Go With Your Gut Day

United States

About

Go With Your Gut Day, observed on September 23, encourages us to pause, listen to our instincts, and give thoughtful attention to that inner feeling that can guide our choices. Whether you’re making a major decision or simply deciding which path feels right, the day celebrates the value of self-trust and personal intuition.

Use the occasion to reflect on moments when your gut instinct helped you—and remember that intuition works best alongside careful thought and reliable information. Take a quiet moment to check in with yourself, consider what feels authentic, and move forward with confidence and an open mind.

History

Go With Your Gut Day is observed annually on September 23. The observance centers on the familiar expression “go with your gut,” encouraging people to pay attention to intuition, personal judgment, and the physical signals associated with well-being. Unlike long-established religious or national holidays, it is a modern awareness observance whose history is not tied to a single documented historical event or widely recognized founder.

The phrase itself has much older roots than the observance. In everyday English, “gut” has long been used figuratively to describe instinctive feeling or an immediate inner response. Modern psychology and popular culture helped broaden the expression’s meaning, presenting intuition as a form of rapid judgment shaped by experience, while health education has also drawn attention to the relationship between digestion, stress, mood, and general wellness. Go With Your Gut Day brings these ideas together in an accessible, contemporary theme.

Over time, the day has developed as an opportunity for reflection and practical self-care. People may use September 23 to consider whether a decision feels right, recognize when stress is affecting them, or review habits involving food, rest, movement, and emotional health. Its emphasis is not simply on acting impulsively; rather, it encourages people to notice their instincts while balancing them with thoughtful consideration and reliable information.

Culturally, Go With Your Gut Day reflects a broader interest in mindfulness, personal well-being, and the connection between mental and physical health. It also gives familiar language an annual point of focus, making the idea of trusting one’s judgment easy to discuss and share. Although its documented history is relatively recent and less formal than that of traditional holidays, its continuing observance on September 23 demonstrates the appeal of combining intuition, self-awareness, and healthy decision-making in a memorable public message.

Timeline

1822
Alexis St. Martin suffered a gunshot wound that healed into a gastric fistula, enabling U.S. Army surgeon William Beaumont to directly study digestion in the human stomach.
1833
William Beaumont published "Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion," a landmark account of his studies of digestion using observations of Alexis St. Martin.
1958
Surgeon Ben Eiseman and colleagues reported using fecal enemas to treat four patients with pseudomembranous enterocolitis, an early documented modern use of fecal microbiota transplantation.
1982
Barry Marshall and Robin Warren cultured and identified Helicobacter pylori from human stomach specimens, helping establish that the bacterium is a major cause of gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.
2005
Barry Marshall and Robin Warren received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.

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