

watercolour-1336856_1920“Within the human gut lies a “second brain”: a vast network of neurons located along the intestinal lining. It’s called the enteric nervous system—enteric as in “pertaining to the gut”—and for years researchers assumed its sole province lay in regulation of the digestive process. Researchers now know that the enteric nervous system also relays and sends neurotransmitters like serotonin and GABA, responds to emotions, and has a direct conduit to the brain via the vagus nerve.

The gut is not the site of higher-level cognition. The neurochemical processes responsible for writing emails, doing trigonometry, and reading this blog post occur solely in the brain. But though decision-making and conscious thought happen up top, the gut has a lot of input on how those thoughts and decisions develop. About 90% of traffic along the vagus flows from gut to brain, and it’s not all information about intestinal contractions. The second brain is likely the province of instinct, subconscious response, and emotion. In other words, gut feeling, gut instinct, butterflies in your stomach, and got the guts? aren’t just figures of speech. They hint at real physiological processes occurring along the gut-brain axis.

Emerging evidence is showing that our enteric nervous system, and the gut bacteria, probiotics, and prebiotics that comprise and affect it, have effects on how we think, feel, perform, and respond to the world around us.” writes Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple. (Read more here.)

Mark continues to list a variety of mental and emotional health challenges that have become increasingly common in our society. Each of them is then linked to research and evidence showing that manipulating the microbiome of the gut can drastically change factors and symptoms common to mental and emotional health challenges. Depression, anxiety, autism, cognitive flexibility, and reactivity are all sited in relation to gut health in his comprehensive article on the topic. It would now seem that the answer to many common mental health problems may now begin in healing the gut. Ready to balance the mind? Get started balancing the body. Schedule a Functional Physical with your doctor at Lake Pointe for a personalized protocol to heal the gut.

be regular

hyacinth-1402847_1280What if I told you giving your gallbladder a little TLC could relieve PMS symptoms? It sounds a bit crazy, but Lauren of Empowered Sustenance explains how it plays a crucial role in keeping your hormones in balance:

“You may not have considered the crucial role your gallbladder plays in hormone health. As a matter of fact, a poorly-functioning gallbladder paves the way to PMS and hormone hell.

How does the gallbladder tie into PMS?

  1. The liver synthesizes bile. It packages up old hormones – including estrogen –  and toxins that need to leave the body in the bile. Then it ships the bile to the gallbladder.
  2. The gallbladder stores bile and secretes it into the small intestine when we eat a meal with fat. The bile breaks down the fat, so we can absorb it, and then the old hormones/toxins in the bile exit the body with the feces.
  3. If your gallbladder is not functioning well, the bile become thick and stagnant in the gallbladder. As a result, the body reabsorbs the estrogen it needed to eliminate, contributing to estrogen dominance.
  4. To make matters worse, you can’t properly digest fats with thick, stuck bile. And the body needs to digest fats in order to synthesize hormones.

In a nutshell, poor gallbladder function equals the reabsorption of old estrogen and a deficiency in the building blocks required for new hormones.”

For more on how to eliminate PMS naturally, read the rest of the article here. In the meantime, schedule a Functional Physical to check in on your health and see how you can support your body to properly balance hormones.

be fertile