Feeling Anxious or Low?

I live partway down a gentle incline between a busy highway and a lazy river. You don’t notice the slope when driving toward my home—until it rains. Engineering decisions on the highway send water downhill, and when the ditch can’t hold it all, my street floods. Neighbors wade through two feet of water just to reach their front doors.
Sometimes, a brave neighbor will clear debris from the iron grate covering the street drain. Instantly, the water rushes away in a swirling mass, unimpeded by sticks, leaves, and stones, and the street is soon navigable again.
Watching those swirling floodwaters reminded me of how our bodies work. When our colon can’t clear toxins effectively, debris and damage build up—and often our mood is the first thing to be affected.
Did you know that 80–90% of your serotonin—the “feel-good” brain chemical—is made in your gut, not your brain? God designed our bodies with such beautiful, interconnected wisdom. This is why I emphasize gut health in my signature program, Wholeness Restored . When our gut is healthy, our mind and mood are steadier, calmer, and more peaceful.
If you’ve been feeling tired, anxious, or just not yourself lately, it may be time to give your gut some loving care. Here are five gentle, natural steps to nurture your gut—and lift your mood from the inside out.

1. Do a Gentle Gut Cleanse

Choose a cleanse that supports liver detoxification and helps remove unwanted bacteria, candida, and parasites — without keeping you tied to the bathroom. There are many nutrients that can help gently cleanse. Here are some favorites of mine.

Bacteria - consider Berberine
Candida - consider proteolytic enzymes
Parasites - consider black walnut

None of these is sufficient alone, but look for supplement formulas that contain them. Stay well-hydrated and ease off processed foods to give your body a break and a chance to reset as well.

2. Add Fiber to “Sweep Things Out”

Think of fiber as a broom for your insides! It helps move out toxins that your liver has released so they don’t get reabsorbed into your bloodstream. This keeps your body — and brain — clearer and calmer.

3. Restore with Probiotics

After cleansing, refill your gut with good bacteria (probiotics). They strengthen your immune system, balance digestion, and help your body create serotonin naturally. Choose high-quality probiotics — specific strains are even shown to support mood and calmness.

4. Reduce Sugar

Sugar steals from your body — especially your B vitamins and magnesium, which are key nutrients for managing stress. It also feeds bad bacteria in your gut. Reducing sugar helps restore balance and steadiness, both physically and emotionally.

5. Keep Things Moving Daily

Constipation (less than one bowel movement per day) means toxins are sitting too long in your body. Drink plenty of water — about half your body weight (in pounds) in ounces daily — and consider adding magnesium glycinate to help relax your colon. If stools are too loose, add gentle fiber like ground flaxseed or slippery elm powder to soothe and strengthen the gut lining.
We often forget how much our gut affects our mood, but God didn’t make mistakes in connecting the two. When we care for our digestion, we’re also caring for our peace, joy, and mental clarity.
So, take it one step at a time this week. Your body was created for healing — and as you support your gut, you are setting your body up to return to wholeness.
If you suspect poor gut health may be contributing to your mood, fatigue, or digestive concerns, I invite you to schedule a free 45-minute consultation . We’ll talk about your health, explore what your body is trying to communicate, and determine if Wholeness Restored is the right next step for you.
This is not a high-pressure call—just a chance to connect, share your story, and explore options for nurturing your body and nervous system.

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Why the News Is Wearing You Out (And It's Not Your Imagination)

