“Always trust your gut; it knows what your head hasn’t figured out yet.” Anonymous

When the gut speaks

'Trust your gut', 'gut feeling', 'gut reaction' - where do these sayings derive? There are knowing messages from our gut that arise irrespective of the thinking mind. Our body has deep wisdom of its own. As we learn more about the fascinating connection between gut and brain, gut health is now linked to conditions as diverse as mental health, chronic pain and autoimmune diseases.

Disorders of the gut-brain axis

What we described in the past as functional gut disorders (e.g. irritable bowel syndrome, functional dyspepsia) are more accurately being relabelled by medics as 'disorders of the gut-brain axis' in recognition of our growing understanding.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Rabia for Yogamatters recently. She is a Gastroenterologist with an interest in Neurogastroenterology, a yoga teacher and a hypnotherapist. An expert in the gut-brain axis, she explains the 'two-way communication' between the brain and the gut, and how yoga can influence the nervous system's response for gut health. Read my full interview with Dr Rabia here: The Gut-Brain Axis and Yoga in Healthcare with Dr Rabia.

Understandably, the most common question people ask me is what they should change in their diet to help their gut symptoms. Of course, whilst the composition of our diets is important, the gut isn't simply nourished by food. We know that gut health is also affected by how much physical activity we get and how we sleep and process stress - how we listen then tend to the nervous system or, indeed, ignore it.

"Psychosocial such as associated stress, anxiety and/or depression — influence the physiological functioning of the gastrointestinal tract via the brain-gut axis, and may affect the person's pain experience, symptom behaviour, expectations of treatment, and clinical outcome" [Halland, 2015; Drossman, 2016] https://cks.nice.org.uk/

Rest and Digest

So how might yoga support gut health? Yoga uses some or all of the following: physical movement, conscious breathing, interoception, meditation, chanting and relaxation - all valuable tools to influence and down-regulate a stressed, sensitised nervous system out of whack.

When we practise yoga, we choose mindful em-body-ment - we capacitate the body as both a receiver and messenger to the brain. This yogic hack for the nervous system can range from a simple real-time full deep breath to a lifelong practice of interoception, helping to fine-tune our ability to self-regulate.

And, as Dr Rabia says, "stress is not something that happens purely in your head, but instead it rests within your entire nervous system. So when you realise that stress is a whole-body response and felt in the entire nervous system, this is usually the beginning of a promising journey."