Why Your Gut Microbiota Matter for Energy, Digestion, and Wellbeing
🕒 7-8 min read
Pressed for time? Here’s the short and sweet scoop:
Your gut microbiota is like a neighborhood - some microbes are helpful, some are neutral, and others can stir up trouble.
This community influences everything from digestion and energy to cravings and mood.
Start with one simple shift: eat more fiber-rich foods that fuel your friendly gut bacteria.
If you’ve been doing “all the right things” and still don’t feel quite right, this blog is your friendly nudge to look inward - literally.
📌 Keep reading - or save this post to discover how to build your best microbial neighborhood.
You know the neighbor you love living next to?
The one who brings in your trash bins when you forget, waves from across the street, maybe even slips you a batch of cookies around the holidays.
They make your neighborhood feel like home.
Now imagine that other neighbor. You know, the one who blasts music at 1 a.m., lets their dog do their business on your lawn, and somehow always manages to block your driveway.
Let’s just say… you wouldn’t be heartbroken if they suddenly decided to move.
The truth is you’ve got a similar neighborhood living inside you - your gut microbiota. And just like your actual neighbors, some of them are helpful, some are neutral, and some are downright disruptive.
I see signs of a disrupted microbiota all the time with my nutrition clients - women dealing with bloating, energy crashes, or stubborn digestive issues despite doing so many things right. Once they become aware of the microbes in their gut, everything starts to make more sense.
So right now, you might not realize just how much your gut “neighbors” affect everything from digestion to energy to cravings. But once you do, you have the power to shift your inner neighborhood into a friendlier, more balanced community…and feel a whole lot better in the process.
Let’s explore who’s living in your gut, how they’re influencing your health, and what you can do to start building a better internal neighborhood.
What Is Your Gut Microbiota?
Your gut microbiota is the community of microbes living inside your large intestine. There are trillions (yes, trillions) of microbes - bacteria, fungi, and other tiny organisms - all coexisting in your gut neighborhood.
Altogether, this community can weigh around 2½ pounds and includes hundreds of different species.
And just like any neighborhood, who’s living there matters. When the mix is balanced, things tend to run smoothly. But when disruptive residents start taking over, that’s when digestive and other health issues can kick in.
Bifidobacteria, Lactobacilli, and Escherichia coli are all beneficial. While some strains of E. coli can cause illness, most are harmless and even helpful - contributing to digestion, vitamin production, and defending against harmful invaders as part of a balanced gut community.
Why Does Gut Microbiota Matter?
Your gut community doesn’t just hang out quietly in the background. It’s busy influencing many aspects of your health and digestion. Your gut neighborhood:
Plays a direct role in how well you digest food, how much energy you have, and even how your skin looks.
Dictates your cravings, levels of anxiety, and whether you’re motivated to exercise.
Influences digestive symptoms like gas, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea - easing or worsening them depending on who’s there.
Keeps the peace by crowding out disruptive neighbors (when you have enough friendly microbes).
Talks to your brain. Yes, you read that right. Your gut microbiota can influence your mood, cognition, and stress levels.
Understanding who’s in your gut community - and how to support the right neighbors - can put you back in the driver’s seat and help improve your digestion, energy and mood.
How to Understand (and Support) Your Gut Microbiota
Let’s meet your neighbors, see how they support you, and what you can do to return the favor.
A friendly neighborhood is the kind of harmony you want in your gut - where friendly “neighbors” (probiotics) help keep the internal community balanced, connected, and functioning smoothly.
1. Meet Your Neighbors
The microbes in your gut each have their own personalities, kind of like the folks in your hometown. Inside your digestive tract, you’ll find:
Your Quiet Neighbors
Commensal microbes - like candida albicans - are the low-key types who mostly keep to themselves. As long as you don’t give them too much room to grow, they won’t cause a problem.Your Friendly Neighbors
Probiotics - like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species - are your all-star neighbors. They help clean up messes, keep the peace, and support the well-being of the entire community (and your body).Your Troublemaker Neighbors
Pathogens - like salmonella and harmful strains of E. coli - are the uninvited guests. When they move in, they disrupt the peace and throw the whole community into chaos.
Your goal is a healthy community where friendly neighbors are plenty, the quiet neighbors stay quiet, and no one is bringing the troublemakers to the party.
Want to build a healthier relationship with food, too? Check out my blog 3 Mindset Shifts to Transform Your Relationship with Food - no restriction or calorie counting required.
