June 6, 2025 • 36 mins
Our gut and brain are connected through a remarkable two-way communication system that impacts our physical and mental health in profound ways. The gut, often called the "second brain," contains millions of neurons and produces 90% of the body's serotonin.
• Stress activates our fight-or-flight response, slowing digestion and creating gut imbalances
• The vagus nerve connects our brain to every organ and plays a crucial role in regulating our stress response
• Trauma and chronic stress can create gut inflammation and disrupt the gut microbiome
• People with PTSD show distinct patterns in their gut bacteria compared to those without trauma
• Healing approaches should include both targeted gut health strategies and stress reduction techniques
• Vagus nerve exercises like humming, cold therapy, and specific yoga poses help activate the parasympathetic "rest and digest" system
• Functional medicine testing can identify specific gut imbalances affecting neurotransmitter production
• Diet, movement, mindfulness, and nature exposure all contribute to balanced gut-brain function
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura (00:02):
Hello and welcome to.
Why Am I Like this?
The podcast for those whodidn't get enough hugs as a
child?
I'm Laura Wood and I'm a traumatherapist.
Michaela (00:12):
And I'm Michaela Beaver.
I'm a psychiatric nursepractitioner.
Laura (00:17):
So, Michaela, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela (00:21):
I'm so glad you asked.
We want to help you understandyourself a bit better how the
things you learned aboutyourself and the world in
childhood are still affectingyou today.
We want to figure out why arewe like this those random things
about ourselves that we mightwonder about, like why am I so
jumpy?
Why am I so anxious?
Why do I take everythingpersonally?
(00:42):
Why are my thoughts so negative?
Why do I feel like I have tofix everything all the time?
Laura (00:48):
Yes, and today we are talking about the gut brain
connection and we're going totry to answer the following
questions how are the gut andbrain connected?
How does stress impact the bodyand how do I find balance?
So let's get into it how arethe gut and brain connected?
Michaela (01:12):
Okay, so I want to start by saying did you know
that the gut is considered thesecond brain?
Laura (01:21):
I did not know that until this episode.
Michaela (01:25):
So the reason that they call it the second brain is
because it has millions ofneurons and it acts as if a
second brain.
It's actually sending moreinformation to your brain than
your brain is actually sendingto it, so it's communicating
what's going on and it'sinfluencing what's going on in
(01:46):
the brain.
Laura (01:47):
That is very interesting, and I've heard something about
like serotonin receptors too.
Michaela (01:56):
Yeah, so neurotransmitters like serotonin
and dopamine are produced inthe gut.
Probably 90% of your serotoninactually lives in your gut, not
in your brain.
Laura (02:09):
That's wild.
And what is serotonin?
Again, it's the one that helpsus with our mood, right, yeah,
so?
Michaela (02:15):
serotonin is like one of our feel good, happy, you
know neurotransmitters thathelps to regulate mood.
It's one of the more, it's oneof the common ones that are
modulated when we're talkingabout like SSRIs or
antidepressants.
Laura (02:33):
Right, like with depression, our brain maybe
needs a little bit moreserotonin.
It's not getting enoughserotonin, or this is a hard one
.
Michaela (02:42):
So we've been operating off of the like
neurotransmitter hypothesis fora long time and I think that we
don't really totally understandwhy it's not a deficiency of
serotonin necessarily Now.
Sometimes it is, but not always.
And so you know, that's wherewhere we kind of we just know
(03:07):
that blocking the reuptake ofserotonin and helping it hang
around longer in many cases doesimprove depression.
But you know we've kind of wedon't really fully understand
the whole way that things areworking and why those things
work sometimes and not in otherpeople.
Laura (03:26):
Yeah, that makes sense, like.
So it doesn't necessarily meanthat I don't make enough
serotonin.
It just might mean that moreserotonin or sorry, serotonin
staying in my brain a little bitlonger than usual could be more
helpful if I'm feelingdepressed, and that's why the
SSRIs are the thing that workfor depression a lot of the time
.
Michaela (03:47):
Sure, yeah Well, and one of the other things that's
really interesting when we lookat organic acid testing, we can
look at the downstream markersthat might indicate, you know,
if, how someone is doing atmaking serotonin and making
dopamine and converting dopamineinto norepinephrine, and
sometimes we can see that therecan be an issue or a breakdown
(04:09):
where, for some reason, we'renot making enough of those
neurotransmitters, and so we caneven look at, you know,
neurotransmitter levels anddifferent things like that to
see.
You know, would this besomething helpful?
So like we would add in, maybelike a supplement like 5-HTP in
some people that can be reallyhelpful because that's the
(04:30):
precursor to serotonin.
Sometimes people even taketryptophan.
Now, don't I don't think you'resupposed to take tryptophan for
long periods of time, but somepeople will even take tryptophan
and find that like that helpswith them falling asleep easier.
But some people are not.
You know, they don't have thebuilding blocks to make these
(04:53):
neurotransmitters as well asthey should.
Laura (04:57):
That's so interesting, and so it's.
I always thought that all thatserotonin lived in our brain,
but now we're saying that itlives in our guts and there are
other neurotransmitters in ourgut as well.
Yeah.
Michaela (05:10):
Well, I mean, think about, you know, the whole body
is connected and so when we havethings in our gut, it can flow
through to our bloodstream andthings cross the blood brain
barrier.
And so you think about, likeyou're eating a diet that has a
bunch of tryptophan and thingsand that is what allows us to
(05:33):
then create serotonin, or youknow, um, you know, having
enough uh zinc in our diet isintegral to being able to make
dopamine.
And so when you know things arenot going well in the gut, it
impacts our brain on multiplelevels, and one of those is that
the things that should begetting through the mucosal
(05:57):
lining aren't getting through,and things that shouldn't get
through are getting through, andthe same thing happens with the
blood brain barrier, and that'sthat can really affect our our
our brain health and our moodoverall.
Laura (06:11):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
So the foods that we eatactually affect not just our gut
but our brain, because our gutis sending so many messages to
our brain all the time.
So it's saying, hey, this iswhat's going on in here.
You know, I have, um, I'm notgetting enough nutrition or
certain nutrients, or I amgetting enough, or I'm getting
(06:33):
too much of this, or I'm notgetting enough of this, like.
So it's basically saying allthe it's telling our brain what
it needs and what it what it has.
And our brain is responding bysending signals to our like, so
to our mind, like our mood andour emotions and our um, maybe
(06:55):
even physical experiences.
Like it's sending pain,physical pain signals or
physical signals of like, umtense, like being tense, or or
um digestive issues.
Like it's saying, hey, this youknow, our brain is is reacting
to our ability to not digestcertain foods or digest certain
(07:18):
foods and kind of speeding thatup or slowing that down.
Michaela (07:23):
Yeah, I think that there's definitely a lot of
communication that's happeningthere and I think that I think
that, like the signs are youthink about, like you know, oh,
I have a craving for this, right?
Maybe there's something in thatfood that your body is trying
to tell you that you need.
