IBS, Stress and your 2nd Brain…
The 2nd Brain
The scientific literature to support the notion ‘Trust your Gut’ is truly extensive; for this reason the digestive system is known as the second brain. For every single ‘Efferent’ nerve coming from the brain to the digestive system you have nine to ten ‘Afferent’ nerves running from the gut to the brain. This shows the level of influence that your gut has over your brain; and really how little influence your brain has over you gut. It also makes us realise that our gut is formed by an incredibly powerful group of sensory organs. Studies have demonstrated that humans can indeed, more often than not, make better decisions based on their initial ‘gut instincts’ than when they make decisions through the process of analytical thought.
It has been scientifically proven that the gut can continue going about its business just fine even when completely disconnected from the brain. This is because it has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous system. The brain has only an inhibitory effect on the gut; this means that without any external influence (from the brain) the digestive organs continue breaking down food in to tiny particles. From here they can be absorbed through our intestinal walls and nourish our body. At the same time it works in conjunction with our immune system to keep the bits of stuff that we don’t want to enter our blood stream in the gut, ready to be expelled next time we need to go to the bathroom. These include things such as toxins from our food and environment; both manmade and naturally occurring. At the same time it continuously balances our microbiome (bacteria, yeast, viruses, and other microbes) that play a significant part in human health when in the right balance.
The really amazing bit though about our second brain is in relationship to the production of our neurotransmitters, the communication with our microbes and the influence this has over our mood and behaviours. You really can’t be happy without a happy gut. The neurotransmitters Dopamine, GABA, and Serotonin are all made in vast amounts in the Gut. We are going to look at just one of these in a little more detail; Serotonin. 90-95% of your serotonin is made in your gut by your microbiome and stored in your intestinal wall in cells known as Enterochromaffin Cells. From here it is either secreted to help the muscular walls of your intestines move food through at the right pace. Just slow enough to help you digest and extract the nutrients yet just fast enough that it doesn’t allow your microbiome to have a feeding frenzy and release too many gases (bloating) and other toxins that might enter the bloodstream and lead to a reduction in overall health. Other serotonin is transferred through the Vagus Nerve, kind of like a super serotonin highway to the brain. Once in the brain Serotonin does all the functions we think about as the wider public; helping us to feel good. Without balanced levels of Serotonin we will suffer symptoms such as poor sleep quality, fear and anxiety, depression, aggression, impaired learning and concentration, fatigue, Nausea, and chronic pain.
Stress inhibits digestion
When we are stressed our Autonomic Nervous System (the part of the nervous system that handles everything we don’t give a second thought too) goes into a state of sympathetic dominance (aka Fight or Flight) and this is what is going to help us survive a threat to our life. To our physiology the response to stress is the same, regardless of whether it is a real threat to our life or not. It doesn’t mater If you are being stalked by a lion that looks hungry or your sat in traffic and late for work; in the body the same physiological processes happen. You shunt blood away from all of your digestive, immune, and general wellbeing systems and functions. Instead you send it to the ones that are going to help you run really fast or fight really hard. Consider the inhibitory effect that we mentioned earlier; the brain shuts off digestive function for a few minutes until you have escaped the hungry lion as that food in your stomach isn’t going to do anything to help you right now so it doesn’t want to waste any energy digesting it. The problem arises when its the type of micro-stressors that we are all exposed to today are often continuous and unrelenting. Nobody leads a stress free life. However the good news is that this fight or flight response is countered by another branch of the Autonomic nervous system called the parasympathetic (rest and digest). the 2 opposing branches work as a sliding scale and not a switch meaning that we are always under regulation from both. So if it really is a little micro stress such as regulating your body temperature on a cold winter morning you will still remain firmly on the scale towards rest and digest. The problem for most people though is that there are many hidden stresses in peoples lives and this is where you need help. If your one of the many people that feel they aren’t very stress resilient; and you either get overstressed, cross, angry, overwhelmed, anxious, or emotional more easily than you feel you should then you have hidden stress. We all have a stress bucket that when the stress gets too much can overflow. This is when the various aforementioned feelings and emotions can happen. If our body is already dealing with a lot of these hidden stresses then our stress bucket might already be 70, 80, 90, or even 100% full. Then, when that little thing happens that should never really stress us out, completely tips us over the edge.
So what are our hidden stresses?
We are all intellectually primed to consider stress as being cognitive, emotional, and schedule derived but really we have many internal stresses that are happening at the same time. These things are already taking up some of our stress resilience capacity. In fact anything that the body does aside from having fun and relaxing with friends and getting good quality replenishing sleep is actually stressful for the body. I tend to break this down in to a few key categories.
Nutritional Stress - The stress of digesting our food and not having sufficient or the correct nutrition. Digesting food is a huge stress as it takes so much energy and so many things need to be in balance along the way.
Sensory Stress - Lots of background noise, or noises you don’t like, changes in temperature, smells, light etc..
Metabolic Stress - Trying to regulate blood sugar levels or convert fats and or proteins for fuel.
Toxic Stress - exposure to biotoxins from your microbiome or environment and of course exposure to manmade toxins found in nearly all household and commercial products and foods
Immune Stress - The constant interaction with pathogens and also potential pathogens in the environment or those that are aloud to live within or on us in the right balance but need to be kept that way.
Endocrine Stress - fluctuating or imbalanced hormones
Purpose Stress - Are you fulfilling your sense of purpose in life and do you know if you are or not?
