You Can’t Fix Your Mood Without Looking at Your Gut—A Guide to the Gut-Brain Connection

Before wellness became a checklist of supplements and routines, there was the simpler idea that your body already knows what’s off—you just have to pay attention.

In a recent live talk at Wanderlust, Dr. Will Cole breaks down the constant conversation happening between your gut and your brain, and how that chatter shapes everything from your mood to your energy levels.

And it’s bigger than digestion. It’s all the anxiety, burnout, inflammation that comes along with gut health, and why you can be doing everything right and still feel off.

Consider this your no-BS checklist to what actually matters.

✔ Check your gut basics (yes, really)

Before anything complicated, start here:

☐ Are you having regular bowel movements (2–3 times a day)?
☐ Do you feel bloated, sluggish, or inconsistent?
☐ Or are things “fine”… but you still feel off?

Even without obvious symptoms, underlying gut issues can still be driving:

• Brain fog
• Anxiety
• Fatigue

✔ Stop separating mental health from physical health

This is where most people get it wrong.

• Your gut produces the majority of your serotonin
• Your brain and gut are constantly communicating
• Mood issues often have physiological roots

So feeling anxious or low isn’t “just mental.” It can be biological.

✔ Look at inflammation—not just symptoms

Instead of chasing symptoms, zoom out. Do you have:

☐ Chronic fatigue
☐ Hormonal imbalances
☐ Mood swings
☐ Autoimmune flares

They’re often tied together by one thing: inflammation.

And most of that starts in the gut, where your immune system lives.

✔ Audit what you’re exposed to daily

It’s not just your diet. Your gut can be impacted by:

• Processed foods
• Pesticides and toxins
• Mold or environmental exposures

✔ Get honest about your stress levels

This is the part people skip.

You can eat perfectly and take all the right supplements…but if your nervous system is dysregulated, your body stays inflamed.

Dr. Cole calls this “shame-flammation,” aka when emotional stress shows up physically.

What to ask yourself:

☐ Am I constantly in fight-or-flight?
☐ Have I normalized feeling stressed all the time?

✔ Support your nervous system like it actually matters

Not in a “try meditation once” way; in a consistent, realistic way. Start with:

• Breathwork
• Journaling (getting thoughts out of your head)
• Walking outside or time in nature
• Any form of movement that calms your body

Your body can’t heal if it doesn’t feel safe.

✔ Stop doing more—and start doing what works

More supplements ≠ better
More restriction ≠ healing
More control ≠ results

Sometimes the real work is:

• Eating enough
• Reducing stress
• Letting your body come out of survival mode

So when your body feels off, it usually isn’t subtle. It shows up in your energy, your mood, your focus, and the way you move through your day. Over time, it becomes easy to normalize that feeling and push through it.

What this comes back to is awareness of these patterns you’ve gotten used to. They are all connected, and they all leave a mark on how you feel and ignoring one piece rarely works for long.

There is no single fix that solves everything at once. Progress tends to come from addressing what’s in front of you, even if it’s not the most obvious place to start. 

To hear Dr. Will Cole’s full conversation on gut health, listen to The Art of Being Well wherever you get your podcasts.

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