I think also, like the way thatit tells you that things maybe
(07:44):
aren't working so great is likewhen we're having a lot of like
bloating or constipation orloose stools and, you know, even
food sensitivities can come outas like rashes on your skin or
acne or things like that, thingslike that.
And so sometimes, like ifthere's a disruption in the gut
(08:06):
microflora, what you're actuallygoing to be seeing is a lot of
brain fog and it can be likefatigue and anxiety and things
like that.
And so you think of like yeast,for example, which is another
thing that we look at on organicacid tests and try to correct
that imbalance or mold orclostridia, whatever.
But with yeast, you oftentimessee people that have like really
(08:29):
big sugar cravings.
Well, those sugar cravings arethere because the yeast is the
most predominant, you know, likeimbalanced overgrowth of these
yeast, and so that is, you know,trying to tell your brain.
We want more sugar so that wecan continue to grow Right
Versus like when you have youever gotten onto like a health
(08:51):
kick and you're not eating sugarand you feel like you're
feeling really good and you'relike I don't even, I'm not even
craving sugar anymore.
It's so weird.
Well, that's because thatimbalance is kind of being
corrected by starving the yeastor whatever, and so then by
starving it, it is making it sothat it, you know, your body is
(09:13):
actually able to regulate itselfbetter.
And so, yeah, there's lots ofthings that can cause imbalances
in the gut, like constipationcan be a second, a primary
reason why you could get adysbiosis of the gut, because
peristalsis actually helps tohave the gut, like it's a way of
(09:36):
keeping the microflora undercheck, in check, right.
So then maybe you got anantibiotic because you had a,
you know, a sinus infection, oryou're a kid and you got an ear
infection and you got on anantibiotic.
Now we've just like wiped outsome of the good bacteria and
then we then we can see, youknow, that's an opportunity for
(09:58):
some of the bad bacteria toovergrow.
Laura (10:01):
So that's why probiotics and prebiotics are so important.
Grow.
So that's why probiotics andprebiotics are so important.
Michaela (10:06):
Yeah, I mean I think that, like, we're still studying
, you know the role ofprobiotics and things like that
and it's still one of my go-tothings, but you know, there is
maybe some evidence coming outthat whether, like, probiotics
are always the right thing, liketo just be on stand at baseline
, and so there's, you know Idon't I haven't read the
(10:27):
literature on this but theremight be some like um
conflicting data that's outthere that you guys should
definitely look up on your own.
I don't know enough to speak onit and say like probiotics are
good or bad at this point, butdid you know that stress can
play an important role on thegut?
Laura (10:48):
Well, I did know that.
I did know that about stress,the stress that we experience in
our bodies and we experiencethat through a variety of ways,
right Like we feel it in ourmuscles, but we feel it in our
gut because one of the fightmechanisms or flight mechanisms
it we feel it in our gut becauseone of the fight mechanisms or
flight mechanisms, it can beactivated in stress.
And when we're stressed and wehave that fight or flight
(11:10):
activated, it often will slowdown our digestive system.
And so we want to slow thatdown because, think about it, if
you're running from a lion, itdoesn't really help to have to
stop to pee because or stop topoo because you're leaving a
trail of yourself and it alsoslows you down.
So the whole idea there is toslow down your digestive system
in order for you to survive athreat.
(11:32):
So when that threat system isactivated it affects your
digestive system.
So a lot of people who havechronic stress and chronic toxic
stress in your life otherwiseyou know trauma or you know high
stress jobs, like a lot, of, alot of people have they can also
notice that in their gut.
Michaela (11:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and I know you talk a lot about like
the vagus nerve.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthat.
Laura (11:59):
Yeah, so a polyvagal nerve, like the polyvagal theory
is based on the fact that thenervous system has a vagus nerve
that is connected all the wayfrom the tip of our brain, the
end of our brain, to the end ofour spine, and it touches every
single organ in our body.
And so that nerve can basicallyupregulate or downregulate the
(12:25):
use or the activity of all ofyour different organs, including
your gut.
And so when that nerve isactivated and sending signals to
your gut to slow down or tospeed up digestion, it's going
to affect how you feel and it'sgoing to affect how your body
reacts.
So like if you are like tryingto go to sleep, your vagus nerve
(12:51):
is responsible for regulatingall of your internal organs and
is responsible for sending allthose signals to your brain and
to your organs that says, likeit's time to go to sleep, like
slow things down, like slow yourheart rate down, relax your you
know muscles, relax your neck,relax your shoulders, like
sending all those signals.
And so the vagus nerve is oneof the most important, or most
(13:15):
like it's one of the biggestimpacts in your entire body.
Every single time you'reinteracting with the world,
you're taking in information,and that's called.
There's a word calledneuroception, and then there's
interoception, and basicallywhat neuroception is is it's the
(13:37):
world around you and inside ofyou.
Basically, all the informationthat you're bringing in is
anticipating whether or not it'sa threat.
So you're saying I've gotinformation coming in and my
brain is going to tell me ifthis thing is safe or if this
thing is dangerous.
It's using all of my fivesenses and it's using my
(13:58):
interoception as well, which isthat sense of my internal self.
So it's using information frommy body from on the inside that
I don't necessarily know about.
Like it's using informationfrom my body from on the inside
that I don't necessarily knowabout.
Like it's using informationfrom my gut.
It's using information from mymuscles and from all the other
organs and it's telling mewhether or not things in my
environment or what I'm doingright now is safe or dangerous.
(14:18):
And then it goes on to activateour fight or flight mechanism
or it activates our shutdownmechanism, but it basically
tells our body what to do nextin the face of that safety or in
the face of that danger.
So if it's safe, it staysregulated.
If there's danger, then itresponds to the threat.
Michaela (14:39):
Yeah, that is.
It's just so interesting.
The more I learned about this,the more that I understand that
all of these mechanisms that aregoing on are really at the core
, all about safety and trying to, you know, make sure that we
you know we talk a lot aboutcortisol, but it's also the
adrenal response, with, you know, epinephrine and the.
(15:09):
You know that adrenal responsesaying like okay, we're
activating the.
You know HPA access, thehypothalamic pituitary adrenal
access, looking at like okay, weneed to like respond to this,
this threat, and so you get thissurge of adrenaline and
adrenaline is the first part ofthe that response systems going
(15:34):
into that what we call fight orflight Right.
Laura (15:37):
And so when we get into that fight or flight, we're
talking about the part of usthat we need to activate, which
is called the parasympatheticnervous system, to activate that
rest and digest, because wedon't want to stay in that
adrenal fight or flight responseif there actually isn't any
danger right, yeah, we need todeactivate all of those systems
(16:03):
in our body that have beenactivated in the face of danger
for our sympathetic nervoussystem, right, our sympathetic
nervous system activates thosedefense mechanisms and then our
parasympathetic nervous systemis used to kind of calm those
things down and turn down thedial.
I guess, in the face of safetyor when the danger is passed,
(16:26):
that's when our parasympatheticnervous system activates.
So we start to yawn or we havea deep sigh or we maybe even let
out tears.
Those are noticeableactivations of our
parasympathetic nervous system,and what our parasympathetic
nervous system will also do isput you back in that, like you
said, rest and digest.