Neurological Stress - This system is constantly trying to regulate all this other stuff but any problems or imbalances here can lead to adverse stress responses
Oxidative Stress - The stress of utilising oxygen for fuel. You have heard of free radicals right? Well these are made in the body every time we breathe and use oxygen. Fortunately we can readily deal with these if our internal environment is right
Energetic Stress - Things like exposure to electromagnetic fields such as WiFi, Mobile Phone networks, Dirty Electricity etc
Structural Stress - Structural things in the body such as a joint causing pain or a tight muscle, a healing or non healing scar etc..
Oh yeah, and Emotional, Cognitive, Schedule orientated stress - The stuff we all perceive as stress
Some of you now may feel overwhelmed by all of this (maybe your stress buckets are already full?); but this is not my aim of stating this. I say this for the opposite reason; because here is where we can lower your total stress load. We have just found lots of reasons why you might get over stressed at things that you know you shouldn’t get stressed about. These are the times when a friend or family member tell you your over reacting, or there is nothing to worry about. This doesn’t help you and often just adds to the stress; as deep down you know this, but you can’t help what’s happening to the physiology of your body underneath and making you feel this way. I have spent the last 10 years working with ultimate high achievers whose cognitive, emotional, and schedule stresses are enormous. Yet we are able to keep adding to this level of intellectual stress because we have found and corrected the hidden stresses that exist for them.
Some of these hidden stresses maybe very obvious to you. You may know that your exposed to particular chemicals for your job, or that you eat too much sugar and not enough vegetables. Most of the others though might not be easy to find, and you need help to find them from someone who knows how to look for and correct them. From experience if we keep the focus on IBS the most common ones I find are Immune stress; where people have an overgrowth or imbalance between the microbiome where there are more of species that take more from the body than what they give. Secondly, Metabolic stress as we now know that the microbes in our gut have a huge impact on our blood sugar and metabolism and can be used as predictors for being under or overweight. Finally, Nutritional Stress as an impaired digestive system means that we can’t extract an absorb the nutrients from our food. It is so common that I see people that have made so many good choices to improve their health yet look at other people eat and do what they like with seemingly better health. The cause is nearly always impaired digestion even in the absence of any digestive symptoms.
The even better thing about this hidden stress finding and eliminating situation is that all of these stresses are interdependent upon each other and I’m not going to link them all but simply sticking with impaired digestion. This leads to nutritional stress as we don’t have the nutrients needed, which in turn leads to metabolic stress as without the nutrients we can’t convert the fuel properly to create energy. This leads to oxidative stress as we become less efficient at creating energy and therefore have to burn through more oxygen to create the same amount of energy which means the creation of more free radicals to do the same level of work. Free radicals cause damage to all cells but nerve cells are particularly susceptible which leads to neurological stress etc etc and we go on from there. Suddenly your stress bucket became very full indeed and your digestion got more impaired.
You might wonder how I have become so far off topic from our original discussion? How does stress impact my IBS. Well my point being; if you have all this hidden stress going on in your body; even in the absence of a cognitive, emotional or schedule stress your brain is going to inhibit your digestive organs from digesting your food. Instead it will shunt the blood to the muscles, heart and lungs so you can run away from or fight the hungry lion. The net result of this is you stop digesting your food. The microbiome is then glad of this because it gets to feed on the food earlier than it should and also in the wrong places as you are not digesting it yourself. This leaves you with the symptoms of Heartburn, Gas, Bloating, Constipation, and/or Diarrhoea, feeling sluggish after eating, headaches, migraines etc..
The Longer term problems for you is that this adds to immune stress (overgrowths or imbalances in your microbiome), digestive stress (food sat there in your digestive system), metabolic stress (blood sugar levels become imbalanced), toxic stress (Biotoxins given off as the bacteria and yeast etc feed), and you get the picture. Suddenly your more stressed which is not going to help your digestion and your IBS.
There are some things that you can do yourself, straight away to try and help you digest your food by having an instant impact on your stress levels.
Make eating an event - Focus on eating and eating alone; aside from good happy conversation with friends and family (so avoid politics etc). This means turn the TV off and put your phone down.
Take a few deep breaths - There is nothing that we can do to override our nervous system that is more effective than breath work. Breathing in activates the sympathetic branch (fight or flight) and breathing out activates our parasympathetic branch (rest and digest) as does mouth and nose breathing respectively. By taking 3-5 slow deep breaths through the nose and focus on a longer exhale than inhale. Try 3-4 seconds in and 5-6 seconds out. This will move the sliding scale towards your rest and digest response.
Leave the office for lunch - Taking yourself away from the working environment will instantly lower your stress levels.
Don’t Drink Water with your Meal - Its important to stay hydrated but contrary to popular social custom; drinking water with a meal weakens down the strength of your stomach acid and impairs your ability to digest your food.
Play some music that makes you feel calm - Sound is a very powerful influence over our mood and stress levels
Avoid reading the news around eating - Unfortunately there is very little good news reported these days. Stay informed but don’t let it get you down.
Coffee after breakfast or brunch can increase stomach acid production 2.5 times - Don’t have it after lunch or dinner as the half life of coffee is 6 hrs and too late in the day can lead to increased overall stress levels in the long term
Drink a herbal tea that stimulates digestion such as Cardamom, Star Anise, Dandelion, Nettlle, Fennel, Fenugreek, Cinnamon among many more.
In addition to these tips around meals eliminate any simple and easy to find stresses in your life or try doing them further away from meal times wherever possible. For some people just by making these changes it might be enough to significantly improve your IBS. For others you might need more help finding those hidden stresses to lower your overall stress load and improve your IBS symptoms. If you would like to find out how we could help or more about what we have to offer please contact us or book an appointment.