[g_podcast id="7046213"]
In this episode I talk about:
The gut is called our second brain, our abdominal brain. This is also known as the gut-brain axis. However, people are no longer sure which is the first brain. For example, I heard the founder of an American microbiome analysis company say that the brain is just the puppet and the puppeteer is the gut. The image has stuck with me ever since, I think it's pretty apt!
The gut brain is a kind of copy of our brain. This is indicated above all by the fact that the same hormones, messenger substances and receptors work in both organs. The nerve cells are also identical.
It is not yet entirely clear exactly how this communication between the gut and brain works. In any case, there is the vagus nerve that connects the gut and brain, communication takes place via the spinal cord and there is also the enteric nervous system, which is involved in communication.
The enteric nervous system is exciting anyway: it is assumed that 70% of all our nerve cells are found in the gut!
Incidentally, it is now known that the proportion of signals from the gut to the brain is around 90%, while brain to gut is only 10%.
Dr. Raphael Kellman writes in his book "Happiness begins in the gut": We understand the brain better today and therefore we can heal it better. The first step in this exciting new approach is the realization that the brain is not just the gray and white mass between our ears. Rather, it is part of a system that also includes the gut and the microbiome, the bacterial community that colonizes the digestive tract. This system - brain, gut and microbiome - together form what I call the "whole brain". It is supplied with energy by the thyroid gland and therefore cannot function properly if the thyroid gland is not working properly.
Exciting, isn't it? It's called "The Whole Brain" Brain + Microbiome + Gut
Unfortunately, I haven't read the book yet, or rather just the beginning, so I can't recommend it in that sense, but it's definitely on my reading list:
https://amzn.to/2NO6mnj
If you have an unbalanced gut flora and your environment is not right, this can have many consequences, which are then also reflected in the brain and therefore determine whether you are happy or not. For example, such direct correlations: feeling foggy in the head, constantly tired, or even, looking at it soberly, nutrients that are missing because the gut cannot absorb them, lead to important neurotransmitters not being formed, which we actually need in the brain.
ADHD, autism, Alzheimer's and dementia, panic attacks and depression are all associated with the gut and therefore the gut definitely has something to do with happiness.
And did you know that poor sleep is also a can be a direct result of an unbalanced gut flora and an unfavorable diet? And anyone who has had even a few nights of poor sleep knows that it's hard to be happy when you're overtired and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Our language provides clues to the connection between the gut or digestion and our mood:
The effect of stress on the gut is massively underestimated. In my Gut Happiness course, I always get feedback from participants that they would never have imagined what a big impact stress has.
In the past, people were actually only exposed to stress when they were attacked. They then had to decide whether to fight or flee. To ensure that this worked well, the body prioritized the intestines and digestion so that there was more strength left to fight or run away. As the muscles had to be particularly well supplied with blood, the blood flow to the digestive organs was reduced.
After successfully fleeing or defeating the enemy, humans were able to retreat and rest. But what is it like today?
Today we are actually under constant stress! As a result, the gut is almost always put on the back burner.
This explains why digestion does not work well under stress. Some people react to stress with constipation, others with diarrhea or other digestive problems. Incidentally, many people think that they have no stress. That they have everything under control. But stress has many faces, noise, for example, is also stress for our system, as are the many images we are bombarded with today, the rapidly changing demands, the many deadlines, the demand for perfection and constant availability, for example. And emotions such as anger or worrying are also stress.
Interesting fact: studies have shown that being angry for 10 minutes weakens our immune system for 6 hours. Wow. Wow. Anger is pretty toxic. And so is worrying, by the way. Because when you worry, the only person you're really hurting is yourself. The person you're worrying about is usually unaware of your negative feelings!
Stress can also cause the intestinal mucosa to become leaky. You may have heard of the term leaky gut. And if this is the case, then there is also inflammation in the body. And an inflammatory system has a hard time relaxing and people have a hard time being happy.
What does our state of health have to do with happiness?
So, you can probably see by now why I say that the gut can be connected to our brain, our feelings and therefore also our happiness. But I would like to look at the whole thing from a higher perspective and become a little more abstract.
To do this, I invite you to simply ask yourself for a moment: What do I actually need to be happy? What would my life circumstances have to be like for me to be happy?
And then comes the crucial step:
Who do I have to be to feel this way right now?
This lays an important foundation.
But there's more.
A second important foundation is how you feel in your life. body. If you are constantly tired, in pain, in a bad mood, unable to concentrate, then it will be difficult to live your life the way you want to!
Earn enough money, do things, travel, look after your friends, spend time with your animals and so on! To do this, you need energy and a functioning body. In order to have the energy to tackle all of this and not just sit around at work all day and fall onto the couch tired in the evening.
And so that your body is fit and doesn't become a brake pad for you, that's why the gut is so important and that's where I see the main connection between the gut and happiness.
