Four Fundamental Pillars
for Gut Health
By Melanie Yukov INHC MS CCC SLP
Transcript:
Cindi:
Are you grappling with persistent gut disturbances and finding it challenging to pinpoint the underlying issues? Well, I’m here with Melanie yukov, who is an integrative nutrition health coach and herbalist. She’s here to discuss her four fundamental pillars for promoting gut health that target the root causes.
Hi, Melanie, I love that you’re here and that you’re willing to share how to get to the root cause of gut disturbances. Let’s get started. Let’s talk about the first key issue to address is diet or nutrition when it comes to underlying gut issues.
Pillar #1
Melanie Yukov:
Thank you so much for having me. I think that most people think that I would start with diet and nutrition, and that certainly is really important. And for sure, a part of my coaching making sure people obviously are eating well, you know that food is our fuel, but what I find with people, actually, is that isn’t one of the foundational root causes.
A lot of times people come to me who are a already eating healthy and still don’t feel well, or it’s people who need guidance in that area, and before I tap into that, I need to make sure there’s a strong foundation. And so that ends up being actually emotions.
So pillar number one is that unprocessed emotions lead to toxic habits, which cause and contribute to IBS, leaky gut inflammation, all of that.
So basically, if we’re not dealing with the emotions, we can a self sabotage, right? You can relate to that, I’m sure, and know people, or know people, right? So self sabotage or making or choices because we’re filling emotional voids, or, you know, eating, maybe when we’re angry or whatever, we’re not dealing with those emotions. And so turning to food, this accumulates in our bodies and leads to things like headaches and and pain, and that’s really just all blocked energy, and that leads to gut dysbiosis as well.
So by helping people give a voice to these parts of ourselves that we tend to want to push away. Really, really helps and is really one of the most powerful things I feel I do in terms of helping people, because a lot of times when clients come to me, they feel like their body is betraying them. They feel a sense of deprivation. They feel angry, and they feel frustrated by these health issues they’re feeling and in addition, you know, we have, like the things in life, right, that bring up emotions, a toxic relationship with someone, a parent, you know, relationship that isn’t well, or whatever it is.
So, you know, Deepak Chopra says, Believe the diagnosis, not the prognosis. And I really love that, because it’s like, hey, you know, you can be diagnosed with anything, but we really hold a lot of power within us for healing, and a lot of that is rooted in in those emotions. And then when I help people reach that deep part of themselves, they intuitively know, you know what foods are better for them. It’s really just tapping into that deep sense of self and ends up actually increasing positive emotions when you give those other emotions that are trapped a voice.
Cindi:
It’s extremely interesting that the first pillar of trying to get to the root cause of your persistent gut disturbances is the unprocessed emotions. And I love that you’re available to help people learn the process of working through those emotions. So I’m on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait to know what pillar number two is.
Pillar #2
Melanie Yukov:
So pillar number two is along the same lines, I’m still not even at food yet, right? It’s how you eat is just as important as what you eat.
I mean, how many of us are, you know, holding the steering wheel with one hand and have the chicken in the other hand? It’s our society. You know, we’re very go, go, go. And we all and we have all these fast foods. Not necessarily Burger King or McDonald’s, but even just, you know, bars, shakes, you know, all these, like fast types of foods, because we can’t sit down for a proper meal.
So if you feel like you’re always in a rush and you’re eating, it’s like, well, what message are you sending your body? Are you sending your body messages of it’s in danger, or are you sending messages of safety? That’s really important, that communication piece with our body, so having enough time to, like, sit down and enjoy your food, taking a breath before you eat, blessing the food. You know, it doesn’t have to be a religious practice. It could just be as a way to increase your connection with with food, with your body, with yourself, and allow time to chew it right.
Allow time to chew your food. Take a minute. And actually, in other cultures, they do this. So in Spanish, there’s a word called sobre mesa, which literally means on the table. And that’s because after people eat, you know, they they allow the dirty dishes to sit there, and they chat and they talk and they, you know. And that’s probably changing right now, because the world is becoming more fast paced everywhere. But culturally, this is it just giving ourselves a minute.
And I think with families, it’s also just even, you know, having a family meal together. People aren’t even eating at the same times, right? It’s like, this one’s got swim practice, this one’s got whatever here, take a bar. Let’s go. That’s actually a really important way to just be mindfully eating, and not, you know, using your phone while you’re doing it, or so how you eat is just as important as what you eat is my second pillar.
Cindi:
All right, so we’ve gone through two of the pillars, and I want to pause here real quickly. What do you mean by gut disturbances? What would somebody that is watching this, and they’re like, Okay, I identify with these first two pillars. Maybe I’m guilty of one. Maybe I’m guilty of the other. How do they know that Right is might be off.
