This article is written by Sky Corbett-Methot, a Holistic Nutritionist and 500-hour Hatha yoga and meditation instructor.

Pssssst, did you read the title? How can there possibly be two “control/mood centers” residing in us when I can barely keep track of the one inside of my head…?

The “second brain” is also referred to as that gut-brain interaction you may have heard of before. In our every day lingo, the description “gut feeling,” gets thrown around but have you stopped and asked yourself why that is?

Let’s talk about what this gut-brain axis looks like. We can start by discussing a potentially mutual “friend” of ours deemed the “nerve monster.” This monster used to consume me before big athletic competitions or even before important work presentations.

In this COVID-19 world, we are currently living in, I find this “nerve monster” is popping in different ways. For example, the grocery store is now a major motion picture of “dodge the humans, breathe, wipe down EVERYTHING with Lysol wipes, apply hand sani again, and repeat.” I find this monster taking a different shape.

Can you relate to that experience of nerves churning around inside your stomach? Then all of a sudden your mind alerts you that you need to full-on sprint to the bathroom with an unexpected bout of diarrhea? Maybe you have experienced the opposite, where you were so stressed out that your need to go to the bathroom becomes so infrequent its led to constipation? Or perhaps you have experienced this mind/body, gut/brain connection in your own unique way…

It is time to explore what is going on here with this weird, relatable phenomenon. The gut-brain connection is a bidirectional circuitry that runs from your central nervous system (consisting of your brain and spinal cord) to your enteric nervous system (a branch of the autonomic nervous system (the nervous we have no control over) that governs the GI tract). This is a powerhouse of a circuitry because it reigns over our emotions and our physical well-being.

So why might this be relevant to wellness and mental health? Well, this is because our brain is a master switchboard; commuting or responding to signals all around us. This includes what is occurring inside of the body as well as adapting, and responding to the happenings outside of the body. Simple put, the gut and brain are connected, so how one feels impacts the other!

Now for the part that may make your head spin. These feelings that we experience are directly correlated to the bacteria inside of our gut. WOAH, a lot to swallow, eh? When I first learned this, I about fell out of my chair.

Amazingly, if we look after this microbiome which consist of many millions of bacteria residing in our gut, they become the “good guys.” They assist us in metabolizing food, they will help us out if toxins have made their way into places they shouldn’t be, and they also aid in manufacturing specific nutrients that our body cannot produce without them.

If these bacteria are not well taken care of we throw our body out of homeostasis, into a state of dysbiosis — an imbalance of the gut microbiome. This causes a whole cascade of unpleasant reactions such as gas, bloating, difficulty thinking, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, and yes you may have guessed it, anxiety and depression. I like to refer to these as the “bad guys” or the literal sh*t disturbers within our gut.

Lets talk chemical messengers; especially some that we know are associated with major depressive disorder and varying anxiety disorders. Neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin are the neural chemicals that make us feel good.

Serotonin has a lot of responsibility as it helps regulate our mood, controls parts of digestion which then impacts our level of appetite. Roughly 90% of serotonin is produced in our gut, yet it controls so much of how we feel. In fact, serotonin is so important that it has been isolated in a specific category of antidepressant medications called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s).

This exemplifies how powerful the choices we make about fueling our body can be. Demonstrating that what we eat will get broken down, absorbed, and assimilated throughout the body, influencing our gut and our bacteria which impacts the brain. This second brain is vital in physical and mental health. Taking care of the “good bacteria” in essence is taking care of your mental health. This gut/brain interaction or rather, this “second brain” is a part of our entire microbiome that governs health and vitality.

Stay tuned to this space, as I intend on sharing tips on how to nourish not only your body, but your mind, gut, “good bacteria,” and whole self too.

Sky

The Second Brain