Emotions of Gut Health

Emotions impact our gut health just as certain foods do.  Learn how to work with your emotions to create a healthy gut and how your gut issues may be greatly reduced by 3 simple emotion management techniques.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the JolieLife Podcast. Today we are going to talk about our emotions and digestion. There have been a slew of clients with digestive issues, whether it's constipation, diarrhea, IBS, gerd, depressed appetite that we have been designing programs for. And while there is definitely food therapy, which is what we do, there is an aspect of digestion that whenever you consider digestive issues, you always, always, always need to think about mental health, stress and what else is going on in your life. More than any system in your body, your digestive system is very, very much tied to your emotions and diarrhea, constipation, upset, stomach slow digestion are highly, highly impacted by what your emotional state is. So just think for a moment how you feel. If you get something negative happens or you have a difficult conversation or an unexpected un, very, very unpleasant surprise.
(01:37)
Notice how that affects your digestion in the immediate term. In the immediate term, you might find your stomach begins to cramp. You might find that you need to run to the bathroom. You might find that you hold yourself and find that you can't go to the bathroom. These are acute situations where you see an emotional event and how it impacts your digestion. Now, take that emotional event and extrapolate it over weeks or over months. Maybe you're going through a difficult situation, maybe you don't feel relaxed and safe in your home. Maybe there are stresses at work or in family or things going on in the world. Whatever in your particular life is causing you elevated levels of stress, those elevated levels of stress can impact your body. And so today I want to talk about ways that you can mitigate stress and also unconscious ways that we sometimes amplify our stress.
(02:51)
So let's talk first about ways that we can mitigate our stress. I come from the point of view that stress is inevitable. You live in this world. There are going to be stressful things that happen the end. Most of us do not live in a hermitage where we're not interacting with other people and we would have no stress. Most of us live in an environment where we are impacted by others. We are impacted by events that happen. We are impacted by our work, our jobs, our family. We are impacted by illness, and so there's stress in our life. So how do we mitigate stress? The first thing that I always reach for and the first thing that I always encourage clients to reach for is their breath. Your breath is always with you. Your breath is free. Your breath is something that God was amazing.
(03:49)
Mother nature was amazing. In that breath is something that happens automatically. And at the same time, it's something we control, which is kind of like a clue that this thing is really, really important and that it does more than just supply your body with oxygen. There are other uses for your breath, and one that I like to really capitalize on is your breath's ability to relax you and your breath's, ability to gently massage your digestive system. We're going to stop on the massaging of the digestive system for a moment because it's easier to understand. When you take in a deep breath, your diaphragm is expanding downward. It is decreasing the space that your digestive organs have. It is constricting them. And then when you release the breath completely, it provides them with a lot of extra space and it liberates them. This constriction and opening constriction and opening causes more blood flow to come to your digestive organs.
(05:09)
So it acts as a tonic. It acts as a stimulant to your digestive organs. So imagine the pressure that you have in a massage on say a tight quad. When you take a deep breath, you are exerting pressure on your digestive system and then you are releasing it. You are gently massaging the digestive system. So that's first step. And this is really effective and important practice for you if you suffer from constipation, for instance. And the thing about using your breath in this way is you cannot overdo it. You cannot do harm to yourself. It is impossible to do harm. So first thing in the Hippocratic oath is to do no harm, use your breath to massage your intestinal tract so that constipation and motility within the digestional tract is present and active. The other thing that the breath does is it impacts the vagus nerve, the vagus nerve, vagus the root, the Latin root for that is wanderer.
(06:21)
It connects to so many different parts of your body, and I would call it, I don't know if it's called this in the literature, I would call it a master nerve because it is connected to so many aspects of you. The vagus nerve has connection to your digestive system. And when we take deep breaths and very, very slow exhales, so we release the breath very slowly, this positively stimulates the vagus nerve to send signals of relaxation to your body. Those signals of relaxation end up lowering cortisol levels, cortisol being our stress hormone. When we lower cortisol levels, we help our digestive system from being overactive, think diarrhea from holding, think constipation from being inflamed. Think IBS upset, stomach, that type of thing. So this deep breath in, you massage your intestines and this very, very, very slow exhale allows for deep stimulation of the vagus nerve and therefore deep relaxation of the body.
(07:45)
And the cool thing about this is you literally don't have to do anything but take a longer exhale than you do inhale. So you don't have to get yourself into a meditative frame of mind. You don't have to take yourself out of the situation. You don't have to close yourself off. You don't have to go on a retreat, you don't need to do anything. You just need to take your exhale really, really, really slowly. And if you are in a position where you can close your eyes, we're going to try this right now where you take a breath in for 4, 3, 2, 1, and then you exhale for 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And there you have lengthens your exhale and stimulated relaxation in your body. The other ways that we can dissolve stress is being in nature. Nature is the great grounder, and when we are centered, our body is able to relax.