2. 10 Reasons to Love Your Friendly Neighbors
Probiotics (your friendly neighbors) create an amazing symbiotic relationship. When you support this population, they in turn help support your health in many ways. These tiny allies can:
Help you digest lactose (a high FODMAP carbohydrate).
Improve bowel regularity - whether you're dealing with constipation, diarrhea, or both.
Reduce inflammation and improve leaky gut.
Increase B vitamin absorption, and even produce some B vitamins and other nutrients you can use.
Help prevent yeast infections, UTIs, and bladder issues.
Ease skin issues like eczema.
Support healthy weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol.
Strengthen your immune defenses.
Keep your cravings in check and your emotional eating more balanced.
Support a healthier gut-brain connection.
Not bad for neighbors you’ve never formally met, right?
3. The Gut-Brain-Microbiota Connection
No matter which neighbors you have, they’re constantly chatting with grand central station - your brain.
You may have already heard of gut-brain communication. But your gut community adds a whole new layer to that conversation. And it goes both ways.
This two-way exchange is called your Brain-Gut-Microbiota Axis, and it includes:
Your gut community
Your gut’s own nervous system (the enteric nervous system)
Your body’s stress responses (fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest)
Hormones and immune signals
That means your microbes don’t just support digestion. They influence:
Your mood
How social or withdrawn you feel
Whether you feel anxious or grounded
If you’re motivated to move your body
And yes, even what you’re craving
Who lives in your gut neighborhood helps shape that entire conversation. A healthy community means clearer communication and a healthier body. But when things get out of balance, that dialogue can turn into misfires - leading to low energy, lack of motivation, emotional eating, and (of course) digestive symptoms.
Struggling to pinpoint what’s triggering your symptoms? Download your free 7-Day Food & Observation Journal to uncover the patterns behind your digestion, mood, and cravings.
Your gut microbes are in constant communication with your brain, and depending on who’s thriving in your gut neighborhood, they may nudge you toward cravings for nourishment…or a quick sugar fix.
4. When Your Neighborhood Gets Noisy: Signs of Imbalance
When your inner neighborhood gets chaotic, your gut starts to feel it. Here are four common ways things can get out of balance:
Too few friendly neighbors (probiotics) may lead to constipation.
Too many troublemakers (pathogens) can increase diarrhea, abdominal pain and discomfort, or post-infection IBS.
Too much of a good thing (Yep, even too many probiotics) can cause gas and bloating.
Good neighbors in the wrong spot (like SIBO) can lead to bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea and other symptoms.
Your goal isn’t to bulldoze the whole block. It’s to keep the right residents in the right places and make sure no one’s overstaying their welcome.
5. How to Build a Better Gut Neighborhood
What’s the best way to invite your friendliest neighbors to stick around and show the door to the disruptive ones? Feed your gut microbiota the right fuel.
That means choosing fiber-rich foods (which support probiotics) over refined carbs and added sugars (which feed the rowdy troublemakers).
Your two best tools:
Focus on whole, fiber-rich foods. These give your good neighbors the support they need to thrive.
Ease in slowly. If you’re dealing with gas, bloating, or discomfort, start with gentler, low FODMAP sources of fiber like:
Low FODMAP fruits and veggies
Nuts and seeds
Pseudograins like quinoa, millet, teff, and amaranth
Even if your neighborhood feels chaotic right now, the good news is: your gut community is always changing. Microbes generally have a short lifespan - about two weeks - so there’s always room for change.
That means every fiber-filled bite, every calm moment, and every mindful habit is a chance to reshape your internal community…and build a more balanced, resilient, and supportive environment for your health to thrive.
Curious which fibers actually support your gut? Explore my blog Finding Fibers that Nourish to learn how to choose fibers that feel good in your body.
Final Thoughts: You Can Shape Your Community
Unlike your town or city, your gut neighborhood is one community you do get to shape.
And that’s a powerful thing.
Because when you influence your microbiota, you also influence your digestion, energy, mood, cravings, and more.
Just like in any healthy neighborhood, it’s the relationships you nurture that thrive. Every time you tune in to how certain foods make you feel, choose nourishment over restriction, or slow down for a mindful meal, you’re strengthening your connection with the community inside you.
And the more you support your gut neighbors, the more they’ll show up for you - quietly working behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly.
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RESOURCES
American Academy of Microbiology. FAQ: Human Microbiome. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology; 2013. Accessed November 7, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562894/