Behave yourselves : your gut has a mind
Picture credit : www.abc.net.au
I remember that I saw a book concerning the second brain and it was a surprising title at first glance. Then, some days ago our teacher gave us an article on this subject so we could read and debate on it. I'm sure you'll think that it has to be one of the most interesting information ever to know how what we eat is influencing our brain and our mood from over there. This influence is surely mutual. As a future neuropsychologist I can say I learned it too late, especially if I consider the fact that my favourite subject is the « body self » which touches neuropsychology and philosophy. A lot of people – and me too - immediately think about the « gut feeling » we have when we meet a new person or when we have to do an oral presentation for example. Everyone knows what it means to have butterflies in our stomach, to get a tummy ache when we feel stressed or nervous. All of these common sensations resulted from the gut-brain link.
Apparently, neurones are everywhere
Picture credit : www.biokplus.com
There is a big network of neurons in this gut-brain link which seem to be best friends in the way that the brain is dependent on the second brain and vice versa. When you're hungry, your stomach is giving that message to your brain and the feedback is done by neurons which are continously communicating. Same goes when you have to face your stress, your feelings or your excitment. Your gut is reacting to everything you're not saying at the moment, and also to everything you're trying to hide because as Alice Miller says « the body never lies ». I read this book some months ago and it all make sense now, knowing about this gut-brain link. Alice Miller was talking about psychosomatic ilnesses coming because of all what we hide, all what we can't accept and this beautiful book tell you how much you depend on your body. That's true : we are our body.
Ecologists will be happy to know that the second brain is an ecosystem
Picture credit : www.micronutrients.com
The central nervous system is communicating with the gut thanks to our sympathic and parasympathic branches which are controlling our heart, our digestion and breathe and almost 80-90% of nerve fibres in our enteric nervous system are going from the gut to brain.
Some people will call the second brain an « ecosystem » and I personally think it's a nice appellation in the sense that it contains that vast neural network and bacteria, and our beloved enteric nervous system communicates with these bacteria which are with us since birth. They are our helpers, fighting with viruses, molds and helping digestion. When they are not happy, we feel it at that moment thanks to the neurotransmitters - transfering messages from neuron to neuron - of the enteric nervous system.
Impact on depression, anxiety, and all of these 21th century diseases
Picture credit : www.exemplore.com
It seems obvious that a healthy gut will decrease your reaction to stress, curb your cortisol level and inflammation, improve your memory and also reduce a lot of other sensations linked to stress and nervousness as anxiety and depression. I won't give you a diet list right here, saying you have to eat five fruits and vegetables per day, that's not the goal at least. I's such a protruding evidence that new eating habits will make you feel the difference ; people I know who changed their habits always repeat how better they feel and how much their mental and corporal lightness does them good. I don't really like numbers and statistics because it's over-highlighted in current researches but they say there are more than 100 million brain cell in the gut, just to let you imagine how that influence we are talking about is strong and how much it controls you.
Just a pinch of philosophy please
Picture credit : www.keele.ac.uk
A turkish expression says that a strong mind comes from a strong body, in the way that your body has to be healthy so you can think straight ; it makes sense, isn't it ? I really want to connect all of these informations to F. Varela who supported embodied philosophy. What he wrote greatly fascinates me since 3 years making me realize that we exist – in the way that we live and we experience - thanks to our body. He considers cognitive system – including knowledge, attention, memory, judgement, problem solving, decision making, comprehension, language – and consciousness as comprising the body and the physical world which are interacting. His vision refers to an interesting concept called neurophenomenology, which is a full-fledged field. The idea here is to explain how our body is invaluable, carrying the weight of all we live, all we feel, and all we eat of course.
Here are two of the sources which are very similar to what our teacher gave us at class, where you can find more details :
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-feelings-the-second-brain-in-our-gastrointestinal-systems-excerpt/
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-18779997
Again a great post @overmybain :)
Thank you for this usefull information :)
Agree great post, I have been looking at the links between your immune system and gut as well.
Just came across this post by another steemian which talks about a shocking, but apparently effective way of getting the right kind of microflora in your gut.
https://steemit.com/health/@wanderingmind/kinda-gross-but-effective-extreme-probiotic-transplants
Wow @petpeeves what an interesting post! Thank you for sharing and also for your comment. Cheers!
This is an interesting post you got there!
May I give you a tip? It would be better to name your sources to increase your posts credibility levels and credit your images with active links.
If you like science and you intend to blog about it on steemit, feel free to check @steemstem. It is a community project meant to promote quality scientific posts.
Steem on and keep smiling! :)
Thanks @ruth-girl for your comment. I named picture's sources. If you're talking about the text part, I wrote it by myself, with my own words. I just picked statistical informations from what I read. I'm taking time to write every single post as well as I can :) I'll take a look to @steemstem, thank you for sharing this information. With love.
Those sources for the statistical information should by rights be cited. ;)
It is so important to provide credit to the people who tirelessly determined the information that allows us to write the great posts that we do (like this one).
You're totally right. But honestly, that's an information that I wrote on my handbook at class, and I really don't know from where it exactly comes. Knowing that our teacher chooses informations from scientific articles, I think that it comes from an article published in a scientific journal. Anyway, I'll try to find the same information on internet and maybe I can add a link to the post, but the truth is that every articles takes the numbers/statistics from other scientific sources so it's such a difficult task to find the main source. I totally respect people who's hardworking to give us all these beautiful informations btw, that's why I'm always trying to write sentences with my words. Thanks a lot for your comment.
I see, finding the original source in such cases can be hard, but,as you said, with a little help from google you might figure it out. :D
I just realise that you wrote "active links". I didn't notice that my links (even for pictures) are not active. I'm very new here that's why some mistakes are coming up, sorry. I'll remember this tip :)
No worries, you'll be an expert in formatting soon ;)
Just keep writing the way you do! I really like your style! :)
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