Gut instinct: A sobering, introspective look at resetting one’s digestive health

For more than a year now, my gut had been staging small rebellions.

Nothing dramatic enough to send me rushing to A&E, but enough to chip away at normalcy: random stomach cramps that arrived without warning, bouts of runny stools that could strike up to five times a day, and a low-grade anxiety that came with not quite trusting my own body.

To summarise (in the words of a friend), “Why are you always having a stomachache?”

I tried eating cleaner, with more greens, more protein, and less food from a deep fryer. I tried to identify patterns or specific food triggers. The episodes still felt arbitrary. It was frustrating — and, if I’m honest, quite exhausting.

A gut feeling

We talk a lot about fitness, sleep, and skincare. Gut health, on the other hand, tends to sit in the unglamorous corner of the wellness conversation. It’s awkward — I get it. But thankfully, science has been steadily nudging it back into the spotlight.

The digestive tract houses trillions of microbes — collectively known as the microbiome — that help regulate everything from nutrient absorption to immune function. Around 90 per cent of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to mood, is produced in the gut.

There’s a direct communication line between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve. When that ecosystem is out of balance, it doesn’t just show up as indigestion. It can surface as fatigue, low mood, poor sleep, or inflammation.

In other words, the gut isn’t just about digestion; it’s literally a pillar of health.

I knew I had to address this burdening pain at some point, and came across Layan Life by Anantara in Phuket.

When your gut stops playing nice

On paper, Layan Life’s Gut Reset reads like something out of a functional medicine handbook: consultations with a medical doctor and nutritionist, food intolerance testing, microbiome profiling, micronutrient and vitamin D assessments, and inflammation markers. What drew me in was precisely that it didn’t sound like a spa-style detox. It promised a clinical look at what was actually happening beneath the surface.

Layan Life, set within the wider Anantara Layan Phuket Resort, is positioned as the brand’s flagship wellness concept — a purpose-built medical retreat that blends advanced diagnostics with traditional Thai healing.

Programmes are structured, but deeply personalised, tailored to different “seasons of life”. In this particular season of mine, my gut felt like it was staging daily protests. Random cramps. Unpredictable bouts of diarrhoea. A general sense that my digestive system and I were no longer on the same team.

Before I even boarded my flight, I had a pre-arrival call with Earnt, a traditional Thai medicine specialist. We went through my health history, my current symptoms, my anxieties, and what I hoped to achieve. It felt thorough, almost forensic. By the time I arrived in Phuket, there was already a sense that this wasn’t going to be a generic programme.

The symptoms don’t lie

Day one began briskly: a medical consultation with Dr A, a longevity-focused physician, followed by a 3D body scan, postural analysis, and a liver detox infusion. Seeing my posture mapped out in unforgiving graphics — exaggerated lumbar lordosis from excess weight — was sobering. I’ve always known I needed to lose weight, but watching numbers and charts outline how my spine was compensating for it felt different.

I had to actively stop myself from spiralling into self-criticism and remind myself why I was there: not to shame my body, but to understand it.

Day two was more confronting. I had experienced colonic hydrotherapy once before, during my perimenopause story, and had left slightly traumatised by the vulnerability and unexpected pain. At Layan Life, I learned there are two systems: open and closed. This was the latter — a hygienic, odourless, closed-tube system — and far calmer than my first encounter.

Before the hydrotherapy, Naris, a colonic specialist with nearly a decade of experience, gave me a 30-minute Maya abdominal massage to help decongest my colon and make the cleanse smoother. That massage, I realised, had been missing the first time I tried a colonic — perhaps why that earlier session felt so brutal.

Naris checked in constantly, reassuring me through the cramps. I didn’t last the full 45 minutes, and I was disappointed in myself for tapping out. But after a year of unpredictable abdominal pain, my threshold was simply lower.

The unexpected takeaway? I don’t chew my food thoroughly. It sounds almost embarrassingly basic, but that small habit could have been contributing to my cramps and bloating. Since returning home, I’ve slowed down my meals significantly. It’s a small adjustment, but one that has already reduced that familiar post-meal distension — even after foods that would normally set me off.

Between appointments, the meals were clean but realistic. A tuna poke bowl at lunch. A seafood risotto with tiramisu at dinner. There was no punitive juice cleanse or starvation rhetoric. That balance made the programme feel sustainable and, more importantly, enjoyable.

Of fire and ice

The following day brought cryotherapy at -110 deg C — a three-minute shock that jolted me awake — and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which was essentially a sanctioned 45-minute nap while oxygen was delivered into my blood plasma. If wellness can be both invigorating and indulgent, this was it.

An herbal tea-blending workshop with Tai, another traditional Thai medicine specialist, turned out to be one of the most quietly enlightening sessions.

She assessed my dominant element — fire-leaning, which she said aligns with sensitivities around metabolism, digestion, and heat regulation — and guided me on which herbs and flowers would best support my constitution. She even advised on what teas to drink at specific times of day. It reframed something as simple as a cup of tea into a more intentional act.

Then came Taoist Visceral Manipulation with Kedar Joshi, a spiritual healer and energy medicine practitioner. The modality involves working with the energy of the internal organs through subtle, deliberate touch. During the session, he treated my body as an interconnected whole — organs, emotions, structure.

I didn’t feel a dramatic shift immediately. But later that evening, I noticed I felt lighter, warmer, as if something had unclenched inside me.

My final treatment was Goy Mod Look therapy, a traditional Thai abdominal massage for women aimed at supporting reproductive health and circulation. “Massage” feels like a gentle word for what followed, as Tai kneaded my abdomen with formidable focus.

I’d rate the pain a solid 9 out of 10.

Near the end, she placed a towel soaked in alcohol on my belly and set it alight. The flames burned for about a minute, producing intense heat. I was anxious — and I wish I’d been better prepared for the intensity — but the fire was quickly extinguished and followed by a warm herbal compress.

The process was repeated three times. By the end, my adrenaline was high. It wasn’t the serene ending I had imagined, given the intense, rather unpleasant pain. But days later, my digestion noticeably eased, and the bloating that had become so routine began to subside.

Lessons for longevity

Before leaving for the airport, I had a final consultation with Dr A. He spoke about his own weight-loss journey — how he simply walked up and down the steep hill to the Layan Life centre daily for a year before stepping into a gym. No dramatic overhaul; just consistency. 

Similarly, he encouraged me to focus on micro-habits rather than radical goals.

Kedar had earlier offered his own framing: at a hospital, doctors tend to illness. Here, they tend to wellness. He described the body as hardware and software — modern medicine works on the hardware; emotional patterns, habits and lifestyle routines form the software. Neglect one, and the other eventually glitches.

I left Phuket without a miraculous overnight cure. Four days cannot undo years of habits. But I left with something more valuable: data about my body, clarity about my blind spots, and a renewed respect for the not-so-quiet signals I had been ignoring.

What this programme ultimately taught me is that gut health isn’t just about what you eat. It’s about how you live. How you manage stress. How you chew. How you move. How gently — or harshly — you speak to yourself.