even when like we're stressed, that is actually detrimental to our gut, and that's why one of the things I tell people all the time when you're trying to support your gut health is you want to do meditation or deep breathing or take a walk in nature, something that calms you down, because your brain is actually sending signals down to your gut through this vagus nerve.

Hi, this is Dene. I'm the founder of Simple Families. Simple Families is an online community for parents who are seeking a simpler, more intentional life.

In this show, we focus on minimalism with kids, positive parenting, family wellness, and decreasing the mental load.

My perspectives are based in my firsthand experience raising kids, but also rooted in my PhD in child development.

So you're going to hear conversations that are based in research, but more importantly, real life. Thanks for joining us.

Hello, hello, Dene here. Thank you for tuning into the Simple Families podcast. That voice you heard in the intro is Tina Anderson.

She's joining me today to talk about gut health and probiotics. Tina is a co-founder of the company, Just Thrive Probiotics.

Who my recently welcomed as a podcast sponsor and I thought this would be a great opportunity to explore this topic a little bit deeper.

We hear a lot about how valuable probiotics are and how important gut health is.

But I know I have a lot of questions about what all that means. Where is the gut? Why do we say go with your gut feeling?

Why do we ask people, what does your gut tell you? How do we choose between all these probiotics, the ones that are in the refrigerator, the ones that are chewable?

There's so many options. And do we even need them?

So I'm thankful that Tina's joining us today to answer some of these questions and tell us more about this topic.

Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoy my chat with Tina.

Hi, Tina. How are you?

Great, Dene. How are you?

I am good. I'm happy to have you here today. I have a mile long list of questions for you.

I'm happy to be here. Excited to answer them.

So maybe we can start. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and how just Thrive started.

Sure. Yeah, you know what, I'm an attorney. So I was in litigation for many years working crazy hours and started to have children. And after my second was born, I decided that I wanted more of a work life balance.

So I was fortunate enough to be able to pivot and go into a family pharmaceutical business where I was really excited about it.

Because I'm like, oh, you know, we're doing something that's like helping people and delivering life saving medications to people. This is awesome.

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