Last week’s Wellness Wednesday blog post talked about physiological and bacterial gut health and how to promote good flora for good belly and good whole-body health. Now it's time to understand how the gut is equally as governing and intelligent as the brain. This “brain in your belly” is often smarter than the brain in your head. Butterflies in your stomach. Gut-feelings. A lump in your throat. Rarely do we say, “ I had this nose feeling,” or “I am trusting my elbow instincts” when we are moved to describe a feeling of knowing. It’s all about intuition--a word we use that comes from the Latin intueri, meaning ‘consider’ or ‘look on.’ For me, it means, “Look IN TO IT!” Get it? Intuit. In To It? Pun fun for the word nerd. But I really mean it: go inward. Look into what your belly is telling you. Gut feelings have been distinguished as a source of intuitive knowing by ancient world cultures to this day. Fay Bound Alberti, author of This Mortal Coil: The Human Body in History and Culture, writes: ...the gut is also linked to our languages and our experiences of emotion. Intuitive forms of knowledge-’gut feelings’-are part of a much longer history of experiencing extra-sensory knowledge through the body rather than the mind. Our Western culture once devolved the Eastern understanding of intuition as a seat of higher thought, wisdom, soul and Spirit physically located just above the navel to perceiving the belly as a source of strength and labor. Queen Elizabeth I is noted for declaring that though she was a woman, she had “the heart and stomach of a king.” And so our perspective changes. Science always influences. History has taken us from the sentient gut-knowing to the Renaissance's ‘it’s-all-in-the-head’ scientific knowing to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s when our culture got more touchy-feely and the gut-emotion connection was recognized once again, as was Eastern thought and culture. What goes around comes around. So yeah, as it turns out, gut thoughts and feelings are not a fanciful notion but a physiological fact. Rather than the one brain found in our head, scientists have revealed that we have two brains – the other one is located in the digestive tract. The enteric nervous system (ENS), the gut’s brain or the brain in the belly is housed under the mucosal lining and between the muscular layers of the esophagus, the stomach, and the small and large intestines. The enteric nervous system is a rich and complicated network of neurons and neurochemicals that sense and control events in other parts of the body, including the brain. Amazingly, when scientists finally counted the number of nerve cells in the gut-brain, they found it contained over one hundred million neurons – more than the number of nerve cells in the spinal cord. Who knew we such had a super-highway of inner intelligence. Researchers have observed a greater flow of neural traffic from the belly-brain to the head-brain than from the head-brain to the belly. Yep, the belly is telling the brain what’s going on, not the brain telling the belly what to eat and how to metabolize. This is not an excuse to eat the whole bag of chips. Your belly did not make you do it. What is important is that your belly is a wonderful source of intelligence. Listen! Your brain is listening to your belly. Are you? There is a lot more scientific and physiological stuff I can cite and comment on. Super-interesting for the left (analytical) brain, but we are talking right (emotional) brain here. However, this is really interesting: the enteric nervous system (the gut-brain) and the central nervous system (the head-brain) share a very cool similarity. In the sleep state, the head-brain moves through cycles of 90 minutes of slow-wave sleep frequencies, immediately followed by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in which dreams are produced. The gut-brain also moves through a nightly cycle of 90 minutes of slow-wave muscular contractions followed by brief spurts of rapid muscular movements. Your belly is the seat of feeling. The whole digestive tract is lined with unique cells that produce and receive endorphins and other chemicals and hormones that we feel as joy, satisfaction, and pain relief. These comfortable gut feelings that can be experienced after a satisfying meal or a stimulating encounter are based in the belly-brain and send pleasure chemicals to receptive cells throughout your body. The gut is beautifully engineered to send out the feel-goods. Then there is the flip side. The digestive sensations we are aware of might feel negative: peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, heartburn, upset stomach, diverticulosis and other digestive upset and discomfort. Sometimes we say we can’t “stomach” a situation, something makes us want to “gag,” or we have “a knot” in our stomach. What we are doing is expressing psychophysiological information from the the brain in our belly. Your belly knows how to handle stress, if you let it. The belly produces substances similar to the active ingredients in the prescription drugs that chill us out. Think: Valium and Xanax without the nasty side effects and cost. Where does food come in? We are physiologically wired to have the gut-brain and the head-brain communicate. Wild animals don’t stress about their nutritional meal choices. Absent from their conversation is the dinner dilemma: What will it be tonight, dear? Elk or moose? I dunno. What do you think? Definitely not bear, it’s too high in fat. And definitely not deer! Instincts tell animals what to eat. And we should listen to our gut instincts, too. Our head-brains just override this knowing. Too often when we make belly decisions it’s about the look, not about nourishment and not about ‘the feel’. Poor quality food, stressed eating and a toxic world environment make it difficult for our belly-brain to function as it is meant to function: intuitively, responsively, in accordance with nature. What we want to see often clouds what we feel. The contemporary preoccupation with “six pack abs” is a distorted yearning to display, rather than actively use, the inherent intelligence of the belly. Trust your gut. Our gut intelligence has been underused, and perhaps even dumbed-down with lack of physical, ideological, social--you name it--nourishment. Nourish the gut brain with wholesome, nutrient-dense food for optimal attunement and energy. Tune in and the tone will follow. Tuning in. Breathe into your belly. Ask it for feedback. What is your belly telling you about what’s happening in your life? Your very sensitive belly-brain is offering your its unique intelligence in the subtle sensations, curious feelings, instincts, and intuitions. Without getting all yogi on you, here’s the energetic take on that place just above your navel that the Japanese call Hara. It is the location of your third chakra. ‘Chakra’ means ‘wheel’ in Sanskrit. (You can look up chakras here.) The third chakra is the energetic location of your personality, identity, and the-knowing -of-who-you-are. It’s the center of willpower, self-esteem and self-discipline. It’s all about the perception of who you are: personal power, confidence, responsibility and reliability. This solar plexus chakra is kin to the life-giving and fiery sun in the center of our planetary solar system. Yes, there is a simile here.... The energy of this chakra allows you to transform inaction into action. It allows you to meet challenges and progress in life. It helps you digest, literally and figuratively. The challenge for this wheel of energy is to use personal power in a balanced manner, consciously harnessing the energy of the belly, being proactive rather than reactive or inactive. It's all about balance. When the belly is balanced with nutrient-dense food, friendly bacteria (pre-biotics and probiotics), supportive lifestyle and positive thoughts, we feel well. The energetic center is balanced. Digestion and elimination are naturally comfortable and work smoothly. When the belly is imbalanced by poor food choices, discomforted by dysbiosis and stressed to the max with emotional eating and negative thoughts, we feel ill. The energetic center is imbalanced. Constipation (inactive energy) and diarrhea (reactive energy) often result. The third chakra is associated with the color yellow. Imagine the fire of hope, positivity, energy, and action in your belly. This energetic center is the sun around which your whole wellness revolves. Shine onward and outward from your nourished soul-center. Here’s a glowing Lovely Lentil and Squash Soup recipe that’s full of fiber, soothing spices and warmth. I know it’s still cold in the North and what better way to conjure Spring. For those of you in the South, here is a cooling Fennel, Cucumber and Mint Salad to balance and support the fire in your belly. Yumminess. I can hear my belly purr. Xoxo Beth
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