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11. Managing the Mind Through the Gut
Cell for cell, we’re largely made up of bacteria. In fact, single-celled organisms,
mostly bacteria, outnumber our own cells ten to one. Many of these live in our
gut. This gut “microbiome” determines the state of our digestive health, and
influences the state of our brain. When you are under stress, the bacterial
communities in your intestine become less diverse, allowing greater numbers of
harmful bacteria to take over. Disorders of the gut such as irritable bowel and
inflammatory bowel diseases are exacerbated by stress. Recent science shows
that a sophisticated neural network transmits messages from those trillions of
digestive bacteria to the brain, exerting a powerful influence on our state of mind
—creating a feedback loop between the brain and the gut that goes both ways.
Emotional adversity, mental stress, and trauma lead to a greater proliferation of
bad bacteria in the gut, and bad bugs in the gut lead to lower mood, anxiety,
depression, and a proclivity for being less resilient in the face of adversity and
stress.
There are two main reasons for this. First, gut bacteria manufacture more than
80 percent of the body’s supply of serotonin, which significantly influences
mood. And second, good gut microbiota such as those found in probiotics have a
direct effect on neurotransmitter receptors in the brain, such as GABA. Mice
given probiotics had lower levels of stress-induced hormones, less anxiety, and
less depression-related behavior.
And guess how the messages between the bacteria exposed to the gut and the
brain were transmitted? Via the vagus nerve—which is a primary mediator of the
inflammatory stress response. That’s why scientists have begun to refer to our
gut as “the second brain.” The gut microbiome heavily influences neural
development, brain chemistry, emotional behavior, pain perception, learning,
and memory. Some organisms in the gut might prove useful in treatments of
stress-related disorders such as anxiety and depression.
According to gastroenterologist Emeran Mayer, MD, PhD, director of the
Center for Neurobiology of Stress at the University of California, Los Angeles,
given the gut’s multifaceted ability to communicate with the brain, “it’s almost
unthinkable that the gut is not playing a critical role in mind states.”
Improving our diet and reducing our intake of processed foods and sugar, and
adding in greens, fruits, and fermented foods rich in probiotics can play a critical
role in healing the gut. This, in turn, can help patients who’ve suffered from
early trauma to heal both body and brain. Because microorganisms in our gut
control our brain, we need to do whatever we can to make our microbiome
healthy, and give the pathways in our brain all the serotonin and nutrients they
need to send the correct messages along our brain’s synapses. Why would you
eat in a way that makes stress receptors more reactive when you are busy doing
everything else you can to heal?
A number of the individuals we’ve followed in these pages have used
nutrition to promote healing. Ellie has used diet to reduce her autoimmune
psoriasis, depression, and anxiety. She switched out processed foods and sugar
for leafy greens, vegetables, and fruits. At first, she noticed that during the day
“my brain fog went away.” Then, she says, within a few months’ time, “I began
to experience less anxiety. The suicidal ideation went away. I had the sense that I
was becoming a more optimistic person. The shift was subtle, but it was there. I
felt as if I was transforming my mind and body with food.” Then Ellie noticed
another improvement: “I began to feel good when I woke up in the morning,”
she says. “My whole life I’d claimed I wasn’t a morning person, and it was the
best I could do to get up by ten or eleven. But one day I got up out of bed at 7:30
a.m. I noticed the sound of the birds chirping outside my window. I felt as if a
twenty-pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders. That’s when it hit me: I
was awake, alert, alive.”
Her autoimmune psoriasis decreased. “My skin became clear for the first time
in years.”
Ellie decided to become a licensed holistic health nutritionist and coach. “I
feel that, no matter what our story might be, by addressing the gut-mind
connection and working to change our microbiome in our gut, we can help to
rewrite the story of our physical and mental well-being.”
Kendall has used diet to help regrow the lining of her gut, after a lifetime of
celiac disease. John also found that diet helped him become healthier. Kat, too,
found that when she began to “heal the gut,” she began to slowly help heal her
mind. “I realized that my gut was the thing that all my life I had trouble listening
to, from that very first moment in the station wagon when I was five, and I knew
something bad had happened to my mom, but I told myself that all was well. It
made sense to me that now I needed to pay attention to what my gut needed to
heal itself.” Kat cleaned up her diet, cutting out foods that her immune system
might be reacting to, including dairy, gluten, sugar, and processed
carbohydrates, all of which can contribute to the buildup of bad bacteria. She
added in “fermented kimchi, sauerkraut, and probiotics” to help build up the
good bacteria in her gut. “It took six months,” she says, to see a real difference
in how she felt, but “working with a nutritionist and changing my diet was one
of the most helpful things I did in my journey to heal.”
With all her efforts at finding wholeness, Kat feels that “I’m finally rewriting
the script of my past. I can look back now and say I’m truly grateful for
everything that has played a part in my story and in who I am now. I’m rewriting
my story by giving it meaning, and in helping others to do the same in my work
now as a life coach.”
Kat likes to think “that people see me and are able to say to themselves, ‘Here
is somebody who rewrote the story of her brain, her body, her relationships, and
her life.’ If I, after having been through what I have been through, can turn a
traumatic life into a joyful life, well, they can find healing, too.”
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