By Rachel Rauch • September 8, 2026

Do you ever feel like life is moving faster than you can keep up with? I do. So I went digging into the history of how news actually traveled, and it turns out I wasn't imagining things. Life really has sped up. Let me walk you through it, because it explains more about your body than you'd think. In 1776, news moved at the speed of a horse or a ship, and sometimes slower than the war it was reporting on. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814, but it took six weeks to cross the Atlantic. Andrew Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans two weeks after the war it belonged to had already ended. The telegraph closed that gap. The Associated Press started in 1846, when five New York papers pooled money for a courier-and-telegraph relay to beat each other on Mexican-American War news. By the 1870s, the AP wire was the backbone of newspapers coast to coast. When the first working transatlantic cable went in in 1866, European news reached city readers by the next morning. Rural readers, stuck waiting on the mail train, stayed weeks behind. Radio and television took over in the 20th century, still riding on the AP wire underneath. Overseas footage could reach American living rooms the same day. Cable news pushed that down to real time — by September 11, 2001, people watched history happen live instead of waiting for the evening broadcast. Today the lag is seconds, and the source is usually a stranger's phone, not a newsroom. Wire services and reporters still do the actual digging, but social platforms and algorithmic feeds decide what you see first, and they usually beat professional verification to the punch. Speed isn't the problem anymore. Knowing what's true before you share it is. Here's what that means closer to home. A woman in 1776 spent her day on what was in front of her: feeding her family, supporting the war effort locally, running her house. Her stress was real, but she wasn't carrying Africa's wars or Asia's famines on top of it, because by the time that news arrived, it was already over. Even through World War II, women served their cause by investing in their own community. Worldwide events they couldn't touch were, for the most part, not part of their daily awareness. And when they were, it came through black-and-white photos and print — sterile, one step removed. Even the six o’clock news felt at a distance most nights. Social media changed that. Now a plea to save trafficked children and a plea to save dying coral reefs show up back to back in the same scroll. We watch villages in Africa pillaged by rebels, children starving as civil wars tear countries apart, cities flattened by earthquakes and wildfires — all shot on the phones of people living through it in real time. Every influencer has a cause, and plenty of them want you to feel something urgent enough to act, whether that's guilt, outrage, or a call to fix something four thousand miles away. I'm not minimizing what any generation before us dealt with. I'm giving you context for what makes ours different. When women in earlier generations felt worried, they could point that adrenaline at something in front of them and actually do something about it. Now, every time we watch a crisis unfold somewhere we have no power to change, our body still releases the same stress hormones it always has — as if we were about to step into that crisis ourselves. Except we can't. Your body doesn't know the difference between a threat in your kitchen and a threat on your screen. It reacts the same way either time. And it's not just the news — it's the constant hum of social media running in the background of your day, quietly keeping your body braced for something it will never actually need to respond to. That's a real cost. It pulls from the same reserves your body needs for the stress you can't avoid. If you're anxious most of the time, short-tempered in a way you don't like, sleeping poorly, or dealing with digestive issues that won't resolve, social media and the news cycle may be part of what's driving it. Try a sabbatical — no social media, no podcasts, no news, even for a few days. Let your brain settle. Let your attention come back to what's actually in front of you, and notice whether your body feels different. When you're ready to bring news back in, I'd point you to The Pour Over. It's non-partisan, comes with Scripture and prayer built in, and delivers everything in short pieces — enough to stay informed without getting pulled into the emotional undertow of events you have no way to change.

Nothing Is Certain Except Death, Taxes, and How Your Body Handles Uncertainty

By Rachel Rauch • August 25, 2026

You've probably heard the line, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes." It's usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote it to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy — expressing his own anxiety about not hearing from Le Roy for over a year during the chaos of the French Revolution. Every era has its uncertainty. But is it just me, or does the world feel more uncertain lately? Maybe it's the upcoming midterm elections. Maybe it's the unrest in the Middle East. Maybe contagious viruses just feel more ominous since COVID. And then the news serves up one terrible headline after another that I wasn't even thinking about until I read it. Maybe current events barely register for you, but you still struggle to feel safe because of something that happened to you, or to someone you love. It's hard to feel certain about anything after what you've been through. If that's you, I am truly sorry, and I lament with you in that! Here's what's actually happening in your body: uncertainty triggers the same stress response as a real physical threat. You have a small gland in your brain called the amygdala, and it interprets ambiguity the same way it interprets danger. Your body responds accordingly — racing heart, shallow breathing, sweating, blood rushing to your limbs. At the same time, the amygdala suppresses your prefrontal cortex, which slows your thinking and makes it harder to make decisions or regulate your emotions. Live in that state long enough, and it becomes an allostatic load on your body: chronically elevated cortisol, a suppressed immune system, more inflammation, reduced digestive capacity, and hormones out of balance. You might also notice more anxiety, more fatigue, and everyday tasks feeling like more than you can carry. I wish we could avoid uncertainty. I think you do too. We are finite people held in the hands of an infinite God. Some days I catch myself thinking that if my life had no uncertainty, I'd be less stressed. Deep down, though, I know that's not true. No uncertainty would mean I'd know everything — including every scary thing headed my way — and that would stress me out more, not less. So if uncertainty isn't going anywhere, how do we keep it from wrecking our bodies? Limit your knowledge. I know that sounds backward. We have the whole internet in our pockets, and we can watch the news unfold in real time. But most of what we're consuming is about things we can't control or influence. That turns knowledge into a burden. Cut back on the things you have no say in, and focus on what's local and within your reach. Cut your social media scroll. Comparison breeds "what if" thinking and discontentment. And the algorithms are tracking every half-second pause in your scroll, then feeding you more of exactly what stirs up your uncertainty. Build a budget and stick to it. A budget lets you plan for what you need and prepare for the unexpected. It slows the kind of spending that feeds on uncertainty. Cut back on caffeine and other stimulants. They stack extra stress hormones on top of what your body is already producing, keeping you stuck in an activated, wound-up state. Write down reminders of God's faithfulness — put them where you'll see them. When Moses handed leadership over to Joshua, right before Joshua had to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Moses gave him this: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." — Deuteronomy 31:8 (ESV) Joshua was afraid. Moses didn't hand him a plan — he reminded him who was going ahead of him. We can hold onto that same reminder. Ask if there's a deeper root to your uncertainty. Is there a past event, or a pattern, feeding what you feel now? That can be a loaded question, and it's often easier to sort through with a counselor or therapist who can help you connect what happened then to what you're carrying now. Uncertainty isn't going away. But we don't have to just absorb it. We can be strategic about how we handle it, and about lightening the stress load it puts on our bodies.