Trust Your Gut
Did you know that your gut has its own nervous system, called the enteric nervous system, that is kind of like a second brain? The enteric nervous system has as many nerve cells as the spinal cord, and in collaboration with the gut microbiome, produces neurotransmitters that influence mood, immune function, hormone release, digestion, and pain. The enteric nervous system and the brain communicate with each other via the vagus nerve about things like nausea, hunger, fullness, emotion, discomfort, and danger. In other words, the gut and the brain are interconnected, which is why can get a stomachache when we are stressed, or get anxious when we are constipated. It is also why our digestion is affected when we are in pain, and why supporting a healthy gut is important in unraveling persistent pain.
Pain is your nervous system's way of communicating that there might be danger. It turns out that the brain, sensory organs, and GI system develop together embryologically, which is why we have such a strong brain-gut connection. When we have a gut instinct, we should pay attention, because the gut quite literally communicates information about what is and isn't safe to the brain.
The state of our digestion also tells us a lot about our overall health and our ability to heal. From an Ayurvedic perspective, the gut is the source of our immunity, and the way we build healthy tissues to heal from things like illness or injury. Digestion requires transformation, integration, and elimination. We need a healthy gut (agni) in order to transform the food we eat, as well as the experiences we have, our emotions, and all of the information we take into our minds. That transformation allows us to integrate what is useable into our beings, and to eliminate what isn't useable. The end product of the digestive process is ojas, which is the foundation of our immune system.
If we aren't digesting well, we won't be able to use the nutrients in our food to heal. We also might have difficulties eliminating waste, which can clog the energy, circulatory, lymphatic, and mental channels and, because stagnation leads to pain, can increase pain.
As a physical therapist, I often work with people who have had pain for a long time. It is pretty common for folks with persistent pain to have digestive troubles, difficulty sleeping, hormone or endocrine imbalance, brain fog, difficulty concentrating, mood fluctuations, and frequent illness. A lot of doctors treat those things as separate issues, but they aren't. They are all signs of a nervous system in distress and a body that is having trouble processing what it is experiencing. When I work with people 1:1, we address things like digestion, sleep, energy management, relationships, mood, and stress because all of those symptoms are the body's way of alerting us to danger and asking for help.
Let's be in relationship with our bodies and learn to trust their wisdom.
What is your gut telling you?