(16:46):
Where our body starts digestingour food and processing that
and then absorb, then we canstart absorbing the nutrients.
Then we can start, you know,utilizing those, the nutrients
that are in our food, and thenwe can start, you know, passing
our waste.
And you know when we're notdoing that if you think about
(17:07):
stress activating oursympathetic nervous system,
which slows down our digestionor even stops it completely
we're not able to absorb thosenutrients, we're not able to get
all those healthy things fromour food and helpful things from
our food, and so ourneurotransmitters are then
affected.
Michaela (17:26):
Right, not only that, but it actually it leads to
leaky gut.
The stress response on its owncan impact that mucosal lining
and disrupt it, so that thethings that we want don't get
through and things that we don'twant to get through, like the
(17:48):
this thing called LPS orlipopolysaccharides, they cross
the blood brain or they cross,they cross the the lining in the
GI tract and can cause a lot ofinflammation in our body.
And so, you know, that's, Ithink, one of the mechanisms
(18:09):
that can lead to in theinflammatory response which it's
very interesting you thinkabout, stress.
Stress can lead towardsmultiple different ways.
It's having a similar effect onour body, but the way that it
affects each person individuallycan be so different.
One person's going to have likedepression and mood stuff,
which you know, you think aboutwhat's happening in the gut is
(18:32):
also happening in the brain,right, that that blood brain
barrier is probably affected aswell, and so.
But one person's going to have,you know, ibs symptoms, where
they're having intermittentconstipation, diarrhea, and then
another person is going to havedepression, and then yet
another person is going todevelop an autoimmune disorder
like Hashimoto's, thyroiditis orinflammatory bowel disease.
(18:55):
But it's all kind of startingfrom the same starting point,
which is the stress response ina lot of cases, make the same
starting point, which is thestress response in a lot of
cases.
And so, you know, you think oftrauma, or even micro trauma,
where you know we're taking allthose small little t traumas and
we're building them up andbuilding them up until they all
they, they represent a huge, youknow, stressor, even though not
(19:18):
each individual one was thatbig.
You know people will say, well,I don't really have trauma in a
normal life, you know, whatever.
But it's, you know, what we'relearning, especially within the
context of neurobiology oftrauma, is that it's not the
thing that happened to us.
That's the big problem.
It's our own internalexperience of that trauma that
(19:40):
makes us get stuck in the traumaresponse.
Laura (19:50):
It's the way our neuroception and interoception
has actually processed, or notprocessed, the event as
something that was safe and orsomething that was dangerous but
now it's over and you're safeagain or something that you
can't get over, something thatwas too big to process.
When we don't process thatinformation all the way, it
sticks us, it keeps us in thattrauma response cycle and that
(20:11):
can cause a lot of issues withour bodies, not just our brains,
because they're connected right, and so there's like vagus
nerve exercises that people doin order to mean to bring back a
sense of safety to our bodies.
So when we do a vagus nerveexercise, we're actually telling
our brain that through ourvagus nerve, we're saying, hey,
(20:36):
you're safe, now Things are okayagain, and so through physical
exercising of your vagus nerve,you're actually utilizing that
and you're utilizing thatmechanism to return to a state
of like homeostasis and activatethat parasympathetic nervous
system to get to rest and digestagain.
Michaela (20:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and what you said made me think
about the ACEs study that wasdone.
What you said made me thinkabout the ACEs study that was
done, looking at people who hadwhat they identified were risk
factors for of early childhoodtrauma, and they looked at their
physical health.
You know, years later, andthere was a direct correlation
(21:18):
between those things thathappened in childhood.
Like, you know, neglect abuse,parents that had mental health.
You know, concerns substanceabuse in parents and it directly
impacted the increased risk ofdiabetes, high blood pressure
and multiple other you knowphysical health conditions in
(21:39):
adulthood.
Laura (21:41):
And there's often a big autoimmune disorder correlation
too.
And the way I think about thatis that our body is responding
to this toxic stress by overactivating our immune system and
it's fighting off this sense oftoxic stress Like, and so it's
not actually fighting a physicalor like an or like a external
(22:07):
pathogen, it's fighting ourinternal experience of stress,
and and that gut brainconnection makes that make so
much sense.
Michaela (22:18):
Yeah, well, and it's really interesting that there
are emerging studies that areshowing that people that have
PTSD exhibit a distinctmicrobiota profile or you know
certain kinds of bugs in theirgut right that are different
(22:40):
than those that don't have PTSD.
Laura (22:44):
That's so interesting, but it makes so much sense,
right?
Because the way that our bodyis able to process information
is similar to the way that ourbody is able to process the
environment and process likeexternal things that are coming
in right, it's not just aboutthe food that we eat, but it's
the air that we breathe, it'sthe you know allergens in the
(23:05):
air, like if our body is unableto process you know just the
data that's coming in because ofthe PTSD which would a marker
of PTSD is being stuck in thattrauma response, being having
flashbacks, the inability toretain certain things.
(23:25):
So it affects your ability tolearn and affects your memory,
your short-term memory andmoving things from short-term
memory to long-term storage.
So it makes a big differencethere.
So, when we're not able toprocess data and information,
why would that be any differentthan our environmental data
that's coming in in the form ofexternal, external things like
(23:47):
allergens, air we breathe.
You know the food we eat.
Michaela (23:51):
Yeah, and I think that , like what they're learning, is
the more that the that these,like you know the microbiota has
a bigger impact on how we kindof you know bacteria microbiota,
then then you know it's goingto impact the neurotransmitter
(24:23):
production and different things,which is going to alter the
stress response and could belinked to the symptoms that
we're actually seeing.
Laura (24:35):
And genetic expression as well.
So, like your epigenetics areaffected by stress in the
environment and then, like thebody takes in that stress and
the environment then activatescertain genes or deactivate, or
doesn't activate them right.
So that's why stressorsenvironmental stressors can
(24:59):
impact the progression or theonset of certain diseases and
disorders in time.
Michaela (25:08):
Yeah, so our brain and our gut are connected in so
many different ways and, youknow, I think that that's where
we have some possibility oftrying to impact our body in a
healthy way is, you know, byrecognizing that the things that
(25:32):
are going to help the goodbacteria be helped and have more
healthy bacteria are the thingsthat are going to ultimately
also make our brains and ourbodies function better.
So, you know, focusing onavoiding some of the, you know,
really highly processed, ultralike sugary, fake sugars, things
(25:58):
like that that are really notgreat for our our, our body in
general, but just specifically,we want to heal the gut.
Now, once the gut is healed,can we tolerate some of those
things?
Sometimes, probably, yeah, likewe're not saying forever, but
you do want to try to recognizethat there's an issue with your
gut and try to heal it so thatyou can have you know better
(26:20):
ourselves access to thenutrients that we need that we
know affect ourneurotransmitters, like I love
what you were saying earlierabout.
Laura (26:41):
You know tryptophan, zinc , some of those things that
directly precede the productionof, like dopamine and serotonin
and other neurotransmitters thatare going to affect our mood
and that are going to alleviateour anxiety.
