When a person experiences a frightful event, often bowel control is lost. This is one example of the Gut - Brain connection. When a body moves into a stress response, the blood moves away from the gut into the extremities in order to fight or run. Fear creates a cascade of stress hormones that signal the vagus nerve to increase chemical activity in the gut, overstimulating the gut often causing diarrhoea. similarity we may feel all ''chocked up'' with emotions and the eosophagus gets highly stimulated and creates difficulty swallowing or possibly vomiting.
People in our modern world experience these stress responses on average a dozen times per day and may not even be aware of it. Unfortunately it is the world we live in and the pressure we put upon ourselves to continue our busy lives. This is why we must slow down and enjoy our food! turn off the tv, put the phone away , take slow deep breaths , chew and enjoy your food like it was your last meal.
The effect emotion plays on our digestion is manifested in a wide variety of ways and symptoms such as:
- increased heartbeat
- diarrhoea
- constipation
- skin problems
- thrush
- cystitis
More and more people are being admitted to hospital with gastrointestinal complaints more than ever before and coincidently we are more stressed and run down than ever before .
Its simple when you think about it , the statement" I feel happy I am well" and '' I feel unhappy I am sick"
So what can we do about it ?
It is possible to utilise and integrate the ebb and flow of our emotions to promote our won well being. We can channel these emotions and their energy into generating constructive behaviours. When people say " stop worrying or stress less" it dosent really help the situation or make you any more able to actually stop worrying or stress less. We need to look within and find things that make us happy and things that calm our minds in times of stress and worry. We should have a mental health tool kit that we can pull out when we are emotionally stuck. In this tool kit can be things such as :
- take a long walk in nature
- watch a funny movie
- call and chat to a friend
- take 2 minutes to take some deep breaths
There can be many things we can do to lift us up out of a fearful or stressful state we just need to prioritise ourselves first and remember our emotions effect our whole body .