How Emotions Affect Gut Health: The Gut-Brain Connection
What we eat is only half of our food story.
Who we are as eaters and how we show up to the table is the other half of the story that is important to bring awareness to.
What impacts our eating experience?
Emotions impact our eating experience and dictate how we digest our food, assimilate our nutrients, and burn calories. At the root of this experience is our Autonomic Nervous System. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is the grand regulator of every metabolic process in the body.
The two branches of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) are the
1. Parasympathetic
The parasympathetic branch which governs the bodily processes that conserve our energy and help regulate digestion, feelings of calm, relaxation, and sleep. This branch has often been called “the rest and digest branch.”
2. Sympathetic
The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for energy utilization and governs the adrenals, thyroid, and pituitary glands, and is activated in times of stress. It is often referred to as “the fight or flight branch.”
When we eat when we are stressed, mad, sad, or anxious the sympathetic nervous system is turned on and the digestive system is turned off. This negatively impacts how we digest our food and assimilate our nutrients and it causes the metabolic process of burning calories to slow down.
Have you ever noticed when you are stressed and you eat, you experience more bloating, gas, pain, and diarrhea? You may even notice you are more reactive to food. Many food sensitivities are often tied to emotional eating moments.
On the other hand, when we eat when we are happy, relaxed, and joyous, the parasympathetic branch is ignited and we effectively digest our food, have a nice peristaltic motion that gives us healthy bowel movements, and we absorb and assimilate our nutrients and burn calories effectively.
Being mindful of how you are showing up at the table is vital for healthy digestion.
Our emotions regulate our nervous system and our nervous system regulates our digestion and overall gut health. The more we manage our emotions while we eat, the healthier we will be.
What is your mindset like when you eat?
With a plethora of dietary rules and messages, many people have a lot of mental chatter while they are eating.
Here are some examples: “This is good, this is bad, this is too many calories, I should eat this, I shouldn’t eat this, I really want more but I shouldn’t go for seconds, this is going to make me sick, this is going to make me gain weight”.
The chatter may even be about your day, the things you are worrying about, the people who triggered you, where you need to be, and what you have to do. It could even be the negative thoughts you are having about the people who are sitting right next to you while you are eating!
How does that make your food taste or are you even tasting your food? Are you eating or are you feeding your emotions? Are your toxic thoughts creating toxic food?
Consider that you are not only eating what’s on your plate but all the chatter and emotions you bring to the table.
How is that affecting your meal? Is it taking away the pleasure and joy of eating?
Every time you come to the table with negative chatter and belief systems you create a stress response while eating. This affects your ability to digest and metabolize your food. This is a significant consideration when I work with those with digestive issues, allergies, and weight issues.
It is not always about what you are eating, it is about who you are as an eater. What you are telling yourself as you are eating is probably just as important if not more important than what you are actually eating.
If you eat while stressed or while negating your food, you increase cortisol. Cortisol blocks the brain from feeling pleasure. If the brain does not register what you ate as pleasurable you go and seek out more food or sugar, caffeine, alcohol, or other substances that bring you pleasure. Realizing how your thoughts impact your relationship with food is a very important consideration on your nutritional journey.
Listen to the mental chatter and be aware of your emotional state when you begin to eat. Start to acknowledge who you are as an eater. Who is coming to the table? See what themes, what tapes, what messages keep coming up and perhaps that is the next opportunity and doorway for your exploration and growth on your journey. By doing so, you can bring yourself to an optimum state of digestion, assimilation, and metabolic power and more importantly bring the love, pleasure, and joy back into eating.
What if you just focused on the taste, aroma, pleasure, and experience of eating? The colors on the plate, the love and energy it took to prepare the meal. What would that feel like? What would it feel like to come to the table and be present with your food, be here with your food, and simply eat in a conscious, present emotionally balanced state?
Strategies to improve emotional intelligence for better digestion and gut health:
1. If you are stressed, sad, and anxious, wait until you eat.
Calm down, do deep belly breathing, walk, write or talk out your emotions before you eat. Gnawing on your feelings won’t help you digest or feel great post-meal.
2. Eat with presence.
Enjoy the taste, smell, and flavor, and take in the experience of eating and simply being with your food.
3. Eat slowly.
This will improve digestion, regulate appetite, and put your body in the relaxation response. Breathe, relax, and take time to nourish.
4. Eat high-quality food.
You’ll feel so much better if you do! Vibrant, colorful whole food will have a positive effect on your emotional well-being whereas unhealthy, deep-fried, dull lifeless food will worsen your emotional state.
5. Eat with a quiet mind.
Watch your chatter — don’t fill your mind with toxic thoughts such as, “This food is going to make me fat, I’m cheating, this is so bad for me, this is so unhealthy, etc.” These toxic nutritional beliefs taint your food, and eating experience and most of all put your body in a stress response where digestion and calorie burning turn off.
6. Eat with pleasure, joy, and gratitude.
This is the best way to put your body in the optimum state to digest, assimilate nutrients, and turn on metabolic power. It also guarantees a delicious meal!
7. Cook with love.
If you are preparing a meal for yourself or others, remember that your eaters taste and feel your energy. Cook with love vs stress, create with joy vs resentment, and use special recipes that inspire you. How you are feeling and what you are thinking as you are cooking, gets infused into your food, so ensure that only the best ingredients get added!
As my mentor and author of Nourishing Wisdom, Marc David explains, “There is a scientific term called the cephalic phase digestive response, which means that digestion begins in the head. This “head” phase of digestion, specifically refers to taste, pleasure, aroma, satisfaction and the visuals of a meal. You can change the nutritional value of a meal without changing anything you eat, but by changing you, the eater.”
As we become more present, as we pay attention to our food, our thoughts, our emotions, and who is showing up to the table, we can optimize our digestion, metabolism, and overall health.
Try Ate today to journal your daily experiences (including your sleep) and stay mindful, no matter where life takes you.
Amy Bondar, Nutritional Therapist, Certified Eating Psychology Coach, Speaker, and Author brings 2 decades of experience in the field of nutrition and mind-body coaching and believes that nourishing our body with the power of food, resolving stresses that are influencing our eating behaviors and living a life with purpose are the essential ingredients to optimizing our health. With an open heart and inquiring mind Amy will accompany you on a journey that will inspire you to transform your relationship with food, body, and self. To learn more and book a mind-body nutrition consultation with Amy, visit, www.amybondar.com or contact Amy, amy@amybondar.com