Melanie Yukov:
So if you have, like, gas and bloating often, you’ll, you’ll know, like, a little gas, a little fart, here and there, right? But, you’ll know if it’s if it’s a problem, like if it’s keeping you up at night, or if you’re waking up bloated, or you you’re noticing that like you’re feeling too full shortly and you’re not even done with your meal. Or if you’re noticing that, you know even drinking water makes you feel bloated, or if you’re noticing like you’re not having solid bowel movements, you see undigested food, or the color is too yellow, or it’s too sticky and hard. Sorry to talk about poop, but it is what I do. It’s too sticky and hard to wipe. There’s lots of signs that would tell me, like, oh, having difficulty digesting fats, having difficulty digesting foods in general.
There’s lots of like, clues when somebody talks to me. Then there’s also just having really weird food reactions and sensitivities. People are like, Oh, I just can’t eat mango. Oh, I just can’t eat, you know, cashews, like, whatever. But actually, that’s like, not necessarily a normal thing, and that’s a sign of leaky gut, that you know you’re getting these, like, weird food sensitivities, and you’re know your gut needs to probably be had do some healing.
And then there’s people who have more severe things, and they know, like they have blood in the stool or something like that. IBS is something. But there’s also IBD Crohn’s Colitis, gastroparesis, gastritis. There’s also these diagnoses where one could feel, for example, reflux issues, right? Heartburn issues chronically or have, like a dry cough all the time and not realize that cough is actually reflux, things like that. Chronic sinus issues.
Cindi:
Who would have known?
Melanie Yukov:
Yeah, chronic sinus issues are usually a sign of mold, toxicity, parasites. I think that people feel lots of different things, and they don’t know how to connect the dots, right? To know, like, Okay, this is this, or this is that, but they do know when they don’t feel well, right?
So somebody can just come to me and tell me their symptoms. I don’t diagnose, but I’ll, I might say, oh, you know, these symptoms sound like it could be x you can, you know, we should do XYZ test or go to your doctor to ask for XYZ test to see like, how are you absorbing food? How is your mitochondrial functioning? Are there signs of candida overgrowth? You know, whatever it is.
Cindi:
Thank you so much for bringing clarity on some of those symptoms that people could feel if their gut might not be functioning at its best. Let’s go on to pillar number three.
A lot of times people come to me who are a already eating healthy and still don't feel well, or it's people who need guidance in that area, and before I tap into that, I need to make sure there's a strong foundation. And so that ends up being actually emotions.
Pillar #3
Melanie Yukov:
One was about how you eat, and this next one is about getting out of fight or flight. I do so much work on the vagus nerve, and the reason is, it’s huge. I mean, it’s become kind of like a catch word, like, oh, vagus nerve. But really, what is it about?
It’s just about us being in a more relaxed state that, yes, we have to have this part of us that knows how to be reactive in a situation where we need to be but the problem is is we’re too much in that sympathetic rather than parasympathetic part of our nervous system. So I do a lot of vagus nerve work. I help people, and I help myself do things to stay grounded.
And a lot of us have heard of things like take cold showers or there’s yawning, sighing, gargling till you cry. I mean, there’s lots of ways to stimulate the vagus nerve. What I do is I help people with moving energy using their hands in the right direction. Similarly to how you would go to an acupuncture person, and they would put needles in you, in that you know works on your energy meridians, I do it, helping people using their hands. So I tell them where to massage, tell them where to tap and help them balance their energies. And I also use a lot of breath work, sometimes myofacial release work as well. And so just helping people to stay grounded.
So I teach practices where, for example, if you wake up early and you can’t fall back to sleep, okay, do this breath thing. Oh, my clients are telling me, oh, I can, I can sleep now, because I do this breath thing, right? So it’s just having these tools and knowing what to pull out when you need it, breathing one for one, you can’t go to sleep.
I like to do peacemaker, which is taking your middle finger, which has a lot of power, putting it behind your ear, breathe in your nose and out your mouth, stimulating the back of your throat when you breathe out and The exhales longer than the inhale, one last one and yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Do you feel more relaxed? Yeah? I mean, it’s pretty simple. Yeah, it really is good.
And the other one I wanted to share was, earthing is such a big catch word now too. Yeah, taking off your socks and shoes and putting them in the grass. It’s like we’re calling this a name. But, you know, we did it as kids and didn’t think twice.
