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We all know the saying “trust your gut,” but is your gut just a metaphorical source of intuition? Or is it a real player in your mental health? Your gut might be more connected to your anxiety than you realize. Medicine in the past would view the digestive system as separate from the brain. However we are now learning that these are closely connected through the concept of the gut-brain access. In this post, we’ll dive into how the health of your gut could influence your anxiety—and explore steps you can take to improve both your gut and your mental health. Win-win.

What is the gut-brain connection?

The gut-brain connection refers to the bidirectional communication system between the gastrointestinal (GI) tract (gut) and the central nervous system (brain). This connection is facilitated by a complex network of nerves, hormones, and chemicals that enable constant communication and influence between the two systems.

The gut and the brain are connected through what’s called the vagus nerve, which runs from the brainstem to the abdomen.

Key aspects characterize this gut-brain connection:

1. Communication

The gut and the brain send signals back and forth through the nervous system and chemical messengers. For example, when you’re hungry or 

2. Emotional influence

Where imbalances in gut health can impact mood and emotional well-being.

3. Microbiota

The gut is home to trillions of bacteria, collectively known as the gut microbiota. These microbes play a crucial role in various aspects of health, including digestion, metabolism, and immune function. Emerging research suggests that the gut microbiota can also influence brain function and behavior as in the emotional influence.

4. Stress response

This connection is particularly evident in the stress response. Stress and anxiety can affect gut function, leading to symptoms like stomach pain, cramps, or diarrhea. Conversely, digestive issues can trigger or exacerbate stress and anxiety. That two way connection. You also may experience your body reacting to stressors before your brain even realizing they are there. This is specifically evident with emotional trauma. 

5. Health implications

The gut-brain connection also impacts various health conditions. For example, individuals with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) often experience worsened symptoms during periods of stress.

Let’s make this more simple. When you see someone undergo severe emotional trauma, you may witness a digestive function following, for example- vomiting. That is the brain signaling to the body and causing a bodily reaction. 

The same is at play in the other direction. Once a client told me she can’t eat any chocolate mint, because the smell makes her nausous. But behind that, there is the story of Andes candies being served at her grandmother funeral. That smell signals to discomfort to her body and she experiences real body symptoms because of it. 

Think of when you’re considering a major life decision, but you FEEL unsure. There’s your gut talking to your brain. What we see is that the digestive system on its own functions well without interference from the brain, but the brain does seem to depend greatly on the gut for its own information. 

Understanding the gut-brain connection is vital for overall health and well-being. A healthy gut can positively influence brain function, emotional balance, and vice versa. Maintaining a balanced diet, managing stress, and nurturing gut health through probiotics and a fiber-rich diet these would all contribute to a healthier gut-brain axis.        

          

How does this apply to you?

The microbiota                                                                                                                                   

Examining the state of the gut can be a crucial step in recovery when brain performance has been impaired. The health of the gut microbiota is extremely influential to the state of the brain, and improving gut health can make a tangible change in brain performance. 

These microbiota’s benefit the body by aiding in digestion, regulating the body’s metabolism, detoxifying dangerous chemicals that we would ingest with our food+ training and regulating the immune system and the prevention of invasion and growth of other pathogens. 

When the state of the gut is optimized,  the body’s health can then be optimized we want the ecosystem to be stable and resilient against invaders and inflammation. Currently we see that when the gut microbiota is positively influence, brain + emotion health is also positively influenced. 

One study I had recently read, took females and had them ingest probiotic rich yogurt for four weeks and what they noticed was that when they compare the results to those without the probiotics, they were able to respond better to negative emotional stimuli than those that did not ingest the probiotics.

But wait, don’t just run and grab a probiotic off the shelf.

Probiotics are quite different from form to form. The safest (and cheapest) option would be to use the food first approach.

Even just 1 tablespoon of sauerkraut each day can be enough for some people.

More on this later on.

Chronic stress

We need to look to lower stress, and not only stress coming in from outside sources- like job or personal relationships. The body also receives stress from sleep deprivation, menstrual period, infections, food intolerances ect. I personally like to see stress and inflammation at 1 thing. Since stress causes inflammation and inflammation causes stress. When working on one of these, you are also working to improve the other.

Related: Chronic stress and poor sleep cycle: how to fix it

Inflammation is a natural response of the body’s immune system to harmful stimuli, such as stress we just mentioned. It is a complex process that involves the release of various chemicals and immune cells to the affected area. The purpose -is to protect the body, eliminate the harmful agents, and initiate the healing process. You may easier think of inflammation as swollen, redness, itchy or heat. While acute inflammation like that is essential for healing, chronic inflammation can be harmful and is linked to various health conditions. 

