"If there's one thing to know about the human body, it's this: the human body has a ringmaster. This ringmaster controls your digestion, your immunity, your brain, your weight, your health, and even your happiness. This ringmaster is the gut”
-Nancy S. Mure
New research proves that the gut and brain are interconnected more than we previously thought. These discoveries have tremendous potential to help people with gut issues through help from the brain and help people with brain or mood issues through support from their gut.
Imagine if the food choices you make could elevate your moods or improve your brain and mental health. (It can.) Or if reducing stress can also reduce gut symptoms. (It does.)
Sounds interesting? Learn about the gut-brain axis and how you can leverage this new research to improve your gut and brain.
Your gut is (partially) controlled by your brain.
Gut disorders can cause pain, bloating, or other discomforts. They impact over 35 percent of people at some point in life—affecting women more than men. Many times, these gut issues don't have an apparent or easily diagnosable physical cause, so they can be challenging to treat and find relief from.
We already know that our brains control some of our digestive processes. For example, research has found that even thinking about eating can cause the stomach to release juices to prepare for food. Your gut is also sensitive to emotions. You may recall feeling anxious and nauseous or "knots" or "butterflies" in your stomach.
Several studies show that stress may be an important—often overlooked—reason for gut issues. Harvard Health says, "Stress can trigger and worsen gastrointestinal pain and other symptoms, and vice versa."
This is why it's essential to look at your stress and emotions if you have gut issues. Many studies have found that stress reduction techniques can improve gut symptoms more than conventional medical treatment alone.
Before we go over how to do this, let's look at a bit more of the biology behind the gut-brain axis.
Your nervous systems
There are two main parts of your "main" nervous system. One is the part we can consciously control, like when we move our muscles to walk around, chew our food, or exercise. This is called the somatic nervous system.
The other part of our nervous system controls all those things we can't control but need to survive. These include processes that happen automatically in the background: breathing, heart beating, sweating, or shivering. This part of the nervous system is called the autonomic nervous system (because it works automatically).
The autonomic system regulates our body's functions by either speeding things up or slowing them down. When things are sped up, like when our "fight or flight" reactions kick in, this is done by the sympathetic part. We feel this happening when we sense danger (real or imagined) and get stressed. Our heart beats faster, and we breathe heavier. We're preparing to fight or flee, so our body focuses on ensuring our muscles get enough blood and oxygen to work hard.
On the other hand, slowing things down is done by the parasympathetic part. This happens when we're relaxing or after the danger has passed and we start to calm down. Our heart, lungs, and muscles rest, and our digestive systems do their jobs much better. In this phase, we're secreting more digestive juices to break down food, absorbing more nutrients, and have lower levels of inflammation in our gut. That's why this is called the "rest and digest" phase.
Both arms of the autonomic nervous system—the sympathetic and parasympathetic—interact with the gut. This means that when stressed, we can experience gut symptoms, and when we're relaxed, our digestion does what it's meant to do.
Your gut is your "second brain."
In addition to your "main" nervous system, your gut has its nervous system called the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system spans your whole digestive tract from your esophagus, along your stomach, intestines, and colon. This nervous system is sometimes referred to as the "second brain" because it works the same way as the "main" one does. It has 100 million nerve cells (called neurons) that communicate with each other using biochemicals called neurotransmitters.
Your enteric nervous system gets input from both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, so it can speed up or slow down when it has to. It also has a "mind" of its own and can function independently of them.
This complex system is essential because of how complex our digestive processes are. For example, after eating, the neurons in our enteric system tell the stomach and intestines muscle cells to contract to move food to the next part. As our gut [GI tract/digestive system] does this, our enteric nervous system uses neurotransmitters to communicate with the central nervous system.
Your enteric nervous system is also very closely linked to your immune system. This is because many pathogens can enter the body through the mouth and end up in the gut. You have a sizeable immune presence there to help fight them off before they become a more significant problem and infect other parts of the body. The immune system cells provide another path for the gut to communicate up to the brain. They relay information like when they detect infection or when your stomach is bloated, so your brain knows.
Even the friendly gut microbes that help us digest and make certain nutrients play a role in communicating with the brain. They make neurotransmitters, some of which are known to influence our moods.
