How to Keep Your Microbiome Healthy During the Holidays

• The holiday season can lead to quick disruptions in your gut microbiome due to increased travel, diet changes, and altered sleep routines.
• To help your gut during the holidays, maintain some consistent habits, stay hydrated, incorporate fiber-rich foods, and prioritize sleep.

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The holiday season can be a whirlwind—travel, rich foods, irregular schedules, and late nights. This can make it difficult to maintain the routines that support your health, especially your gut health. Our gut microbiome thrives on routine, but the chaos of the holiday season can disrupt this delicate balance. Let’s take a closer look at how these changes affect your gut microbiome and what you can do about it. In this blog, we’ll educate you on the impact of these disruptions and offer practical tips to help you protect your gut during the holidays.

Travel: Making new friends in new places

Travel is a fun way to spend the holiday season. Whether you’re headed home for the holidays or off on an exciting adventure, any travel introduces changes to your daily routine that can significantly affect your gut microbiome. From exposure to unfamiliar microbes to disruptions in diet, sleep, and stress levels, travel often results in rapid microbiome shifts. If you find yourself on an international flight, you not only will be in a new country but also surrounded by new microbes. Exposure to unfamiliar microbes can quickly throw your microbiome off balance, which can lead to the dreaded “traveler’s diarrhea.” While this can also also be caused by a pathogenic bacteria, scientists often find cases of traveler’s diarrhea linked directly to shifts in our microbial balance, and some of us are more susceptible to being thrown off balance than others (Youmans et al., 2014).

Eating habits: ‘Tis the season for indulgent foods

The holidays are a time of year where we often find ourselves indulging in foods we don’t eat in our day-to-day lives. And while our gut microbiome is heavily shaped by our long-term dietary habits (Wu et al., 2012), acute changes to our diet are capable of throwing things out of whack in as little as 24 to 48 hours (David et al., 2013). You may notice discomfort or gastrointestinal distress when you eat particularly rich or oily foods. High-fat or high-sugar foods can also encourage the growth of bad bacteria, which promote inflammation.

Sleep: Or the lack thereof

You may find yourself getting a little less sleep during the holiday season. Let’s face it, between last minute holiday shopping, dinner parties, late-night gift wrapping, and ringing in the new year at midnight, you aren’t likely to catch the same number of Zs you would otherwise be getting. This is especially true if you find yourself traveling and experiencing jet lag.

You probably already know that sleep is incredibly important for your health, but what you may not know is that your gut microbiome follows a circadian rhythm, much like the rest of your body. Disruptions to sleep or irregular schedules—such as those caused by jet lag or late nights—can disturb the microbiome. Scientists found that jet lag, for example, can promote the growth of pathogenic bacteria within days, potentially contributing to gastrointestinal symptoms (Thaiss et al., 2014). In fact, a disrupted sleep cycle has been shown to exacerbate the imbalance caused by the introduction of pathogens or acute shifts to the diet (Summa et al., 2013 ; Voigt et al, 2014). So if you plan to travel or indulge in seasonal treats, it's especially important to also rest during the holidays.

How to care for your gut during the holiday season

Evidently, a lot of things we do during the holidays can affect our gastrointestinal systems. So, what can you do this season to enjoy yourself without putting your gut microbiome through the wringer?

• Especially if you are traveling, avoid anything that could contain pathogenic bacteria like unknown water sources or unwashed produce.
• Pack fiber-rich plane snacks like nuts, seeds, or dried fruit.
• Try not to disrupt too many of your daily habits. Sure, your overall routine might look a little different, but there are individual habits you can keep consistent. Maybe it’s starting the day with warm lemon water and ZBiotics Sugar-to-Fiber or committing to 30 minutes of movement a day.
• Look for opportunities to add diverse, fiber-rich foods into your meals, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.
• Stay hydrated. Set a daily water intake goal to stay motivated throughout the day!
• Try to keep your sleep schedule as consistent as possible, and prioritize getting enough sleep.
• If you’ll be enjoying alcoholic beverages at holiday parties, make sure you come prepared with ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol to help your gut break down the buildup of acetaldehyde.

While it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the changes during the holiday season, the good news is that your gut microbiome is resilient. It responds quickly to both disruptions and healthy choices. By planning ahead and taking steps to support your gut, you can make this holiday season a healthy, enjoyable experience for both you and your microbiome.

Wishing you and your gut a happy holiday!