And other times we see this natural healthy immune response go rouge and sabotage our own health in the case of auto-immune diseases. 

What we are talking about here is gut inflammation. In these chronic cases of gut inflammation has turned into inflammation in the brain. “As for neuroinflammatory diseases, in most cases, the neuroinflammatory state does not originate in the central nervous system (CNS), but is thought to come from a chronic systemic inflammation (CSI).  (Riccio 2019)” This is talking about things like body inflammation, food intolerances, Lyme disease etc. Anything that originates with inflammation, when left to grow it can lead into brain inflammation. 

This shows up in various ways, like:

Headaches

Anxiety or Depression

Mood changes

Poor concentration and forgetfulness

Decision fatigue

Brain fog

Sleep issues

Sensory changes like vision or hearing

Related: How to eliminate decision fatigue

For example, I had years of battling strange body inflammation + headaches before I was ever diagnosed with severe OCD. I never experienced any OCD symptoms until my health continued to decline. And suddenly, it was unavoidable. 

As my inflammation was addressed, and as my OCD was properly address- they both began to dissipate. Before beginning treatments, they were feeding each other. After treatment they started to work to calm each other. 

This topic is an area of sometimes heated arguments where some quality practitioners have jumped to drastic assumptions and began blaming mental health conditions on things like food intolerances. This can be disheartening to hear when you are struggling daily with your disorder, and someone simplifies it too much. There are still genetic components to be considered.

Genetics load the gun, environment pulls the trigger. 

I want you to know that even though there is a relationship, it is more thought of as an indirect effect. The same would be when someone says they sleep better when they exercise the day before. The exercise itself does NOT improve the sleep. But it improves the body’s metabolism and hormones, the circadian rhythm, blood sugar balance which all together do work to aid in sleep performance. 

Correlation does not mean causation, however there is a undeniable relationship and working at the two simultaneously can give you the best results. And there is a strong correlation between diet and mental health.

Related: Best food for OCD depression and anxiety

How can you change gut inflammation?

To improve the state of the gut microbiome the first step would be to LOWER the stress or inflammation. 

Oxidative stress like environmental exposure, toxic metals, mold perhaps or even just chronic life stress or poor health. Even something I come across quite often with clients is difficulty detoxing well.

This is also when food intolerances would be considered. 

A food intolerance is NOT the same as an allergy when they come from completely different parts of immune reactions. 

An intolerance would be a poor reaction to a certain food in a delayed response. An allergic response is within minutes or hours. An intolerance can show up to 72 hours later. 

There are food sensitivity testing that looks at IGG or cell mediates response to certain foods and you are given a sheet that clearly tell you which foods your body is responding to in this hyperinflammatory way. But that’s not the end of the story. WHY is your body responding in this way?

More information on food sensitivities check out this podcast from Just Ingredients: Bloating to brain for: recognizing food sensitivities with Stephen Cabral

Could it be leaky gut?

Leaky gut is a term used to reference the walls of the gut lining becoming impaired or thin that they allow invaders in and out of the gut leading to an immune response like food intolerances. When the immune system sees foreign invaders circulating the blood stream- they ate trained to attack it. 

What we often see with food intolerances is, it usually is the clients FAVORITE foods. When they eliminate one… they then have to eliminate another… and so on. Because they haven’t fixed the core issue.

Food is not the problem. Food may be increasing the inflammation- so eliminating it short term may be beneficial- but it is not addressing the root cause. 

I do offer food sensitivity testing in my practice as a way to speed up the healing process by lowering the inflammation quicker.

Related: How to improve gut health

There are also foods that can cause inflammation- not by an immune response, but because the body is struggling to digest them. 

Other foods common for triggering inflammation:

Sugar

Excess sugar leads to blood sugar imbalances which are stressful on the body and increase inflammation. A glucose saturated brain is an inflamed brain

Gluten

Gluten triggers a zonulin release that is proinflammatory and increases the gut permeability. Gluten is a term for proteins naturally occurring in grains especially wheat, barley, and rye. Gluten is what gives baked goods that soft and chewy texture. People with a sensitivity to the protein will not be able to easily digest and will leave to gut irritation. 

1. Zoulin: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18485912/

Vegetable oils

The brain is made up of 60% fat, and prefers fat to sugar as a form of energy. Healthy fats support neuronal membrane flexibility and inferior fats make cells ridged and unresponsive.