I know there's a lot ofdifferent foods that you can eat
(27:01):
that are good for your brainand like when we think about
their brain food right, thinkabout superfoods.
Those are things that, throughour gut, is going to send the
signals to our brain and sendthe healthy nutrients to our
brain.
That's going to activate thesignals to our brain and send
the healthy nutrients to ourbrain.
That's going to activate thebalance that we really are
looking for in our lives.
Michaela (27:23):
Yeah, but I think that okay.
So we eat all the healthy foods, we are, you know, challenging
our gut and we're trying to getthings under control, yet we
have this like really high levelof stress and so if we don't
also fix the stress, you know wecan't, we're never going to get
into a place where our gut cantruly heal.
(27:44):
And so things like, you know,stretching and yoga and and you
know, focus on yoga thatactually has more of the
mindfulness and the, you know,brain, you know body connection
pieces versus just, you know,moving from pose to pose to pose
, but where we're actually likedoing more breath work and
(28:05):
things like that can you know,alter that stress response in
our body.
Laura (28:10):
And vagus nerve exercises can help too.
So yoga actually has a lot ofposes.
A lot of yoga poses andexercises in yoga are exercises
that balance out and thatsupport the healthiness of the
vagus nerve.
Things that are other thingsthat are helpful for the vagus
nerve, like things that directlyaffect, like your neck and
(28:31):
throat, like gargling andhumming, are things that can be
calming to your vagus nerve.
Things like it sounds kind ofsilly, but there's a specific
position where you give yourselfa hug and you kind of have your
left hand your left hand overyour chest and your right hand
underneath your left elbow.
(28:52):
You're giving yourself a hug,but what it does is it actually
poses your nervous system in acertain way that helps your
vagus nerve send those signalsof calming to your body and to
your brain and to your body.
So there's lots of veryspecific vagus nerve exercises
that anybody can just look upthat you can do to help find
(29:12):
that balance too.
Michaela (29:14):
And like cold therapy, right, like immersing your
hands or doing like cold plungesand things like that can also
be really positive foractivating the vagus nerve and
increasing vagal tone andimproving your immune system
responses.
Laura (29:32):
Yeah, cold therapy is a really good one.
The you know even somethingwhen I talk to my clients who
have, like high levels ofanxiety, I often recommend like
putting just dipping your facein a cup of in like a bowl of
ice water, or putting your handsin a bowl of ice water, or
sometimes putting an ice pack onyour chest or on your upper
(29:55):
back, like the back of your neck, like those areas specifically,
can help activate that andincrease your vagal tone as well
.
Michaela (30:04):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
One of the other things like at,you know, active healing and at
core self that we do also focuson is the functional medicine
testing, like we had kind oftalked about.
So, you know, looking at what,you know, what's going on in
your stool, sometimes we canfind that there's parasites in
(30:25):
there, we can find that there'san overgrowth of yeast or
clostridia which could be, youknow, impacting the dopamine
system, and, you know, somepeople can end up looking like
they have ADHD symptoms, butit's really that they have this
disruption in their gutmicrobiota, and so we can use
functional medicine inpsychiatry to help us figure out
(30:51):
what is exactly out of whack sothat we can target those things
specifically.
Because you know, if we don'tknow what's going on, then we're
just taking a shot in the dark,and so then you're doing all
these things and you don't feellike you're getting better, and
maybe there's a specific, youknow, approach or plan that we
can lay out for you so that youcan, you know, get the most
(31:11):
benefit out of it without havingto just feel like you're, you
know, torturing yourself, eatinghealthy foods constantly
without feeling like you'regetting any of the benefits.
Laura (31:23):
Well, yeah, and I think it's so important to do that
testing because, like you saidabout probiotics, like it's not
a one size fits all approach,like we need to target those
specific things that are goingon with our own bodies and minds
, and our mind is really, reallypowerful.
We can affect our body healthby making sure that our mind is
(31:43):
healthy too.
So, as you mentioned, whenwe're talking about yoga, like
mindfulness, other things thatare helpful for our mind is
therapy.
Going outside, being in nature,send signals of safety to our
brains, Like when we're likelooking at things that are
growing and looking at the treesthat are blowing in the wind,
and being outside in nature canreally be helpful.
(32:05):
Getting movement every day,movement every day, like regular
exercise, can help make surethat our body stays active and
stays mobile and stays, you know, in in optimum, optimal shape,
like making not just like ourshape, like weight wise, but
(32:28):
just, you know, move it or loseit.
You've got to do them, you'vegot to do the keep your body
healthy.
Michaela (32:34):
I've heard of so many people, even people who are
athletes, that like, really workout regularly where they
weren't doing a good stretchingroutine and just not stretching
me everything feel tight andmade them feel really sick and
then started just addingstretching in.
Then some of that tightness,you know, got better and they
(32:55):
started to feel better because,you know I don't think that you
know, we appreciate this as muchbut like we get a headache and
we feel nauseous and we're like,oh, I have a migraine.
Well, not always is it actualmigraine.
It could be that you have atension headache and so
sometimes, if you have a bandacross your forehead you know
(33:16):
migraines are typicallyunilateral in nature, but if
there's a band across yourforehead and you have, you know,
sometimes that intention inyour neck, your trapezius muscle
goes from the top of your headall the way down to the middle
of your back and so it'sconnected to all these things.
And when we have anxiety andstress, we get increased blood
(33:36):
flow to our neck and one of thecriteria is tension in our neck
and shoulders, tension in ourbody, and so we can clench our
jaw, we can have all thesethings that are connecting that
stress to our body and can causea lot of us to feel sick to our
stomach or not feel great.
And so that's a piece.
And then one of the other thingswhen you were talking I was
(33:58):
thinking about you know thehumming and stuff, and you know
um doing mindful eating.
So not just like mindful eatingbut also like being in your
body when you're eating.
So do a vagal nerve, um, vagaltoning exercise where you like
hum really loudly or sing reallyloudly before you eat and then
(34:19):
take some, you know, slow, deepbreaths and activate.
That rest and digest before youeat will help you and then you
slow down with your eating.
That helps your brain and yourbody be connected while you're
ingesting foods and that canhelp with decreasing the risk of
leaky gut or helping heal thegut, because you're encouraging
(34:40):
digestion when you're eating andthat's going to help you not,
you know, have acid problems andthings like that that will
impact your ability to digestfood.
Laura (34:51):
Yeah, those are all really good tips.
I think that if we put all thattogether, you know we're eating
well, we're focusing on thetargeted areas that our body
specifically needs help with bygetting some testing, by doing
an evaluation and making surewe're targeting our approach.
We're not just doing one sizefits all.
We're getting some movement,we're stretching, we're toning
(35:12):
our vagus nerve.
All of those things are goingto be really, really helpful at
finding balance in our lives andin our minds and in our bodies.
Absolutely, that's so helpful.
Thank you so much for sharingall of this.
This is so helpful.
I learned a ton and I reallyappreciate it.
Michaela (35:30):
Yeah, I love talking about this because it just
reminds me of all the areas thatI know I can improve on too.
Laura (35:37):
Yeah, so that's a really good place to end it for today.
