I’m always telling my patients how the brain and mental health are connected to the rest of the body. “It’s not about your mind, it’s about the health of your whole body,” I always say. But what does this mean? And how can we be sure there are connections between the brain the body?
1. You get butterflies in your stomach when you are nervous.
In my opinion, this is clear cut sign that your brain is in charge of what’s happening elsewhere. How else would your body know that you are about to give a presentation or performance? Well, the nerves that flow throughout your ENTIRE body begin in your brain. If a “Danger” signal is being processed in the brain before beginning your presentation, that same signal is firing through all the nerves in your body. This causes shakiness, sweating, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, butterflies in your stomach and even urgent diarrhea. These are all physical manifestations of what is happening subconsciously inside your mind.
2. When you feel down or depressed, you feel weak.
Your muscles are as strong today as they were yesterday and the day before. If you wake up one day feeling really down and depressed, the weakness that you may feel is NOT a problem with your muscles. Similar to feeling stressed and anxious, the signals travelling through your nervous system are strong enough to create all the physical symptoms associated with depression. This can include changes in appetite, lowered heart rate, muscle weakness, lethargy and sleepiness.
3. When you’re very busy and on the go, you have no appetite.
This one can be largely attributed to the fight or flight response and what happens inside your body when you are stressed. When your system is on high alert and you’re in the middle of a hectic and chaotic day, adrenaline is pumping through your body. In your mind, you might be focused entirely on your project and meeting your deadline. In your body, however, the message is that you are preparing to fight or flight from this dangerous situation (otherwise known as your office). If you are on the verge of running away from danger, do you have time to eat? Probably not. Your body is HUNGRY! It wants foods really badly, but it knows that what is more important is keeping you alive. Food and appetite can wait until the brain signals that danger has passed.
4. When you eat well, you think clearer.
The proof is in the foods. If you don’t believe me, try it. Thousands of young professionals and students rely on processed fast food and take out for financial reasons. These are also the life stages in which transition creates a lot of anxiety and mental strain. But which came first? We know that the foods we eat create inflammation in our bodies. If this inflammation overflows into our brains, we get poor focus, poor memory, brain fog, anxiety and even depression. Not great qualities for students writing exams! However, these same students and young professionals clean up their diets, identify and eliminate food sensitivities and begin to think clearer and feel calmer. Your brain is only as good as the nutrients you provide for it!
5. The only way to access the brain is through the gut.
No matter how many pills you take for depression or anxiety, if your body is not able to digest that pill, it is doing NOTHING for you. Time and time again, with almost every patient I see, fixing their gut and their digestion is the ROOT of their mental health. Gut healing and proper absorption of nutrients has TREMENDOUS impacts on the ability to focus, feel stronger and gain energy. And that is with just focusing on the gut and not doing anything directly for the brain!
If this makes sense now, do you see why treating anxiety has more to do with just taking a pill? We can’t access your brain any other way than through your gut. We can’t change how much inflammation is in your brain, until we change the inflammation in the rest of your body.