Don't Let Your Gut Decide Your Mood

Can your gut dictate if you’re having a good day or a bad day? When it comes to emotions, there are no “good” or “bad” emotions. Emotions are biological states associated with the nervous system. The brain is constantly busy. It receives, experiences, and conceptualizes internal and external changes all day long. All thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are mental constructs, based on how the brain makes sense of these changes and the signals it receives. The “good” or “bad” feeling we associate with this neuropsychological activity is a matter of interpretation. Our “mind” tells our brain, “Hey gal, this situation is pretty bad (or pretty great). Get nervous, get happy, get afraid, get angry, etc."

Scientists are increasingly realizing that the brain is not alone in doing this interpretive work. They now have the research and technology to show the connection between the mind, brain, heart, and gut.

Let’s look at the connection between the brain and the gut. The brain sends signals to the GI tract and these signals can affect everything from the rate of digestion to levels of inflammation. Ever had a nervous tummy before a big event? That’s your brain talking to your GI tract and your GI tract talking back. The “conversation” flows both ways. When the mind tells the brain it feels stress, anxiety, sadness, fear, even depression, the brain tells the GI system. The GI system reacts by speeding up or slowing down movement in the GI tract and causing inflammation.

Michelle Dossett, MD, PhD, MPH is a Harvard Medical School clinician, a doctor of internal medicine with the University of California, Davis Health, and researches the Mind-Gut connection. According to Dossett, mindfulness, breathing exercises and yoga have been shown to improve the brain-gut conversation resulting in improved mood and decreased anxiety.

This is great evidence of the benefits of practicing emotional intelligence. The better we get at emotional management, the better we become at reframing the Brain-Gut conversation. Interested in this topic? Follow Dr. Dossett on twitter @DrCalm123. Interested in emotional intelligence? Contact me at susan@theeicoach.com