Alcohol

Has a negative impact on the brain as well. Not only does it impair sleep and cause blood sugar spikes and lows, it also increases the burden on the liver. Remember- those with anxiety tend to also have difficulty detoxing.

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842521/

What foods can lower inflammation:

This would include things like all kinds of fresh vegetables, aim for a variety of all types and colors, including specificality dral green leafy vegetables. 

Whole fruits specifically dark colored ones like cherries and berries. 

Fatty fish such as salmon, trout, sardines, mackerel, & tuna

Chicken and turkey are good for protein intake and less red meat would be recommended- yet not avoided. 

Herbs and spices with anti-inflammatory benefits would be turmeric, garlic, ginger, basil, oregano. Thyme, cinnamon and more. \We do want to include healthy fats like EVOO and also avocado oil or any refrigerated seed, nut, and fish oils. 

Nuts and seed such as walnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, pine nuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds and flax seed. 

Also whole grains are great for including more fibers that feed the good bacteria in the gut, like brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa.

Legumes and beans especially black beans chick peas., black eye peas, lentils and red kidney beans. 

For anti-inflammatory drinks like green teas, coffee, and red wine in moderation. 

Related: The best food for OCD, anxiety and depression: a deeper look at the anti-inflammatory diet

What about antioxidants?

Antioxidants help protect cells from damage caused by harmful molecules called free radicals. When you hear the term oxidative stress- these antioxidants are the antidote.

Antioxidant rich foods decrease inflammation. Foods rich in antioxidants are berries, green leafy vegetables, avocados, green tea, peers, mushrooms, grapes, turmeric, dark chocolate, and tomatoes. 

Sounds pretty similar to that anti-inflammatory diet list of foods- doesn’t it?

Once inflammation has been removed, we then want to work at repopulating the good bacteria in the gut. 

Can probiotics aid in repair?

Absolutely. Probiotics are live microorganisms, typically bacteria or yeast, that provide health benefits when consumed in adequate amounts. These beneficial bacteria are often referred to as “good” or “friendly” bacteria because they help maintain a balanced and healthy gut microbiome. Probiotics support digestion, boost the immune system, and also support cognitive health by modifying the bacteria within the gut and by producing compounds that affect signaling between the gut and the brain. 

Sometimes the gut microbiotia can become out of balance and these good friendly bacteria are lacking and harmful bacteria are plentiful as with the case of dysbiosis, Hpylori, Sibo or even parasites. 

Gut + stool testing can be done with a GI map to know exactly what the state of the gut is and to know if armful bacteria may need to be removed. This step is incredibly important in getting to the root cause and making a speedy recovery.

Healing my gut was the #1 thing I ever did nutritionally speaking that lead me to recovery.

How do I keep my gut from getting inflamed again?

Establishing a healthy mucosa layer can be done via supplements, foods, or specific therapeutic nutrients. 

Gut healing foods include things like bone broth, fermented foods, fiber if tolerated.

Other nutrients like L glutamine, licorice, slippery elm, marshmallow root, aloe vera, Spanish moss, Jerusalem artichoke. 

My personal favorites to recommend are supplemental support as well as regular bone broth, throat coat tea, or aloe vera.

I created a whole guide to troubleshooting your digestive health you can download here.

In conclusion:

1. Reduce inflammation
2. Establish healthy gut bacteria colonization with pre and probiotics
3. Work to heal and seal the gut lining to prevent future issues. 

Supplements work best on a personal level. However since this blog post is not personalized- neither can the recommendations.

To hear personalized recommendations to heal your gut, restore your microbiota and reduce your body inflammation- set up a consult call and hear how personalized nutritional therapy can take your racing thoughts and restore harmony so you can experience a quiet mind again.

When you commit to nutritional therapy, you get full access to me for 4 full months. Unlimited messaging, 8- 1 on1 meetings where we plan out your next steps. Full access to my PDF library of recipes, grocery lists, meal ideas, food nutrients. If you need it- I’ll make it. I will cover your nutrition needs 100%- all you must do is implement.

I work hard to make this as easy as possible for all my clients. 

You’ll know what to buy and how to plan your grocery list. 

You’ll have easy access to supplement hand-picked for you to speed up your healing process.

You’ll see a lab test showing what minerals you’re in need of- and it’ll be so validating. 

You’ll heal your digestive system so that you can finally eat your favorite foods again

You’ll know how to balance your meals so that your energy is balanced and you aren’t irritable anymore. 

Can you see this for yourself? Because I can.

I was where you are once. I know healing is possible.

Set up your first call here. I can’t wait to hear from you.

This post may contain affiliate links. Tis means that I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I do not recommend products I have not personally vetted.

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