(09:04)
And so being in nature is a beautiful way of relaxing ourselves without us needing to do anything. So that's another way that we can help our buddies to mitigate stress. The other third tool that we have is exercise. Exercise, but a little asterisk here guys, because if you over exercise, it does the opposite. But exercise with adequate recovery and nutritional support allows your body to burn off the stress. So think of the stress that you're holding as an energy that needs to be moved out of your body. And so this is where exercise comes in and it's more active exercise, think running, think rebounding. Think soul cycle for me is that where I can yell and scream and go really fast and be really intense and I can let out all of those emotions. So exercise becomes a very cathartic experience where we are releasing our stress, we're releasing our emotions, we're releasing the things unsaid through our exercise.
(10:21)
So exercise is your third tool for helping to mitigate stress. The other fourth tool I'll give you are herbs. There are certain herbs that we will oftentimes put into usually smoothies that we give our clients, like ashwagandha for instance, that helps the body to handle the changes that stress requires. So it helps the body to more easily go into overdrive. So think about a transmission that is at its end of life. And so as you're trying to switch gears, your engine is really, really like working hard before the gear shifts. Think of ashwagandha and tonics like it as supplements or herbal remedies that help your gears to shift smoothly so that the body can respond to stress with less stress in the response. So those are ways that we can help ourselves to lower cortisol levels, to lower stress and to therefore improve our digestive symptoms.
(11:34)
The other thing that I want to talk about is ways that we inadvertently can be perpetuating things. And one thing that is also common with digestive issues and part of it is the problem, meaning when your digestion is messed up, you are in not a good scene of mine. You feel very out of control. Your body is not reliable. You might have to rush to the bathroom at a moment's notice or you might feel completely overstuffed because you can't release anything. So know that, know that you are in a state of being out of control. And frequently our unconscious, unconscious response is to try to grab onto control. And so begin an order to heal your digestion, to start to let go, to intentionally decide that you are going to allow yourself to be comfortable in the unknown. And I always want you to work on your edge.
(12:48)
So if you imagine you're very, I'm going to say uptight person, and you want to be in control of outcomes. And I do ask sometimes we don't really see ourselves when we are being controlling or when we are micromanaging or when we are trying to make sure everything works. Sometimes we don't see that we see ourselves as being proactive or being responsible or following up when in actuality we have a death grip on life. So I'm going to ask that you, if you are experiencing digestive symptoms, that you take some time just to observe your actions and observe how you interact with people, observe how you think of things, observe how much you follow up or how much you need things to be like exactly in a certain way or you need to know the exact details of something. Just observe that as much as you possibly can because that is very much connected to your digestive system.
(13:58)
Once you observe it, I'm going to ask that you push your edge here. I will never ask that you jump into the deep end and not know how to swim. So I'm not going to say if you are a very stressed person that you just let go and be a flower child. I will not say that. However, I will ask that you push an edge. So instead of sending that follow-up email to just make sure something is being done that you just wait a moment, you just wait and see if it will all work out. If you worry about, okay, how's this person going to get here and this person going to get here? You just take a deep breath in and just say to yourself, it's going to work out. If someone says, oh, I might come a few minutes late, instead of texting them and saying, well, what's your ETA?
(14:48)
Or how much longer do you think you'll be? Just sit with that uncertainty and allow yourself to breathe through it because we think that we're helping ourselves in this micromanaging state, but in reality, we feed our cortisol. So to help our digestive system function at its optimal level, we need to relax ourselves both mentally, energetically and physically. And so these small things that we do add to the stress in our life because we may not be conscious of it, but whenever we're trying to control something, we are tightening, we are bringing constriction. And constriction is a synonym to stress. So take your fist and ball it up and try to hold onto something really, really tight. And you see all the tension that's in your muscles. You see all the energy that's necessary to sustain the tension in your muscles. You see the tightness in your muscles as you're doing this.
(16:08)
You see that your muscles and your ham as you're clenching can't do anything else, and that it's actually drawing energy away from the body. And now relax your hand. Feel how it opens up. Feel how that energy then is able to be siphoned off to other parts of your body. Feel how your body feels different when you relax your fist. This is a physical example of what's happening from a soul perspective. When we are, I want to say this in the most positive way, but when we are holding onto life really, really hard and holding onto outcomes and holding onto control and holding on to it needs to be this way or I need to do this thing or I need to make things better. When we have that energy, all of that bowl of stress is going to find its home in our body.
(17:12)
And oftentimes the home that it finds is in our digestive system. And so part of our digestive healing is to begin to let go, to not need to do everything, to not need to know how everything's going to work out, to not feel responsible for everyone else's outcome, and to allow yourself grace to be less hard on yourself. You are not a perfect being. I'm not a perfect being. None of us. Were made to be a perfect being. We're not on this wonderful adventure of life to be perfect. We are on this wonderful adventure of life to experientially take it in to be a sponge, to be a participant, to be like part of the crowd. Think of it that way. And so the sky is not going to fall down if we mess something up, the sky is not going to fall down if we don't do something, the sky is not going to fall down if we don't show up exactly as we would want to show up.
