Episode 11 Five Ways to Conquer IBS With Joy

What does joy have to do with healing your IBS? A lot, in fact —which I hope is good news regardless of where you are with your gut. If you are already a person investing in your own pleasure,  learning that joy plays a role in you getting healthy should encourage you to keep going in that direction. Keep making your happiness a priority even though it can be hard to do. For others, seeing joy as a healing mechanism is a stretch because IBS is so frustrating and can be debilitating. IBS itself can suck your joy. Today we’ll discuss what I mean by this, and I’ll give you five ways to conquer IBS through the lenses on pleasure.
Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/11. 

Erin Maillo helps women with IBS who are sick of being sick reduce triggers, zap flareups, find peace and get their lives back.

For VIP one on one support, apply for Erin's Healing Her IBS Program here: https://healingheribs.com/work-with-erin/

Transcript

What does joy have to do with healing your IBS? A lot, in fact —which I hope is good news regardless of where you are with your gut. If you are already a person investing in your own pleasure,  learning that joy plays a role in you getting healthy should encourage you to keep going in that direction. Keep making your happiness a priority even though it can be hard to do. For others, seeing joy as a healing mechanism is a stretch because IBS is so frustrating and can be debilitating. IBS itself can suck your joy. Today we’ll discuss what I mean by this, and I’ll give you five ways to conquer IBS through the lenses on pleasure. Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/11.
Why It’s Hard to Access Joy When You Have IBS
When you have IBS—whether you have just been diagnosed or whether you have been struggling for decades, it can be hard to figure out how pursuing your happiness fits in. Having these gut issues can make you isolate instead of reaching out —it can make you stop going out in public or pursuing the things you used to enjoy. That absolutely happened for me. Have you stopped doing something you used to love because of your IBS? It may even seem condescending to put an emphasis on including joy into your life when so much is just going wrong and there is just so much  left to fix. There is so much to manage —the symptoms, the treatments, the confusion and the potential resignation. All these factors play a role in women’s health, and it is a lot to deal with to try to manage life and IBS on top of everything else. Despite all these objections and these difficulties, finding ways to let delight still be in your life can actually be an important part of your treatment plan. Most importantly,  it allows the time that you are healing to be more enjoyable. You don’t know how long it will take you to heal. Maybe you aren’t even sure if you ever will heal all the way. Don’t you want to find a way for that time to be less nightmarish if possible? To find a way to have IBS and still live a happy life if it’s feasible? While this happiness goal may not be easy or may not even seem particularly possible to you at this very second, let it in a little bit and see where they fit for you. Try to listen with a curious mind.
The Vagus Nerve Connection & Healing Your Gut
There is a scientific basis to this concept— to the correlation between joy and IBS relief. More and more scientific studies are showing the connection between our brains and our bodies, how they are not actually separate at all—though that’s how we perceive it. Have you heard of the Vagus Nerve or the Gut-Brain Axis? There has been increased attention of the role the Vagus Nerve plays in IBS in recent years and in the role that stimulating the Vagus Nerve can affect healing your gut. The vagus nerve is the most important link between your nervous system and your brain. This Gut to Brain axis is a way for the brain to communicate to your gut and for your gut to communicate to your brain. It’s a two-way system that goes back and forth. For those with IBS,  many have theorized that it’s over stimulated nerves in the gut sending messages of danger to your brain. An over stimulated gut that’s responding to get your brain to protect it. Though of course having a healthy diet and limiting stress can greatly help this gut -brain axis, stimulating the vegus nerve in a variety of ways can be effective and enjoyable. 

5 Ways To Conquer IBS With Joy
Fitting joy into our often overly scheduled lives can sometimes feel like another thing  on the to do list. Perhaps, it’s something that you can relax into when you go on vacation. Real life, especially in the US—which is where my IBS began, can be an obstacle. But if you knew that making space for joy would help you heal, would you do it? When I was healing, unfortunately I didn’t have this information. I had no idea at that time that there was a truly scientifically based reasoning that connected my relaxation and pleasure to getting over this horrible stomach pain. If I had known, I think it would have made a big difference for me. I was at the time making as much space as I could for joy and happiness, but I sometimes felt guilty about it and struggled to justify it’s real-life importance in my life. Maybe because pleasure doesn’t seem productive? Luckily, when it comes to IBS, your bliss is productive and it’s worth investing it. I encourage you today to sit down and make a list of all the things that bring you joy and happiness. I am giving you a push to find a way to put those things on your daily or weekly list of things you need to get done. Joy is an essential part of your treatment plan. If you struggle with finding enough things to fill a page up with, or you aren’t sure where to start, you can start here.
Here are five concrete ways that you can use joy to help you heal today: 

·      Laughter—include shows, people or experiences that make you laugh—laughter is shown to stimulate the Vegas Nerve.

·      Connect with others—connecting with others, especially with people you love can lower stress.

·      Get a massage —physical touch and the relaxation of massage can be a wonderful way to connect. Whether it’s professional, from a loved one, or self-massage—all are beneficial options.

·      Do something you love-when you struggle with IBS sometimes you stop doing things you used to love. What could you include back in your life that would make you happy this week?

·      Play Music & Sing- Singing is a great physical way to stimulate the vegas nerve and if you love it can also bring a heightened sense of well-being that has added advantages.

 I know it can seem like a big first step or a huge stretch to think about happiness and it’s connection to IBS, yet it’s such an important one. Even just having the goal of doing one thing that makes you happy and relaxes you for five minutes a day can work. Explore how you can slowly increase the time of these practices either daily or weekly. Start small and work up to added pleasure as you become more used to it. Remember that this pursuit is in your best healing interest to help you make the habit stick.