The gut-brain axis
This intimate and complex connection between your gut and brain is called the gut-brain axis. We know signals go in both directions: from the brain to the stomach and back to your brain.
This is where we see the link between digestive issues and the brain, stress, and mood issues.
When someone is stressed enough to get into the "fight or flight" reaction, digestion slows down to allow the muscles to fight or flee. The same physical reaction appears, whether the stress is from a real threat or a perceived one. This means that your body reacts the same whether you're facing an actual life-threatening situation or whether you're super-stressed about a looming deadline. This disruption of the digestive process can cause pain, nausea, or other related issues.
Meanwhile, it's known that experiencing strong or frequent digestive issues can increase your stress levels and moods. People with depression and anxiety have more GI symptoms, and vice versa.
How stress and emotions affect your gut
Because of these strong connections between the gut and brain, it's easy to see how stress and other emotions can affect the stomach. Fear, sadness, anger, or feeling anxious or depressed are often felt in the gut. When they cause our digestive systems to speed up (or slow down) too much, this can influence pain and bloat. It can also allow germs to cross the gut lining and enter the bloodstream, activating our immune systems. It can increase inflammation in the gut or even change the microbiota.
This is why stress and strong emotions can contribute to or worsen many gut issues such as Crohn's disease, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), or food allergies or sensitivities.
Then, these gut issues are communicated to the brain, increasing the stress response and affecting our moods.
This loop of stress and gut issues and more stress and more gut issues becomes a vicious cycle.
New research shows that changes to the gut's inflammation or microbiome can strongly affect many other parts of the body as well—not just the brain and mood. They're also associated with depression and heart disease.
How to eat and de-stress for better gut and brain health
What you eat can have a massive impact on your health, particularly true when it comes to the microbiome. Your gut health improves when you eat a higher-fiber, more plant-based diet. That's because it provides your friendly gut microbes with their preferred foods so they can grow and thrive. Probiotic foods that include health-promoting bacteria are recommended for gut health and reducing the amount of sugar, and red meat you eat can also help. These can lead to a healthier microbiome by helping maintain a diverse community of many species of microbes to maximize your health. They can also lower gut inflammation levels and reduce the risk of depression and heart disease.
For better gut and brain/mental health, eat more:
Fruits and vegetables
Nuts and seeds
Whole grains
Yogurt
Sauerkraut & Kimchi
Eat less:
Sugar
Red meat
What about stress? Evidence suggests that some stress reduction techniques or psychotherapy may help people who experience gut issues. They can lower the sympathetic "fight or flight" response, enhance the parasympathetic "rest and digest" response, and even reduce inflammation.
Some of the stress-reduction techniques I love and recommend are:
Guided meditation
Deep breathing
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Hypnosis
Yoga
Your gut, brain, and mood will thank you!
Final thoughts
Our bodies are complex and interact with other parts on so many different levels. The gut-brain axis is a prime example. Research shows that what we eat improves the gut, overall health, and brain and mental health. Several stress-reduction techniques have also been shown to reduce digestive illness and distress.
If you want a plan to help you eat—and enjoy—more of the foods that help your gut, brain, and moods, consult our health coach, who can provide personalized research-based nutrition advice for your health, lifestyle, and goals. Book a complimentary discovery session to get started.
Want to learn how you can eat and de-stress to improve your gut and brain simultaneously?
Need some deliciously fresh recipes to turn your vegetables into a delicacy your whole family will want to enjoy?
Are you looking for a way to incorporate "mood foods" into your diet?
Book an appointment with me to see if my programs can help you.
References
Cleveland Clinic. (2016, October 6). Gut-Brain Connection. Retrieved from
Harvard Health. (n.d.). The gut-brain connection. Retrieved from
Harvard Health. (2019, August 21). Stress and the sensitive gut. Retrieved from
Harvard Health. (2019, April 11). Brain-gut connection explains why integrative treatments can help relieve digestive ailments. Retrieved from
University of Calgary. (2018, December 1). Can a meal be medicine? How what we eat affects our gut health, which affects our wellness. Retrieved from
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