Thank you so much for listeningto why Am I Like this.
If you like our show, pleaseleave us a rating and review on
your favorite podcast platform.
Follow the show and share itwith your friends.
This episode was written andproduced by me, laura Wood and
Michaela Beaver.
Our theme song is Making EndsMeet by Thick as Thieves, and a
(36:00):
special thanks to Core SelfBenavieri Counseling and Active
Healing Psychiatric Services forsponsoring this show.
Hello and welcome to.
Why Am I Like this?
The podcast for those whodidn't get enough hugs as a
child?
I'm Laura Wood and I'm a traumatherapist.
Michaela (00:12):
And I'm Michaela Beaver.
I'm a psychiatric nursepractitioner.
Laura (00:17):
So, Michaela, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela (00:21):
I'm so glad you asked.
We want to help you understandyourself a bit better how the
things you learned aboutyourself and the world in
childhood are still affectingyou today.
We want to figure out why arewe like this those random things
about ourselves that we mightwonder about, like why am I so
jumpy?
Why am I so anxious?
Why do I take everythingpersonally?
(00:42):
Why are my thoughts so negative?
Why do I feel like I have tofix everything all the time?
Laura (00:48):
Yes, and today we are talking about the gut brain
connection and we're going totry to answer the following
questions how are the gut andbrain connected?
How does stress impact the bodyand how do I find balance?
So let's get into it how arethe gut and brain connected?
Michaela (01:12):
Okay, so I want to start by saying did you know
that the gut is considered thesecond brain?
Laura (01:21):
I did not know that until this episode.
Michaela (01:25):
So the reason that they call it the second brain is
because it has millions ofneurons and it acts as if a
second brain.
It's actually sending moreinformation to your brain than
your brain is actually sendingto it, so it's communicating
what's going on and it'sinfluencing what's going on in
(01:46):
the brain.
Laura (01:47):
That is very interesting, and I've heard something about
like serotonin receptors too.
Michaela (01:56):
Yeah, so neurotransmitters like serotonin
and dopamine are produced inthe gut.
Probably 90% of your serotoninactually lives in your gut, not
in your brain.
Laura (02:09):
That's wild.
And what is serotonin?
Again, it's the one that helpsus with our mood, right, yeah,
so?
Michaela (02:15):
serotonin is like one of our feel good, happy, you
know neurotransmitters thathelps to regulate mood.
It's one of the more, it's oneof the common ones that are
modulated when we're talkingabout like SSRIs or
antidepressants.
Laura (02:33):
Right, like with depression, our brain maybe
needs a little bit moreserotonin.
It's not getting enoughserotonin, or this is a hard one
.
Michaela (02:42):
So we've been operating off of the like
neurotransmitter hypothesis fora long time and I think that we
don't really totally understandwhy it's not a deficiency of
serotonin necessarily Now.
Sometimes it is, but not always.
And so you know, that's wherewhere we kind of we just know
(03:07):
that blocking the reuptake ofserotonin and helping it hang
around longer in many cases doesimprove depression.
But you know we've kind of wedon't really fully understand
the whole way that things areworking and why those things
work sometimes and not in otherpeople.
Laura (03:26):
Yeah, that makes sense, like.
So it doesn't necessarily meanthat I don't make enough
serotonin.
It just might mean that moreserotonin or sorry, serotonin
staying in my brain a little bitlonger than usual could be more
helpful if I'm feelingdepressed, and that's why the
SSRIs are the thing that workfor depression a lot of the time
.
Michaela (03:47):
Sure, yeah Well, and one of the other things that's
really interesting when we lookat organic acid testing, we can
look at the downstream markersthat might indicate, you know,
if, how someone is doing atmaking serotonin and making
dopamine and converting dopamineinto norepinephrine, and
sometimes we can see that therecan be an issue or a breakdown
(04:09):
where, for some reason, we'renot making enough of those
neurotransmitters, and so we caneven look at, you know,
neurotransmitter levels anddifferent things like that to
see.
You know, would this besomething helpful?
So like we would add in, maybelike a supplement like 5-HTP in
some people that can be reallyhelpful because that's the
(04:30):
precursor to serotonin.
Sometimes people even taketryptophan.
Now, don't I don't think you'resupposed to take tryptophan for
long periods of time, but somepeople will even take tryptophan
and find that like that helpswith them falling asleep easier.
But some people are not.
You know, they don't have thebuilding blocks to make these
(04:53):
neurotransmitters as well asthey should.
Laura (04:57):
That's so interesting, and so it's.
I always thought that all thatserotonin lived in our brain,
but now we're saying that itlives in our guts and there are
other neurotransmitters in ourgut as well.
Yeah.
Michaela (05:10):
Well, I mean, think about, you know, the whole body
is connected and so when we havethings in our gut, it can flow
through to our bloodstream andthings cross the blood brain
barrier.
And so you think about, likeyou're eating a diet that has a
bunch of tryptophan and thingsand that is what allows us to
(05:33):
then create serotonin, or youknow, um, you know, having
enough uh zinc in our diet isintegral to being able to make
dopamine.
And so when you know things arenot going well in the gut, it
impacts our brain on multiplelevels, and one of those is that
the things that should begetting through the mucosal
(05:57):
lining aren't getting through,and things that shouldn't get
through are getting through, andthe same thing happens with the
blood brain barrier, and that'sthat can really affect our our
our brain health and our moodoverall.
Laura (06:11):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
So the foods that we eatactually affect not just our gut
but our brain, because our gutis sending so many messages to
our brain all the time.
So it's saying, hey, this iswhat's going on in here.
You know, I have, um, I'm notgetting enough nutrition or
certain nutrients, or I amgetting enough, or I'm getting
(06:33):
too much of this, or I'm notgetting enough of this, like.
So it's basically saying allthe it's telling our brain what
it needs and what it what it has.
And our brain is responding bysending signals to our like, so
to our mind, like our mood andour emotions and our um, maybe
(06:55):
even physical experiences.
Like it's sending pain,physical pain signals or
physical signals of like, umtense, like being tense, or or
um digestive issues.
Like it's saying, hey, this youknow, our brain is is reacting
to our ability to not digestcertain foods or digest certain
(07:18):
foods and kind of speeding thatup or slowing that down.
Michaela (07:23):
Yeah, I think that there's definitely a lot of
communication that's happeningthere and I think that I think
that, like the signs are youthink about, like you know, oh,
I have a craving for this, right?
Maybe there's something in thatfood that your body is trying
to tell you that you need.
I think also, like the way thatit tells you that things maybe
(07:44):
aren't working so great is likewhen we're having a lot of like
bloating or constipation orloose stools and, you know, even
food sensitivities can come outas like rashes on your skin or
acne or things like that, thingslike that.
And so sometimes, like ifthere's a disruption in the gut
(08:06):
microflora, what you're actuallygoing to be seeing is a lot of
brain fog and it can be likefatigue and anxiety and things
like that.
And so you think of like yeast,for example, which is another
thing that we look at on organicacid tests and try to correct
that imbalance or mold orclostridia, whatever.
