Stress and Your Gut

When you are stressed it affects your digestion, how nutrition is absorbed and can cause an imbalance in your gut bacterial. Your gut microbiome controls 90% of your immune system. So in short being stressed negatively affects your immune system in a time when your immune system is important than ever.

Are you stressed? Is it keeping your body in fight or flight mode?

Like everybody else out there my stress level is affected by what I read in the news, good, bad or ugly. How are you feeling these days?

There are so many things in our lives that are beyond our control, but cannot be ignored.

Whether it is small, insignificant or as big as the world, your worry and stress levels affect your gut, your health and your sleep.

Sleep is so very important to your overall health and keeping your gut healthy. Often I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about all those negative things in the past present or future that have or will have an effect on my life. The what if”s…..

It is easy to get caught up in that loop of negative thinking especially in the dark of the night, and why is that? I certainly can’t explain it, but instead I try to redirect my mind to other places and times.

A method I have found effective for me, to help me get back to sleep came from an interview I heard years ago about someone who was held in solitary confinement for a long period of time. He was a motorcyclist. What he did to help redirect his mind in the night, day or whenever he needed it, was to imagine he was building himself the perfect motorcycle. He knew all the components and how and where each piece fit into it. So in his imagination, he would work on his construction piece by piece, monotonous, detailed work which he could relax into.

That was the key for me, monotonous detailed work that I could relax into. I am a knitter. Knitting can be relaxing and monotonous. It really depends on the project. So in the past when I was highly stressed and awake in the middle of the night, I began working on a knitting project. I can’t tell you what it was supposed to be when finished, nor the colour. I would just knit. Picking up the yarn, wrapping it around the needle and then completing the stitch. Then moving on to the next stitch. I would not get past a few stitches before I was relaxed and peacefully back to sleep.

Now I recognize that knitting is not relaxing to everyone. For some people it is a stressor, but everyone has some repetitive monotonous task that they can enjoy and relax into.

What got me thinking about this was a number of blog posts written by Brien-Anne Reid recently on Meditation. I had never thought that my imaginary knitting could be a form of mediation. I had also never thought that just drinking tea could be a form of mediation, or wandering in nature. Read her blog posts on Wandering Mediation, Tea Meditation, Art Mediation.

Goodness knows we all need moments of quiet away from the world now and then. Your gut needs that relaxation or meditation as much as your mind to keep it healthy and take you out of fight or flight mode.

There are just so many things in your life and the world that you cannot control. The one thing you can control is how you react, and whether or not that reaction causes stress in your body.
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Perhaps small meditative moments are the key.
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Exploring beyond The World of Food with you!

Diane Couse, Certified Culinary Nutrition Expert and The Food Sensitivity Coach

Stay in Touch with what is on my Mind