"Trust Your Gut!": The Gut-Brain Connection

Communication between the gastrointestinal tract, most commonly called the gut, and the human brain has fascinated scientists for centuries. Fortunately, the direct effect the brain has on the gut and vice versa was found less than a century ago, around the 1960s. The connection between the two is called the gut-brain taxis which generates information through the vagus nerve, allowing the food that we eat to be tethered to how we feel.

How does this work? The food we eat is broken down by our digestive system. It begins with mechanical and chemical break down from chewing and our saliva to chemical breakdown by the acids in our stomach. Once the food particles enter our small intestine, the small particles communicate with specific cells known as the gut sensor which relays messages onto the vagus nerve. The message is created by how they sense and react to the small particle environment through chemical, mechanical and thermal stimuli. 

Now that may have been a mouthful to read and understand. What this basically means is that nutrients or even bacterial byproducts, as we have gut bacteria, from the food we eat sends a signal to the nerve that sends information to the brain and influences the way the brain functions. So, think of it as “good food sending good messages to positively affect the brain and bad food negatively affecting the brain”. If you agitated the bacteria in your gut, it’ll cause a certain environment that relays information to the brain that negatively affects brain function. As the control center of your entire body, how we feel throughout our body affects our feelings and moods. A few obvious bowel conditions that may change mood is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), constipation, diarrhea, bloat.

Have you ever felt that “gut-wrenching” feeling? Has an event made you “feel nauseous” or has someone given you “butterflies”? Just as the gut affects the brain, the brain can affect the gut. Those feelings are linked due to the gut-brain connection. In Psychology, certain physical or social conditions cause physical dilemmas affecting the function of the gut and this can cause inflammation or increase infection susceptibility. 

To keep your healthy GI tract and avoid loss of sufficient brain function and bad moods, there are a few things you can do. Research has shown that high levels of stress takes a toll on your body, thus lowering your stress levels will allow your body to function more smoothly, helping you to relax and leaving you in an overall good mood. Of course, that is easier said than done. Insufficient sleep impacts your brain so an individual should try to attain seven to eight hours of sleep every night. A few other methods are to eat slowly and stay hydrated to obtain full digestion and absorption of nutrients. Taking probiotics will provide “good bacteria” in your gut to provide a better-quality environment in your gut. Keeping a healthy lifestyle is crucial to the way we feel so it is important to pay attention to what we put in our body, how it is reacting to moments in our life and to always think about ways to constantly improve our alertness and mood.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oym87kVhqm4

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection

https://www.healthline.com/health/gut-health#treatment