Beyond oxygenating your body, your breath also regulates your nervous system
When life rolls through you have a tool, your breath, free and always available to activate the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system, which signals the body to carry out the biochemical functions required for healing
It is necessary that we ALL learn how to regulate our nervous systems, both for our own health and for the health of our society
We have normalized radical imbalances in part because our nervous systems are chronically dysregulated: Our young men have low testosterone, we’re allergic to our environment, and our children are riddled (some crippled) with anxiety. This is not a sustainable society
Five main components of your gut that you want to keep happy
1. Nutrients fuel the biochemical reactions that make your body function
You need nutrients for your body to run well and that’s all there is to it. Your body secretes digestive enzymes in order to break down food and extract nutrients, which act as cofactors to fuel your biochemistry. This starts in your mouth with chewing because smaller food particles are much more easily processed by stomach acid. Chewing also triggers the release of digestive secretions both in your mouth and gut
Many things can impair digestive secretions, including stress which signals the sympathetic branch of the nervous system to shut down digestion to prioritize a looming threat…real or perceived. You can take a digestive supplement, or the free and sustainable way is to chew your food till it’s mush in your mouth and eat in a relaxed state. This signals to your parasympathetic nervous system that it’s safe to focus on digestion
Learn more
2. You gut lining is the delicate barrier between what’s in your intestines and the rest of your body
This is where nutrients extracted from your food during digestion are absorbed into the bloodstream so they can go on to fuel your cells. This membrane barrier selectively allows small nutrient molecules to pass through (amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals) while retaining other things to the gut that are not supposed to enter circulation(food not fully broken down, byproducts from gut microbes, toxins)
This is where nutrients extracted from your food during digestion are absorbed into the bloodstream so they can go on to fuel your cells. This membrane barrier selectively allows small nutrient molecules to pass through (amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals) while retaining other things to the gut that are not supposed to enter circulation(food not fully broken down, byproducts from gut microbes, toxins)
Learn more
3. Your gut lining houses 2/3 of you immune system
A key fact that most people overlook is that 2/3 of your immune system resides within the mucosal membrane of your gut lining. Here is one scenario…In the spirit of seizing the day you scarf down a meal, skipping the first stage of digestion (thorough chewing) and in a sympathetic nervous system state, impairing digestion
Undigested food meets your inflamed and poorly barricaded gut lining where it is able to pass through the gates. Your immune system sounds the alarm which you feel as systemic inflammation…arthritis, brain fog, skin stuff, anxiety
Learn more
4. You’ve got more microbes in your gut than you do cells in your body
These critters are important enough to have coevolved with humans for over a billion years. Their balance in population and diversity matters because they influence digestion, synthesis of certain vitamins and neurotransmitters, immune function, and more. Therefore, your bugs have a big say in the status of your health including the in inflammation in your gut, your mood, your metabolism, your cardiovascular health, and more
Learn more
5. Your vagus nerve carries messages between your gut and brain
Millions of neurons immersed in your gut create your enteric nervous system (the NS of your gut) and communicates with your brain via the vagus nerve (the gut-brain axis). The vagus nerve can sense metabolites produced by the trillions of bacteria living in your gut, transmit this information to your brain, and then generate an appropriate response that affects your mood, stress levels, immune function, and digestive health. This is how gut health can influence mental health, why stress can affect digestion and inflammation, and why you want to breath
What messages is your environment sending to your body?
Functional medicine is rooted in the science of epigenetics. Meaning, the environment with which we live (internal and external) overtly affects our genetic expression. Even in light of a genetic predisposition, we can use this understanding to influence whether or not genes are activated or deactivated. The factors that influence our environment are more encompassing than you might think, and include everything from the food we eat to the thoughts we think.