But with yeast, you oftentimessee people that have like really
(08:29):
big sugar cravings.
Well, those sugar cravings arethere because the yeast is the
most predominant, you know, likeimbalanced overgrowth of these
yeast, and so that is, you know,trying to tell your brain.
We want more sugar so that wecan continue to grow Right
Versus like when you have youever gotten onto like a health
(08:51):
kick and you're not eating sugarand you feel like you're
feeling really good and you'relike I don't even, I'm not even
craving sugar anymore.
It's so weird.
Well, that's because thatimbalance is kind of being
corrected by starving the yeastor whatever, and so then by
starving it, it is making it sothat it, you know, your body is
(09:13):
actually able to regulate itselfbetter.
And so, yeah, there's lots ofthings that can cause imbalances
in the gut, like constipationcan be a second, a primary
reason why you could get adysbiosis of the gut, because
peristalsis actually helps tohave the gut, like it's a way of
(09:36):
keeping the microflora undercheck, in check, right.
So then maybe you got anantibiotic because you had a,
you know, a sinus infection, oryou're a kid and you got an ear
infection and you got on anantibiotic.
Now we've just like wiped outsome of the good bacteria and
then we then we can see, youknow, that's an opportunity for
(09:58):
some of the bad bacteria toovergrow.
Laura (10:01):
So that's why probiotics and prebiotics are so important.
Grow.
So that's why probiotics andprebiotics are so important.
Michaela (10:06):
Yeah, I mean I think that, like, we're still studying
, you know the role ofprobiotics and things like that
and it's still one of my go-tothings, but you know, there is
maybe some evidence coming outthat whether, like, probiotics
are always the right thing, liketo just be on stand at baseline
, and so there's, you know Idon't I haven't read the
(10:27):
literature on this but theremight be some like um
conflicting data that's outthere that you guys should
definitely look up on your own.
I don't know enough to speak onit and say like probiotics are
good or bad at this point, butdid you know that stress can
play an important role on thegut?
Laura (10:48):
Well, I did know that.
I did know that about stress,the stress that we experience in
our bodies and we experiencethat through a variety of ways,
right Like we feel it in ourmuscles, but we feel it in our
gut because one of the fightmechanisms or flight mechanisms
it we feel it in our gut becauseone of the fight mechanisms or
flight mechanisms, it can beactivated in stress.
And when we're stressed and wehave that fight or flight
(11:10):
activated, it often will slowdown our digestive system.
And so we want to slow thatdown because, think about it, if
you're running from a lion, itdoesn't really help to have to
stop to pee because or stop topoo because you're leaving a
trail of yourself and it alsoslows you down.
So the whole idea there is toslow down your digestive system
in order for you to survive athreat.
(11:32):
So when that threat system isactivated it affects your
digestive system.
So a lot of people who havechronic stress and chronic toxic
stress in your life otherwiseyou know trauma or you know high
stress jobs, like a lot, of, alot of people have they can also
notice that in their gut.
Michaela (11:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and I know you talk a lot about like
the vagus nerve.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthat.
Laura (11:59):
Yeah, so a polyvagal nerve, like the polyvagal theory
is based on the fact that thenervous system has a vagus nerve
that is connected all the wayfrom the tip of our brain, the
end of our brain, to the end ofour spine, and it touches every
single organ in our body.
And so that nerve can basicallyupregulate or downregulate the
(12:25):
use or the activity of all ofyour different organs, including
your gut.
And so when that nerve isactivated and sending signals to
your gut to slow down or tospeed up digestion, it's going
to affect how you feel and it'sgoing to affect how your body
reacts.
So like if you are like tryingto go to sleep, your vagus nerve
(12:51):
is responsible for regulatingall of your internal organs and
is responsible for sending allthose signals to your brain and
to your organs that says, likeit's time to go to sleep, like
slow things down, like slow yourheart rate down, relax your you
know muscles, relax your neck,relax your shoulders, like
sending all those signals.
And so the vagus nerve is oneof the most important, or most
(13:15):
like it's one of the biggestimpacts in your entire body.
Every single time you'reinteracting with the world,
you're taking in information,and that's called.
There's a word calledneuroception, and then there's
interoception, and basicallywhat neuroception is is it's the
(13:37):
world around you and inside ofyou.
Basically, all the informationthat you're bringing in is
anticipating whether or not it'sa threat.
So you're saying I've gotinformation coming in and my
brain is going to tell me ifthis thing is safe or if this
thing is dangerous.
It's using all of my fivesenses and it's using my
(13:58):
interoception as well, which isthat sense of my internal self.
So it's using information frommy body from on the inside that
I don't necessarily know about.
Like it's using informationfrom my body from on the inside
that I don't necessarily knowabout.
Like it's using informationfrom my gut.
It's using information from mymuscles and from all the other
organs and it's telling mewhether or not things in my
environment or what I'm doingright now is safe or dangerous.
(14:18):
And then it goes on to activateour fight or flight mechanism
or it activates our shutdownmechanism, but it basically
tells our body what to do nextin the face of that safety or in
the face of that danger.
So if it's safe, it staysregulated.
If there's danger, then itresponds to the threat.
Michaela (14:39):
Yeah, that is.
It's just so interesting.
The more I learned about this,the more that I understand that
all of these mechanisms that aregoing on are really at the core
, all about safety and trying to, you know, make sure that we
you know we talk a lot aboutcortisol, but it's also the
adrenal response, with, you know, epinephrine and the.
(15:09):
You know that adrenal responsesaying like okay, we're
activating the.
You know HPA access, thehypothalamic pituitary adrenal
access, looking at like okay, weneed to like respond to this,
this threat, and so you get thissurge of adrenaline and
adrenaline is the first part ofthe that response systems going
(15:34):
into that what we call fight orflight Right.
Laura (15:37):
And so when we get into that fight or flight, we're
talking about the part of usthat we need to activate, which
is called the parasympatheticnervous system, to activate that
rest and digest, because wedon't want to stay in that
adrenal fight or flight responseif there actually isn't any
danger right, yeah, we need todeactivate all of those systems
(16:03):
in our body that have beenactivated in the face of danger
for our sympathetic nervoussystem, right, our sympathetic
nervous system activates thosedefense mechanisms and then our
parasympathetic nervous systemis used to kind of calm those
things down and turn down thedial.
I guess, in the face of safetyor when the danger is passed,
(16:26):
that's when our parasympatheticnervous system activates.
So we start to yawn or we havea deep sigh or we maybe even let
out tears.
Those are noticeableactivations of our
parasympathetic nervous system,and what our parasympathetic
nervous system will also do isput you back in that, like you
said, rest and digest.
(16:46):
Where our body starts digestingour food and processing that
and then absorb, then we canstart absorbing the nutrients.
Then we can start, you know,utilizing those, the nutrients
that are in our food, and thenwe can start, you know, passing
our waste.
And you know when we're notdoing that if you think about
(17:07):
stress activating oursympathetic nervous system,
which slows down our digestionor even stops it completely
we're not able to absorb thosenutrients, we're not able to get
all those healthy things fromour food and helpful things from
our food, and so ourneurotransmitters are then
affected.
