Thinking Beyond Science

It’s been said that gut feelings are guardian angels. They provide that deep-knowing, discerning intuition that has guided and protected us throughout our life. They are the ineffable inner sixth sense with its still-small voice, giving us the visceral understanding that it has our back. “Gut feelings, “trust our gut,” and “gut instinct” are all sentiments with ancient origins. Somehow humanity has always known that the gut is the seat of the soul; and today, in our modern world, we know that at our very creation, when we were in our mother’s womb, our gut and brain were formed from the same tissue, inextricably woven together for the rest of our life in sacred union.

Our brain-gut connection is a galaxy of brilliance, a cerebral garden of wonderment and dreams. The vast confluence of synapses and neurons contained within our mental masterpiece could stretch farther than the moon. Our gut is equally vast, with more bacteria than we have human cells, more in number than the stars in the sky. In fact, the trillions of cells that make up our brain and body were formed from the same carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen as the stars that shone brightly billions of years ago. We are literally stardust personified — the cosmos incarnate.

If we’ve ever gotten that quick thrill of butterflies on a first date or felt the ache of our stomach dropping when we received bad news, we’ve already experienced the gut-feeling connection in real life. There’s no way around it: The bidirectional relationship between our gut and feelings is intimately at play every single day of our lives. These gut feelings can contain innumerable inspirations for hope, healing, and self-protection, but they can also be tainted with shame, anger, and fear, becoming the single biggest saboteur of our health. When these gut feelings work against us, they can end up sabotaging our health and creating very real physical health imbalances. From autoimmune conditions to anxiety, blood sugar issues to brain fog, and hormone imbalances to heart problems— whatever it is that ails us, our gut-feeling connection is playing a role.

In the Western world, we like to separate mental health from physical health, but the truth is that mental health is physical health. Our brain is part of our body— and there isn’t a single health condition out there that doesn’t require us to heal both. As a functional medicine doctor, I talk a lot about how the gut is the center of human health. It controls not just our digestion but also our immune system, metabolism, and mood. It’s not only that physical health imbalances will impact our mentally and emotionally-what’s going on in our inner psychological world will impact every physiological system and cell of our body, and it does all this through our gut-feeling connection.

Some ways in which physical health affects the mental health :

• More and more studies are asserting that depression may be caused by chronic systemic inflammation in the body and showing that anti-inflammatory foods reduce symptoms of depression.
• Problems with the gut, such as yeast or bacterial overgrowth, often present themselves in the form of mood swings, anxiety, and persistent food cravings.
  When a patient comes in with any of these brain issues, the gut is the first thing I look at.
• Studies have suggested that inadequate immune system control and
  inflammation may raise the risk of developing PTSD after a trauma’
• Studies show that even mild dehydration can be linked to anxiety, tension, and mood disturbance, demonstrating that something as simple as drinking more water and supporting electrolyte balance could improve mental health?
• Here’s one we probably already know: A more sedentary lifestyle has been linked to an increased risk of anxiety and depression. But did we also know that exercise has been shown to be as effective if not more effective at reducing depression than prescription antidepressants? It’s true.’

Shameflammation is present in every single one of us to some degree, and it can make us feel overwhelmed, anxious, hopeless, aimless, and totally disconnected from our intuition. It can be both the underlying cause and result of chronic health conditions-it’s often the one thing standing between us and optimal health. Shameflammation can make us feel like were constantly swimming upstream and at war with our bodies. Thoughts and emotions are like nutrients for your head, heart, and soul; and unfortunately, many of us have been feeding ourselves junk food for a long, long time.

Research shows that, as humans, we feel a lot of health-related shame and that shame can have a significant impact on our ability to stay healthy, heal from illness, and make healthy choices, Why? Because any type of shame— whether it’s related to food, our body, or a health condition- makes us feel unworthy of the vibrant health we crave, cutting us off at our knees as we try to get there. According to shame experts, shame exists on a spectrum, ranging from self-consciousness or embarrassment to a deep sense of inadequacy and fear, but these feelings all tell us one thing at the end of the day—that we don’t deserve that healthy and happy life.

Unfortunately, despite knowing that shame affects our health in big and small ways, we don’t know all that much else due to a lack of research in this area. In one fascinating study, researchers posited that the impact of shame on our health “is unacknowledged, under-researched, and under theorised in the context of health and medicine.” They go on to say that shame can have a significant impact on health, illness, and health-related behaviors and that shame’s influence can be described only as “insidious, pervasive, and pernicious.” Pretty strong language, isn’t it? It is, but it’s also true. Our healing can’t shine when it’s soaked in shame.

Source : Gut Feelings: Healing the Shame-Fueled Relationship Between What You Eat and How You Feel by Dr. Will Cole

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61358636-gut-feelings

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