But okay, well, what if you’re at the office and you can’t take off your socks and shoes and you need to get grounded, you’re feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, and you cannot take your socks and shoes and put your feet in the earth? What can you do? Well, believe it or not, you can take a stainless steel spoon. You’ll know if it’s stainless steel, if it sticks to like the refrigerator or a magnet. Most spoons are.
You take it and you put it and you go like this, on the bottom of your feet, and I rub it on, yeah, okay, I swear to you, that balances the energy. And it’s similar to being able to put your foot, you know, on the earth. So if you can’t…
Cindi:
That’s so interesting. All right, we’re moving on to pillar number four, and this is our last pillar.
Pillar #4
Melanie Yukov:
Pillar number four is a really hard one. I’m gonna actually make it twofold, which is becoming the non doer.
So we’re always doing right? And we I feel like myself, my clients, and so many people I meet, measure themselves by what they can accomplish, right? It’s like the list, doing this, this, this getting things done, especially as a mother, right? You’re always feeling like you need to get all these things done. You need to do the list.
And I also feel that the clients who come to me, you know, they’re doing so much work to try to help themselves heal. They’re always doing this and that and this, and sometimes it’s good to just take a breath and just do nothing. Lie in a hammock, you know, give yourself more time to rest, and that might be a great moment to also give yourself some compassion.
Because I find that that is the hardest emotion for people to feel, is really self compassion, like I’m doing a good job. I’m doing the best I can. I deserve to take this time for myself. I deserve to take this break and just be that’s a huge one.
I also think that the morning is a really integral time to be able to focus on yourself. And one of my favorite things to do is 20 minutes of morning sun, like first thing in the morning, getting out in the sun. I like to do my stretches by a pond, under a tree, before it’s too hot. And just kind of, you know, just sitting there. This is a hard one for me. I used to be FOMO. You know, fear of missing out was like the story of my life. I would always be going and doing and going and doing and going and doing, and I’m really forcing myself to be still.
Cindi:
You put yourself in timeout? That’s a good thing.
Melanie Yukov:
Yeah, essentially, right.
Cindi:
That sounds amazing. Thank you so much. So we covered four pillars which actually were out of six of the pillars. Everyone doesn’t know that there you actually have six pillars that can contribute to dysfunctional gut health. And we’ve gone through four of the pillars, which included unprocessed emotions. The second one was, how you eat is just as important as what you eat. Number three was get out of fight and flight. And number four was become the non doer, aka put yourself in time out doing nothing. Like I said, there’s still two more pillars. So how can listeners get the rest?
Melanie Yukov:
So I had a class that was available on the six pillars, which is no longer available. But for people who DM me or email me at info@root2risewellness.org, you will get this free class that goes through the six pillars.
I also just want to leave you with another tidbit, which is there is a movie right now currently, Amazon Prime. Has it for free. It’s called heal, and it’s a documentary, and I really would encourage everybody to watch it. It is really wonderful, and a lot of what’s spoken about in that movie is part of my six pillars.
And so I would watch that movie on Amazon and DM or email me, and you will get the free class (https://www.root2risewellness.org/masterclass-signup). You’re also welcome to book a call with me, a risk free call if you feel like you have some health issues that you are struggling with and want to work through.
What I love about this is I want to leave you with some hope, or want to leave listeners with hope, which is that in this movie, she talks about how they interviewed people from all over the world who had radical remissions from incurable diseases, right? And they wanted to see what was common between them.
How did they really heal what was common between them, no matter what their diagnosis was that allowed them to get past this, you know, stage four cancer, or whatever it was. And she talks about these eight things that are common to them all, and some of them are the ones I talked about, which was the emotional healing, and then there are others, which are in my class.
And something else is they all worked on connecting with their purpose for living. So I think that really feeling your purpose, like, why am I here? That’s the Root Chakra, right? So that’s like your purpose in life. Why am I here? That’s really important, and also deepening your spiritual connection, so you don’t have to be religious. That’s not what this is about. It’s about deepening your spiritual connection.
So herbs, supplements and diet and nutrition are important, and I do work on them, but I just wanted to bring these really important pieces in, because they really are foundational.
Cindi:
It’s always a joy to spend time with you. Have you share your knowledge, and this has been just extremely interesting information that I can’t wait to apply. Thank you for your time.
In addition to being a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Melanie is also a Community Herbalist. She has been a practicing Pediatric Speech and Language Pathologist for 20 years with a degree from Columbia University. She integrates her passion for teaching children in her mommy and me Herbalicious Exploration Classes where she connects people of all ages to their roots, nature, and healthy practices through conscious community. What she has learned from her journey has led to her Core Beliefs which you can read about along with her many trainings and certifications here: https://root2risewellness.org/about.
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