Michaela (17:26):
Right, not only that, but it actually it leads to
leaky gut.
The stress response on its owncan impact that mucosal lining
and disrupt it, so that thethings that we want don't get
through and things that we don'twant to get through, like the
(17:48):
this thing called LPS orlipopolysaccharides, they cross
the blood brain or they cross,they cross the the lining in the
GI tract and can cause a lot ofinflammation in our body.
And so, you know, that's, Ithink, one of the mechanisms
(18:09):
that can lead to in theinflammatory response which it's
very interesting you thinkabout, stress.
Stress can lead towardsmultiple different ways.
It's having a similar effect onour body, but the way that it
affects each person individuallycan be so different.
One person's going to have likedepression and mood stuff,
which you know, you think aboutwhat's happening in the gut is
(18:32):
also happening in the brain,right, that that blood brain
barrier is probably affected aswell, and so.
But one person's going to have,you know, ibs symptoms, where
they're having intermittentconstipation, diarrhea, and then
another person is going to havedepression, and then yet
another person is going todevelop an autoimmune disorder
like Hashimoto's, thyroiditis orinflammatory bowel disease.
(18:55):
But it's all kind of startingfrom the same starting point,
which is the stress response ina lot of cases, make the same
starting point, which is thestress response in a lot of
cases.
And so, you know, you think oftrauma, or even micro trauma,
where you know we're taking allthose small little t traumas and
we're building them up andbuilding them up until they all
they, they represent a huge, youknow, stressor, even though not
(19:18):
each individual one was thatbig.
You know people will say, well,I don't really have trauma in a
normal life, you know, whatever.
But it's, you know, what we'relearning, especially within the
context of neurobiology oftrauma, is that it's not the
thing that happened to us.
That's the big problem.
It's our own internalexperience of that trauma that
(19:40):
makes us get stuck in the traumaresponse.
Laura (19:50):
It's the way our neuroception and interoception
has actually processed, or notprocessed, the event as
something that was safe and orsomething that was dangerous but
now it's over and you're safeagain or something that you
can't get over, something thatwas too big to process.
When we don't process thatinformation all the way, it
sticks us, it keeps us in thattrauma response cycle and that
(20:11):
can cause a lot of issues withour bodies, not just our brains,
because they're connected right, and so there's like vagus
nerve exercises that people doin order to mean to bring back a
sense of safety to our bodies.
So when we do a vagus nerveexercise, we're actually telling
our brain that through ourvagus nerve, we're saying, hey,
(20:36):
you're safe, now Things are okayagain, and so through physical
exercising of your vagus nerve,you're actually utilizing that
and you're utilizing thatmechanism to return to a state
of like homeostasis and activatethat parasympathetic nervous
system to get to rest and digestagain.
Michaela (20:56):
Yeah, absolutely, and what you said made me think
about the ACEs study that wasdone.
What you said made me thinkabout the ACEs study that was
done, looking at people who hadwhat they identified were risk
factors for of early childhoodtrauma, and they looked at their
physical health.
You know, years later, andthere was a direct correlation
(21:18):
between those things thathappened in childhood.
Like, you know, neglect abuse,parents that had mental health.
You know, concerns substanceabuse in parents and it directly
impacted the increased risk ofdiabetes, high blood pressure
and multiple other you knowphysical health conditions in
(21:39):
adulthood.
Laura (21:41):
And there's often a big autoimmune disorder correlation
too.
And the way I think about thatis that our body is responding
to this toxic stress by overactivating our immune system and
it's fighting off this sense oftoxic stress Like, and so it's
not actually fighting a physicalor like an or like a external
(22:07):
pathogen, it's fighting ourinternal experience of stress,
and and that gut brainconnection makes that make so
much sense.
Michaela (22:18):
Yeah, well, and it's really interesting that there
are emerging studies that areshowing that people that have
PTSD exhibit a distinctmicrobiota profile or you know
certain kinds of bugs in theirgut right that are different
(22:40):
than those that don't have PTSD.
Laura (22:44):
That's so interesting, but it makes so much sense,
right?
Because the way that our bodyis able to process information
is similar to the way that ourbody is able to process the
environment and process likeexternal things that are coming
in right, it's not just aboutthe food that we eat, but it's
the air that we breathe, it'sthe you know allergens in the
(23:05):
air, like if our body is unableto process you know just the
data that's coming in because ofthe PTSD which would a marker
of PTSD is being stuck in thattrauma response, being having
flashbacks, the inability toretain certain things.
(23:25):
So it affects your ability tolearn and affects your memory,
your short-term memory andmoving things from short-term
memory to long-term storage.
So it makes a big differencethere.
So, when we're not able toprocess data and information,
why would that be any differentthan our environmental data
that's coming in in the form ofexternal, external things like
(23:47):
allergens, air we breathe.
You know the food we eat.
Michaela (23:51):
Yeah, and I think that , like what they're learning, is
the more that the that these,like you know the microbiota has
a bigger impact on how we kindof you know bacteria microbiota,
then then you know it's goingto impact the neurotransmitter
(24:23):
production and different things,which is going to alter the
stress response and could belinked to the symptoms that
we're actually seeing.
Laura (24:35):
And genetic expression as well.
So, like your epigenetics areaffected by stress in the
environment and then, like thebody takes in that stress and
the environment then activatescertain genes or deactivate, or
doesn't activate them right.
So that's why stressorsenvironmental stressors can
(24:59):
impact the progression or theonset of certain diseases and
disorders in time.
Michaela (25:08):
Yeah, so our brain and our gut are connected in so
many different ways and, youknow, I think that that's where
we have some possibility oftrying to impact our body in a
healthy way is, you know, byrecognizing that the things that
(25:32):
are going to help the goodbacteria be helped and have more
healthy bacteria are the thingsthat are going to ultimately
also make our brains and ourbodies function better.
So, you know, focusing onavoiding some of the, you know,
really highly processed, ultralike sugary, fake sugars, things
(25:58):
like that that are really notgreat for our our, our body in
general, but just specifically,we want to heal the gut.
Now, once the gut is healed,can we tolerate some of those
things?
Sometimes, probably, yeah, likewe're not saying forever, but
you do want to try to recognizethat there's an issue with your
gut and try to heal it so thatyou can have you know better
(26:20):
ourselves access to thenutrients that we need that we
know affect ourneurotransmitters, like I love
what you were saying earlierabout.
Laura (26:41):
You know tryptophan, zinc , some of those things that
directly precede the productionof, like dopamine and serotonin
and other neurotransmitters thatare going to affect our mood
and that are going to alleviateour anxiety.
I know there's a lot ofdifferent foods that you can eat
(27:01):
that are good for your brainand like when we think about
their brain food right, thinkabout superfoods.
Those are things that, throughour gut, is going to send the
signals to our brain and sendthe healthy nutrients to our
brain.
That's going to activate thesignals to our brain and send
the healthy nutrients to ourbrain.
That's going to activate thebalance that we really are
looking for in our lives.
Michaela (27:23):
Yeah, but I think that okay.
