Stress response and your Enteric nervous system - the ‘brain of the gut’ - how does this relate to yoga?
This last year has been very hard on the vast majority of people, whether you have become unemployed, witnessed your sector decimate to near non existence, been working at home and going stir crazy, missing any sort of social outlet, living by yourself and lonely or living with too many people and in need of your own space, our collective physical and mental health are suffering for a variety of reasons.
I myself have had many days where I wake up and feel like ‘what’s the point of even getting out of bed this morning?’. Sometimes I get out straight away with a to do list, sometimes I lay there for an extra half hour or so pondering what to do, or even just go back to bed! December, January and February were especially rough with the shorter days and missing out on all the season celebrations with family and friends. March has been feeling much better, the daylight in the mornings and sunshine have been lifting my mood enormously.
We need to be taking care of ourselves as much as possible during this time of uncertainty, and that is totally within our power, regardless of how hard it may feel like doing. The end of lockdown is on the horizon and it’s time to get ourselves mentally prepared for coming back into busy society and day to day life out of our homes. It may be quite an anxiety inducing and stressful experience to reintegrate and find our feet in the ‘new normal’ whatever that might be. Change is not easy but it is inevitable! As many of you may know, I’ve gone back to school for Nutrition and this first year of study is on Human Anatomy, Biology, Physiology and Disease, here are some interesting things I’ve learned regarding the Enteric Nervous System (the ‘brain of the gut’) that I thought you’d be interested in!
The Enteric Nervous System is the nervous system of our gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and it actually has more neurons than the spinal cord!
It is a part of our Autonomic Nervous System - the part that’s involuntary - it responds to stress by inducing our ‘fight or flight’ response and responds to relaxation by inducing our ‘rest and digest’ response. Fight or flight mode / stress causes a decrease in muscular activity in the digestive tract and less secretion of glandular fluids (including stomach acid) for digestion - basically less digestive activity in our gut as it’s not a priority if we’re under stress (historically we would have been in actual danger and had to fight or run away, but these days stress is part of our daily lives in a much different way!) This decreased activity in the gut decreases the absorption of vitamins and nutrients, and compromises our immune response as 70% of our immune system lives in the GIT tract! Also saliva contains IgA (a crucial antibody) and lysozyme for defence against ingested bacteria - stress reduces salivary function, and can create an environment favourable for bacteria to move further down the digestive tract and contribute to low immunity and increased risk of illness.
Think about the effects of chronic stress on the body!!
Diaphragmatic breathing stimulates our vagus nerve, which runs through most of our gut and is the main nerve of the ‘rest and digest’ and enteric nervous system. Try breathing diaphragmatically to stimulate the vagus nerve and the rest and digest nervous system - this promotes muscular and glandular activity of the digestive system - therefore increased digestion, absorption, and immune function. Something to think about!!
Do you or have you experienced chronic stress and the associated effects of it? Did you think they were related? I know I have and I did not realise all of these things were related until I started studying this stuff and more importantly putting it into practice - directly experiencing how yoga and meditation (stimulating relaxation and vagus nerve activation) have dramatically shifted my digestion, absorption (I used to be borderline anaemic!), and immune function (no longer become sick often or easily - my immune system reacts efficiently). This all on top of the wonderful alteration on mood and emotions - healthy gut benefits mood enormously - it’s hard to feel great about anything when you are experiencing GIT issues and also one of your happy hormones Serotonin lives predominantly in the gut.
Takeaway message: stress decreases your ability to digest food, absorb nutrients and vitamins, lowers your immune response and lowers your mood.
Yoga and meditation help to alleviate stress by altering how your nervous system functions - moving us to a relaxed state where these processes start to take place: increased nutrient absorption, increased immune function, increased mood - most of this relating directly to our gut health.
I hope you find this information useful and insightful, let me know in the comments what you think!