Digestive Tune-Up: Why Your Gut Might Be Off After Summer

Summer is a favourite time of year for many people, but once the season winds down, you might notice your digestion isn’t quite as happy. Bloating, irregular bowels, heartburn, or that heavy “post-patio” feeling are all pretty common.

So, besides eating more ice cream cones than we’d ever admit…why does the gut go off track after summer, and how do you reset?

Summertime and the Living is Easy… For Everything But Your Microbiome

Warm-weather living often means our routines go out the window. We eat at odd hours, snack more, and lean into festival food, poolside cocktails, and other indulgences. Alcohol, fried foods, sugar, and convenience foods are fine here and there, but a whole season of them can irritate the gut lining and shift your microbiome.

Travel and camping can mean, fewer veggies, and more grab-and-go meals. Even just switching time zones or missing your usual sleep can throw off digestion. Sun exposure, heat, and being on the go leave us dehydrated, which also impacts our gut.

Giving Your Digestion a Gentle Reset

Luckily, the gut is resilient, and you don’t need to go into extremes to get back on track. Think of a reset less like a “detox” and more like changing habits to bring your system back into balance.

Start by getting more fiber such as leafy greens, berries, beans, and seeds to help feed beneficial bacteria and get things moving smoothly. 

Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, or plain yogurt provide healthy probiotics for your microbiome, helping restore the good bugs that summer indulgence may have thinned out. If probiotic foods aren’t your jam, you can also supplement these.

Hydration is your greatest friend. After months of patio drinks, time in the sun, and travel dehydration, your gut is begging for water. A simple habit: drink a tall glass before your morning coffee, and keep a bottle nearby through the day.

Digestion also depends on how you eat, not just what you eat. Maybe your summer meals were often eaten on the go, or maybe you skipped a fair few meals entirely or overdid it at the family BBQ night. Try slowing down, taking a few deep breaths before meals, and actually chewing your food, make an intentional effort to eat at regular intervals, and following your body's satiety cues. 

Herbal bitters or even a squeeze of lemon water before meals can also nudge sluggish digestion back into gear.

And yes, it helps to pull back on sugar and alcohol for a while. Think of it not as restriction, but as giving your gut a vacation from being on cleanup duty and getting back into the swing of things. 

Remember the newest research shows that gut health is strongly linked to mental health and wellbeing… so a happy gut is a happy YOU.