So we eat all the healthy foods, we are, you know, challenging
our gut and we're trying to getthings under control, yet we
have this like really high levelof stress and so if we don't
also fix the stress, you know wecan't, we're never going to get
into a place where our gut cantruly heal.
(27:44):
And so things like, you know,stretching and yoga and and you
know, focus on yoga thatactually has more of the
mindfulness and the, you know,brain, you know body connection
pieces versus just, you know,moving from pose to pose to pose
, but where we're actually likedoing more breath work and
(28:05):
things like that can you know,alter that stress response in
our body.
Laura (28:10):
And vagus nerve exercises can help too.
So yoga actually has a lot ofposes.
A lot of yoga poses andexercises in yoga are exercises
that balance out and thatsupport the healthiness of the
vagus nerve.
Things that are other thingsthat are helpful for the vagus
nerve, like things that directlyaffect, like your neck and
(28:31):
throat, like gargling andhumming, are things that can be
calming to your vagus nerve.
Things like it sounds kind ofsilly, but there's a specific
position where you give yourselfa hug and you kind of have your
left hand your left hand overyour chest and your right hand
underneath your left elbow.
(28:52):
You're giving yourself a hug,but what it does is it actually
poses your nervous system in acertain way that helps your
vagus nerve send those signalsof calming to your body and to
your brain and to your body.
So there's lots of veryspecific vagus nerve exercises
that anybody can just look upthat you can do to help find
(29:12):
that balance too.
Michaela (29:14):
And like cold therapy, right, like immersing your
hands or doing like cold plungesand things like that can also
be really positive foractivating the vagus nerve and
increasing vagal tone andimproving your immune system
responses.
Laura (29:32):
Yeah, cold therapy is a really good one.
The you know even somethingwhen I talk to my clients who
have, like high levels ofanxiety, I often recommend like
putting just dipping your facein a cup of in like a bowl of
ice water, or putting your handsin a bowl of ice water, or
sometimes putting an ice pack onyour chest or on your upper
(29:55):
back, like the back of your neck, like those areas specifically,
can help activate that andincrease your vagal tone as well
.
Michaela (30:04):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
One of the other things like at,you know, active healing and at
core self that we do also focuson is the functional medicine
testing, like we had kind oftalked about.
So, you know, looking at what,you know, what's going on in
your stool, sometimes we canfind that there's parasites in
(30:25):
there, we can find that there'san overgrowth of yeast or
clostridia which could be, youknow, impacting the dopamine
system, and, you know, somepeople can end up looking like
they have ADHD symptoms, butit's really that they have this
disruption in their gutmicrobiota, and so we can use
functional medicine inpsychiatry to help us figure out
(30:51):
what is exactly out of whack sothat we can target those things
specifically.
Because you know, if we don'tknow what's going on, then we're
just taking a shot in the dark,and so then you're doing all
these things and you don't feellike you're getting better, and
maybe there's a specific, youknow, approach or plan that we
can lay out for you so that youcan, you know, get the most
(31:11):
benefit out of it without havingto just feel like you're, you
know, torturing yourself, eatinghealthy foods constantly
without feeling like you'regetting any of the benefits.
Laura (31:23):
Well, yeah, and I think it's so important to do that
testing because, like you saidabout probiotics, like it's not
a one size fits all approach,like we need to target those
specific things that are goingon with our own bodies and minds
, and our mind is really, reallypowerful.
We can affect our body healthby making sure that our mind is
(31:43):
healthy too.
So, as you mentioned, whenwe're talking about yoga, like
mindfulness, other things thatare helpful for our mind is
therapy.
Going outside, being in nature,send signals of safety to our
brains, Like when we're likelooking at things that are
growing and looking at the treesthat are blowing in the wind,
and being outside in nature canreally be helpful.
(32:05):
Getting movement every day,movement every day, like regular
exercise, can help make surethat our body stays active and
stays mobile and stays, you know, in in optimum, optimal shape,
like making not just like ourshape, like weight wise, but
(32:28):
just, you know, move it or loseit.
You've got to do them, you'vegot to do the keep your body
healthy.
Michaela (32:34):
I've heard of so many people, even people who are
athletes, that like, really workout regularly where they
weren't doing a good stretchingroutine and just not stretching
me everything feel tight andmade them feel really sick and
then started just addingstretching in.
Then some of that tightness,you know, got better and they
(32:55):
started to feel better because,you know I don't think that you
know, we appreciate this as muchbut like we get a headache and
we feel nauseous and we're like,oh, I have a migraine.
Well, not always is it actualmigraine.
It could be that you have atension headache and so
sometimes, if you have a bandacross your forehead you know
(33:16):
migraines are typicallyunilateral in nature, but if
there's a band across yourforehead and you have, you know,
sometimes that intention inyour neck, your trapezius muscle
goes from the top of your headall the way down to the middle
of your back and so it'sconnected to all these things.
And when we have anxiety andstress, we get increased blood
(33:36):
flow to our neck and one of thecriteria is tension in our neck
and shoulders, tension in ourbody, and so we can clench our
jaw, we can have all thesethings that are connecting that
stress to our body and can causea lot of us to feel sick to our
stomach or not feel great.
And so that's a piece.
And then one of the other thingswhen you were talking I was
(33:58):
thinking about you know thehumming and stuff, and you know
um doing mindful eating.
So not just like mindful eatingbut also like being in your
body when you're eating.
So do a vagal nerve, um, vagaltoning exercise where you like
hum really loudly or sing reallyloudly before you eat and then
(34:19):
take some, you know, slow, deepbreaths and activate.
That rest and digest before youeat will help you and then you
slow down with your eating.
That helps your brain and yourbody be connected while you're
ingesting foods and that canhelp with decreasing the risk of
leaky gut or helping heal thegut, because you're encouraging
(34:40):
digestion when you're eating andthat's going to help you not,
you know, have acid problems andthings like that that will
impact your ability to digestfood.
Laura (34:51):
Yeah, those are all really good tips.
I think that if we put all thattogether, you know we're eating
well, we're focusing on thetargeted areas that our body
specifically needs help with bygetting some testing, by doing
an evaluation and making surewe're targeting our approach.
We're not just doing one sizefits all.
We're getting some movement,we're stretching, we're toning
(35:12):
our vagus nerve.
All of those things are goingto be really, really helpful at
finding balance in our lives andin our minds and in our bodies.
Absolutely, that's so helpful.
Thank you so much for sharingall of this.
This is so helpful.
I learned a ton and I reallyappreciate it.
Michaela (35:30):
Yeah, I love talking about this because it just
reminds me of all the areas thatI know I can improve on too.
Laura (35:37):
Yeah, so that's a really good place to end it for today.
Thank you so much for listeningto why Am I Like this.
If you like our show, pleaseleave us a rating and review on
your favorite podcast platform.
Follow the show and share itwith your friends.
This episode was written andproduced by me, laura Wood and
Michaela Beaver.
Our theme song is Making EndsMeet by Thick as Thieves, and a
(36:00):
special thanks to Core SelfBenavieri Counseling and Active
Healing Psychiatric Services forsponsoring this show.
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