How Gratitude Changes Your Gut and Hormones

Stephanie Solaris Nov 28, 2025

By Stephanie Solaris, Applied Functional Medicine Practitioner & Founder of SolFuel®

Some women tell me they feel like their bodies betrayed them. Not all at once — but slowly, in tiny ways that added up.

That was true for Roseann, one of my clients who arrived exhausted, bloated, craving sugar constantly, and overwhelmed by hot flashes. “I feel like I’m doing everything right,” she told me. “But my body… it’s not listening.”

If you’ve ever felt this way, as if your gut, hormones, cravings, and mood have been speaking a different language than your intentions — this is for you.

Because sometimes the door back into your body isn’t force or discipline.

Sometimes it’s gratitude, the science and soul of it.

Why Does Gratitude Touch Both the Heart and the Biology

Gratitude is often talked about as a feel-good practice. But in functional medicine, gratitude is also a physiological event, one with real impact on your hormones, gut, and metabolism.

Research shows that gratitude can:

Lower inflammatory markers like CRP, IL-6, and TNF-α - Frontiers in Psychology
Improve sleep quality, mood, and emotional resilience - Harvard Health
Enhance parasympathetic activity — the “rest-digest-heal” mode
Strengthen the gut–brain axis by calming the stress response
Improve fullness hormones like GLP-1 through better vagal tone

And this is where so many women — including Roseann — lose trust in their bodies: when stress drowns out the signals that help us feel full, calm, nourished, and safe.

Gratitude brings those signals back into focus, one gentle breath at a time.

How Does Gratitude Support the Gut–Brain Axis?

Your gut and brain are in constant conversation. Every emotion ricochets through your GI tract. Every digestive symptom echoes back into your nervous system.

Stress tightens digestion. Gratitude softens it.

Stress closes the throat. Gratitude helps the breath steady.

Stress blunts fullness hormones. Gratitude helps your gut begin to trust abundance again.

That shift is not metaphoric — it’s biochemical. In women, especially 35–55, the gut is often the first system to “go offline” under chronic stress, pulling digestion, hormone balance, thyroid health, and cravings down with it.

But when gratitude activates the vagus nerve, digestion begins to re-open. Blood flow increases. Stomach acid rises. Enzymes activate. Hormone receptors become more sensitive. You start to feel that ease in the belly you may not have felt in years.

This is where Roseann noticed her first shift — not in her weight, but in her breath.

“My meals don’t feel like a battle anymore,” she said.

“That alone feels like healing.”

How to Increase GLP-1 Naturally Through Gratitude + Gut Health?

GLP-1 is one of the most important “I’m full” hormones your gut makes. It helps regulate appetite, cravings, blood sugar, and fat burning. Yet GLP-1 is extremely sensitive to:

stress
inflammation
poor sleep
microbiome imbalance
rushing through meals

Gratitude works from the top down — calming cortisol and steadying your nervous system, which helps your gut hormones (like GLP-1) communicate more clearly again.

Prebiotic fibers work from the bottom-up — feeding the good bacteria in your gut so they can produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). Think of SCFAs as tiny fullness messengers that help activate GLP-1, your natural appetite-steadying hormone. It’s why foods like oats, lentils, and kiwi leave you feeling satisfied instead of searching for more. WebMD

Together, they restore the energy units that stress borrowed from your metabolism.

What Foods Increase GLP-1 Naturally?

If you’ve been wondering what foods increase GLP-1 without medications, here are the most effective natural options. Think of these as your “GLP-1 pantry” — foods that calm cravings while supporting hormone stability:

Resistant starch (potatoes, legumes, green bananas)
Gold kiwifruit (supports Faecalibacterium + butyrate production)
Oats, barley, and other beta-glucan–rich grains
Baobab fruit and citrus (polyphenols)
Fermented foods (for improved gut-brain signaling) -but only when your gut is ready for them. If you’re dealing with SIBO, histamine issues, or an imbalanced microbiome, fermented foods can sometimes feel like too much too soon. It’s not “bad bacteria” as much as the wrong bacteria in the wrong place.

These foods help your gut release the fullness hormones that stress often silences.

How Can I Increase My GLP-1 Naturally Every Day?

