I’ve been tired lately. As a fellow mom, I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you and you are nodding your head in agreement. Seriously, can he sleep past 5 am just once?

Working full-time, being a mom and wife, caring for a home, and running a blog is pretty draining. So when I had the opportunity to review a new prebiotic supplement designed to improve gut health, I was in. And now I get to share all about Gut Connection from Country Life with you!

Let me start by saying that I received this product for free from Moms Meet (a really cool moms sampling group you should check out) to use and post my honest opinions. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links. Rest assured, all opinions are my own.

So what exactly is Gut Connection?

As I mentioned, I’ve been tired lately. Staying up late to work on this blog, waking up early with Zach and working all day is catching up with me. I was so excited to try this new product! I was eager to see if I would experience improved mental function, alertness, or sleep quality.

Gut Connection is a whole food based prebiotic formula designed to support your gut health and microbiome. It does this by helping to maintain and support the bacteria, lining, and probiotics currently there.

You may have heard that a healthy gut is key to overall health and wellness and affects everything from our memory and cognitive function to our energy and how well we sleep. Who doesn’t want to get on board with that?

That’s exactly what Country Life is aiming to address with Gut Connection.

In the past, I took probiotics for digestive distress and for a feeling of better digestive function. I stopped because it was hard to find a brand that fit all of my qualifications. It had to be vegan (which may or may not matter to you). I also needed it to not cost a fortune. I’m not at all interested in paying $60 for less than a month’s worth of pills for gut health!

Gut Connection from Country Life appeals to me as it’s a natural whole food product and is vegan. As an added bonus, it is also made with non-GMO ingredients. It also has a reasonable retail price of $44.95 for 30 days of pills (60 pills total). At the time of this writing, I’m actually seeing it on Amazon for about $34. It’s also a prebiotic, not a probiotic, which means if I really am suffering from digestive distress, I can take a probiotic in addition!

What really got me interested, is that the line has 8 different versions, depending on your individual needs. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all prebiotic. Each version contains the base prebiotic formula for overall gut health but has additional ingredients to address various other needs. There is Immune Balance, Mood Balance, Cognitive Balance, Digestive Balance, Energy Balance, Sleep Balance, Stress Balance, and Weight Balance.

I have been able to test out the Energy Balance for the past month. I know that if I’m interested in testing this out, you might be, too! So I’m here to tell you all about my experience this past month with Energy Balance Gut Connection by Country Life.

30 days on Country Life’s Gut Connection

This is the first time I’ve ever tried a prebiotic. I’m familiar with probiotics and have taken them in the past. I was curious to see if a prebiotic affected me differently. Prebiotics are supposed to improve overall gut health, whereas probiotics are more designed to address specific gut issues or digestive distress.

Even though I haven’t noticed huge differences, I have noticed some positive effects and these particular prebiotic supplements definitely have some pros.

The main positive effect is that I feel more alert. There have definitely been days when I woke up and felt very tired and shortly after taking these pills, I noticed I felt more alert. Not less tired, but more alert. There isn’t anything else I can attribute that to. And that is super helpful, especially since caffeine by itself (coffee, soda, etc) has no effect on me at all. Normally there is nothing I can do to feel more alert!

A few other pros:

• No stomach upset (I have experienced that with some probiotics in the past).
• It doesn’t seem to matter if I take them with or without food. The package does say WITH food, but I tried without just to see if there was a difference.
• There is no unpleasant taste.
• They are easy to swallow.
• They are a good value for the number of pills versus the average retail price of $44.95 (30 days worth).
• You can take more than one kind of Gut Connection at a time. If it’s cold and flu season, it is okay to take both the Immune Balance and Energy Balance together!

Now for a few cons. The thing I’m most disappointed in is that it wasn’t a magic elixir. But I guess I shouldn’t expect that! I don’t notice any difference with my digestion, mental clarity, or anything else. To be fair, I don’t usually have any digestive issues as I try to eat a fairly healthy diet, so I wasn’t really expecting that to change much.

Additionally, even though it does make me feel more alert for most of the day, I do still feel tired. It doesn’t remove that. But again, I probably shouldn’t expect it to. Sleep is the only thing that can really do that!

Overall Verdict-Worth a try!

My overall decision is that this product is worth a try. With Summer coming, who wouldn’t have a need for increased energy and digestive balance? With all the festivals, indulgences, and kids running us ragged now’s the time to give it a go.

I didn’t experience vast differences from my norm, but that is kind of normal for me. I did notice minor differences in alertness, however, which is actually a pretty good sign. Very few products have ever given me vast changes, so if I feel any difference at all, it means something is working. And normally, caffeine doesn’t do anything for me.

And it’s completely possible that I might just need to take it for longer in order to really see benefits. According to an article from the Mayo Clinic, “…what you feed your microbiome may have the biggest impact on its health. And the healthier it is, the healthier you are.” Maybe I just need to feed it longer to experience greater improvements.

If I were going to start religiously taking a probiotic or prebiotic again, I would most likely go with these. The price point, variety of available options, and the fact that should I need to, I could take more than one or a probiotic in addition are all too good of benefits to pass up. There are also really no cons in my experience, other than the fact that I didn’t have wildly noticeable differences in my overall health. I may try the Immune Balance version next cold and flu season!

Currently, Gut Connection can be purchased at Amazon, The Vitamin Shoppe and Natural Grocers Vitamin Cottage. It will be available at other health food stores in the future, so be sure to check out the where to buy at countrylifevitamins.com/where-to-buy. If you are looking to improve your gut health, and overall health, I suggest giving it a try. It is definitely worth it.