(18:24)
And so I say that so that you feel okay in giving yourself grace and giving yourself forgiveness and allowing yourself to be imperfect. The other thing I will say in terms of emotions and digestion is your sense of safety has a lot to do with how your digestion works. So control, safety are big factors in your digestional health. And the other factor is agency, which we're going to get to next, but safety. You need to feel safe in your spaces if you do not feel safe in your spaces, safe in your body, safe that you can unfurl yourself and is going to impact your digestion. And most often it will find its shape and constipation. The other like corollary with constipation is control. That tightening of your fist to control something is the tightening of your sphincter in your large intestine. We want to release sick.
(19:34)
So loosening, allowing ourselves to feel safe allows ourselves to un, it's hard to release relinquish control when you feel unsafe. And so if you are in an environment that feels unsafe at the very basic level, think about, okay, what do I need to feel safe? Maybe I need better boundaries. Maybe I need certain people out of my life. Maybe I need time alone. Maybe I need to take a step back and figure things out first. But to give yourself that time and those boundaries and that space to feel safe. If you feel unsafe because you are in an unsafe environment, an abusive environment, whether it's emotional, physical, spiritual, it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. I will not say that that is an easy place to be, but as best as you can, I highly encourage you to reach out to people, reach out to professionals, but reach out to those around you.
(20:38)
And please, please, please never give up. I can never, ever, ever give up and to keep that reaching out. And I say that with full knowledge that if you are in a physically, emotionally unsafe space, that it is so hard to reach out. And there will be so many times when you attempt to reach out and you don't connect, you aren't cared for it, you are rejected, you are not acknowledged. But at the same time, the only ultimate if you don't try nothing can change. And so maybe it's not picking up the phone and calling someone, but maybe it is just taking a step back and thinking, okay, where I am now, what's one thing I can do to make myself safer? What's one thing I can do to be with myself right now? What's one thing I can do to protect myself? So safety is a big, big issue, and it goes way beyond the scope of this.
(21:51)
But if you are truly, truly unsafe, meaning being abused, definitely seek help now in every way that you can. I talked about agency as the third. Sometimes we do not feel agency. We do not feel that we can impact our lives or we can impact change or we can impact, help that sense of helplessness, which is the other side of the coin of agency. So agency means you can, and helplessness means you feel like you can't. When we feel helpless, we oftentimes feel bottled up. We oftentimes feel anxiety because we have no options. We might feel depressed because we have no options. And that massively affects our digestive system. When we feel powerless or disempowered, when we feel a lack of agency, our digestion will be impacted both in terms of running, in terms of stagnation and in terms of pain and irritation and inflammation.
(23:08)
And so when you find that, okay, when you do a reflection and say, I don't feel like I have agency, I would like for you to write down areas of your life where you feel disempowered, where you feel that you cannot make a change when you feel like something's out of your control or you don't have options or you don't have answers or you don't have resources or this is just how it is, or this is what is expected to me of me, or this is just my lot in life. That you write all of that down, that you empty, that these are my things unsaid, that you just journal it out. You can journal it by writing, you can journal it by talking. If it's not safe to write it, then you journal it by talking it out. And then every time you do that, and this is a practice to be repeated daily, particularly if you have digestive issues, think of one small thing you can do, one small pivot you can make.
(24:04)
And that small thing might be choosing to say no to a piece of bread because gluten bothers you. It could be choosing to say yes to someone helping you carry your groceries so you have a little bit less of burden. It could be choosing to sit down for a couple of minutes before you eat or pausing for a prayer, or it could be choosing to call that doctor that might be able to help you or to sign up for that food plan that might be able to help you or to go for a walk because you know it will make you feel better. It is choosing yes. And I will say this is my leading thought for you. The thing that we need most is oftentimes the thing that we resist. And so I want you to really think about your digestive health not only as it relates to food, but as it relates to your emotional body, to your lifestyle.
(24:58)
And start to assess that because when you work on your lifestyle and you work on your food or we work on your food and you have your medical support, you have a winning combination to heal your digestive track and to get your life back on track. Because when you're inside, like this tube does not work well, nothing works well. So this is Julia. It was a lot. Today, I am available@thejulielife.com. Come write to me, email me, text me. We are on Instagram. You can DM us, but this is what we'd love to do. Our mission is to impact as many people as we can to transform their lives with food. And we are here to help you. I hope you enjoyed this podcast, the Jolie Life Podcast. And if this podcast helped you in any way, I invite you to share it with your friends and your family and whoever you come across that you think might be helped for this podcast. I would love to hear your comments. And you can contact me at julia@thejolife.com and please follow us on Instagram, the Jo Life. Our website is the jolie life.com. And it would be lovely if you would subscribe and if you would rate this podcast and go back and share this with someone. Let the ripple effect happen. Let the Jolie life be the beautiful life that keeps on giving lots of love.