Here are the daily rituals I teach — the ones Roseann used, and the ones your gut will slowly rediscover its trust through:

1. Begin each meal with one minute of gratitude

Even a single breath whispered with “thank you, body” changes your physiology.

2. Chew slowly — 20 to 30 times

(Adapted from Solaris Whole Health’s Mindful Eating handout)

Chewing is one of the fastest ways to activate digestive enzymes and fullness hormones.

3. Build meals around GLP-1 supportive foods

Oats, legumes, kiwi, cooled potatoes, baobab.

4. Support the microbiome with prebiotic fiber

It boosts SCFAs → which boost GLP-1 → which helps you feel full. 4. Support the microbiome with prebiotic fiber.

When your gut bacteria are fed the right fibers, they create SCFAs — remember they are tiny fullness messengers — which help activate GLP-1 and bring your appetite back into balance.

For most women, this is where SolFuel® GutGlow™ becomes a gentle turning point. Its low-FODMAP prebiotic blend feeds your gut without overwhelm, helping your belly feel lighter, calmer, and more supported while your hormones begin to regulate again.

5. Add plant-based GLP-1 support when needed

“Plant-based GLP-1 support” simply means using natural ingredients (from plants) that help your body activate its own fullness hormone — instead of relying on drugs or stimulants.

Think of it as giving your appetite and cravings a soft reset.

Especially peri/menopause, where stress hormones compete with fullness signals.

And this leads us to the ritual many women find transforms their metabolic day…

The Solaris 60-Second Gratitude Eating Ritual

Try it now and you’ll feel your body soften:

Sit.
Place both feet on the floor.
Inhale for four.
Look at your meal — its colors, its warmth, what it’s offering you.
Whisper “thank you.”
Take one slow bite and chew.
Feel your belly ease.
Let your breath steady.
Then continue.

This is where the gut begins to trust abundance again. This is where the gut begins to trust abundance again — in the quiet pause where the nervous system softens and the body feels safe. It’s the same presence Eckhart Tolle describes in The Power of Now, the relief that comes when we return fully to the “now.” In that moment of presence, mind, body, and soul begin moving in the same direction again.

Why Can Gratitude Help Reduce Cravings?

Cravings are not moral failures.

They’re the nervous system calling for safety.

When gratitude softens your stress response:

the brain’s urgency signal quiets
emotional hunger untangles from physical hunger
the gut’s appetite hormones rise again
the body shifts toward regulation instead of reaction

This pairs beautifully with the metabolic support of SolFuel® Sculpt™, which quiets the mental chatter around food and boosts GLP-1 pathways naturally.

It works on the anticipation of cravings, while gratitude works on the root.

And when you layer in GutGlow™, you support the microbiome-driven fullness hormones your nervous system depends on.

This is metabolism done gently, wisely — and biologically.

What Is the Best Natural GLP-1 Supplement for Women?

If you want a natural GLP-1 support system that aligns with your nervous system healing, the GutGlow™ + Sculpt™ Bundle is the most complete approach:

GutGlow™

11g low-FODMAP prebiotic fiber
Boosts GLP-1 + PYY
Improves fullness within 7–10 days
Supports Akkermansia, Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium
Eases bloating, constipation, and inflammation

Sculpt™

Clinically studied to boost GLP-1 by 61%
Reduces hunger by 56% in 60 days
Helps transition off GLP-1 meds naturally
Stimulant-free, vegan, gentle

Together, they support the brain and the gut, the two ends of the craving loop.

The Gratitude–Gut Metabolism Loop (A Closing for Your Heart)

Roseann once told me, after a long pause,

“I finally feel like my body wants to help me again.”

That is the moment every woman deserves — not when the scale moves, but when trust returns.

Because healing is never just nutritional.
It’s emotional.
It’s hormonal.
It’s neural.
It’s the quiet power of telling your body:
“Thank you. I’m listening now.”

Gratitude opens the door.
Gut healing walks you through it.
Metabolic support keeps you steady as you rebuild your relationship with your body.

As a chemical engineer and applied functional medicine practitioner, I help women rebalance stress, hormones, and gut health to heal cravings from the root — restoring a body that feels like home again.

Your gut remembers how to trust you.
Your hormones remember how to support you.
Your body remembers how to feel safe.

Gratitude is how you remind it.