune response.
The gut microbiome houses 70% of the immune system and, therefore is highly affected during allergic responses. Since this is the case, the gut microbiome changes to try and continue doing what it normally does (helping with digestion) while also tending to the immune response. This can tax the gut and alter the gut microbes that inhabit it.
Springtime also deals with bacteria and viruses coming alive again (norovirus, stomach viruses, etc.), and any exposure to these can put some extra work on the immune system.
So as you can see, not all the gut changes this time of the year are positive. However, if the negative changes are what you normally experience, this doesn’t have to continue being the case.
How can I prepare my gut for spring?
Prepping your gut before spring even comes is the best idea. But if you’re just starting now, that’s okay, too! Get into these healthy habits and routines, and you’ll be set during every seasonal change that comes your way.
- Stay hydrated. Hydration is the key to healthy cells, organs, and bodily function. Every cell needs to be properly hydrated to work. Our digestive tract and other mucous membranes also need proper hydration to maintain their viscosity for optimal function. With more movement in your days, you’ll definitely need to drink more water, and this will make your gut and body happy.
- Eat foods that are in season. Hunter and gathering tribes to this day (yep, they still exist) have the most optimized gut health. They truly eat seasonally year-round. Scientists followed their gut changes from season to season and found that the gut microbes change with the seasons from their diet and to support their needs during that time of the year. So talk with local farmers and see what new fruits and veggies you can try to eat more seasonally.
- Enjoy the sunshine. Since the sunlight can improve your sleep-wake cycles and your mood, it’s a no-brainer to get out and enjoy the rays. Use protection if the rays are strong, but let some of the sunlight seep into your skin as it has antimicrobial benefits to help your immune system.
- Take Atrantil. Atrantil helps get your gut in check when it is out of whack. Atrantil helps eradicate archaea and bacteria in the small intestines while balancing the microbiome. It may help reduce inflammation that may be happening within and outside of the gut. If you suffer from digestive issues, it can help you get your symptoms under control for a better quality of life. Keeping the intestinal lining tight, the gut microbiome balanced, and inflammation lower, can help with your seasonal symptoms, too. So just because Atrantil was made for the gut doesn’t mean you won’t experience other great benefits, too!
- Try following an anti-inflammatory diet. Several diets claim to be anti-inflammatory. However, they may not all be treated equally and can have different effects on each individual. The true gold-standard diet is the Mediterranean diet. It contains essential polyphenol and fiber-rich foods paired with healthy fats and lean meats. Some diets that have been modeled after the Mediterranean diet include the MIND diet (created for Alzheimer’s patients) and the AIP diet (created for those suffering from autoimmune conditions). Focus on meeting your protein and fiber goals, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthier body.
- Move your body daily. When you move your body, your muscles contract. Muscle contraction is beneficial to your circulatory system because it pumps blood to your heart and moves oxygen throughout your body and to your brain. Muscle contraction is also important because it moves your lymph through your body, which helps remove toxins, absorb lipids, and reduce inflammation. Moving your body also releases endorphins and other happy chemicals to improve your mood and outlook. Exercise helps to create a balanced gut microbiome and keeps your body happy and healthy. So what are you waiting for? Get that body moving!
- Stick to a good sleep routine that matches the sunrise and sunset (if you can). This can be difficult for those who work the night shift, but for those who don’t, syncing your life to the sun provides your body with many benefits. Most of them derive from a healthy circadian rhythm, which provides your gut with a normalized routine for digesting and resting.
So, there you have it. This is how the gut changes with the seasons and how spring fever is affected, too. Let us know if you try any of our suggestions and how they work out for you in the comment section below! Enjoy the spring!