There's the saying "Death is in the gut". I say life is in the gut. When you start taking care of your gut, it has a positive domino effect on your whole life. Far beyond the boundaries of "what healthy thing am I going to eat today"! It's not about eating healthy for the sake of eating healthy. To soothe your guilty conscience. It's about enabling your body to give you the life you've always wanted.
And you often only get the courage and drive to do this when you feel light and full of energy and also when you're clear-headed. And I really hope I have been able to convey to you that you will lose this clarity if your gut is not working and is poisoning you from the inside.
It is of course very tempting to approach the topic of happiness from a dietary point of view. Chocolate, ice cream and red wine are high up on the popularity scale of foods that supposedly make you happy.
The problem is that this is purely symptom relief. It's a rewarding kick for the moment, but in the long term it takes you further and further away from happiness.
I'm not saying you should give up everything you like forever and that chocolate is unhealthy and alcohol anyway... No!
But: The foods that we normally see as a reward are almost always full of fast carbohydrates and/or sugar. They cause your blood sugar levels to skyrocket, your body to produce too much insulin, stress hormones to rise and inflammation to be promoted. What's more, if you eat these things on a regular basis, your gut flora gets mixed up. And let's be honest: it's a vicious circle and often it doesn't stop at once every few weeks but you need the kick pretty quickly on a daily basis.
Exercise:
How can I reward myself that has nothing to do with eating or drinking?
Write a list of at least 5 things that make you feel good!
Once you've figured this out, you won't need food to reward you at all and you can make your food intake healthier and more relaxed.
What you can do with food to increase your feeling of happiness:
Otherwise
If you don't just want to listen, read and think, but want to get into action, then I recommend my Gut Happiness course.
Because there we take these steps together, week after week there are instructions, exercises and above all: a live call with me, where you can ask questions, tell me where you are at the moment, how you are doing and, above all, where you may have got stuck or where hurdles arise in everyday life.
You'll also find exciting guest interviews and lessons, for example from nutritionist Ulrike Gonder, doctor and Ayurveda specialist Dr. Janna Scharfenberg and biologist Sabine Paul.
Now I recommend that you subscribe to the podcast so that you don't miss an episode, and if you like what you hear, I'd really appreciate a rating on iTunes or Apple Podcast. Because these reviews also help other people to find the podcast so that we can spread the knowledge about gut and health more.
What does the gut have to do with happiness?
In this episode I talk about:
- What connections the gut has with the brain
- How an unbalanced gut flora can have a negative impact on our mood
- Why stress, worry or anger also affect our gut flora
- Why happiness depends to a large extent on our state of health
- What you can do from a nutritional and gut perspective to feel as happy as possible and why chocolate is not the solution
What connections do the gut and brain have?
The gut is called our second brain, our abdominal brain. This is also known as the gut-brain axis. However, people are no longer sure which is the first brain. For example, I heard the founder of an American microbiome analysis company say that the brain is just the puppet and the puppeteer is the gut. The image has stuck with me ever since, I think it's pretty apt!
The gut brain is a kind of copy of our brain. This is indicated above all by the fact that the same hormones, messenger substances and receptors work in both organs. The nerve cells are also identical.
It is not yet entirely clear exactly how this communication between the gut and brain works. In any case, there is the vagus nerve that connects the gut and brain, communication takes place via the spinal cord and there is also the enteric nervous system, which is involved in communication.
The enteric nervous system is exciting anyway: it is assumed that 70% of all our nerve cells are found in the gut!
Incidentally, it is now known that the proportion of signals from the gut to the brain is around 90%, while brain to gut is only 10%.
Dr. Raphael Kellman writes in his book "Happiness begins in the gut": We understand the brain better today and therefore we can heal it better. The first step in this exciting new approach is the realization that the brain is not just the gray and white mass between our ears. Rather, it is part of a system that also includes the gut and the microbiome, the bacterial community that colonizes the digestive tract. This system - brain, gut and microbiome - together form what I call the "whole brain". It is supplied with energy by the thyroid gland and therefore cannot function properly if the thyroid gland is not working properly.
Exciting, isn't it? It's called "The Whole Brain" Brain + Microbiome + Gut
Unfortunately, I haven't read the book yet, or rather just the beginning, so I can't recommend it in that sense, but it's definitely on my reading list:
https://amzn.to/2NO6mnj
How an unbalanced gut flora can have a negative effect on our mood
If you have an unbalanced gut flora and your environment is not right, this can have many consequences, which are then also reflected in the brain and therefore determine whether you are happy or not. For example, such direct correlations: feeling foggy in the head, constantly tired, or even, looking at it soberly, nutrients that are missing because the gut cannot absorb them, lead to important neurotransmitters not being formed, which we actually need in the brain.
ADHD, autism, Alzheimer's and dementia, panic attacks and depression are all associated with the gut and therefore the gut definitely has something to do with happiness.
And did you know that poor sleep is also a can be a direct result of an unbalanced gut flora and an unfavorable diet? And anyone who has had even a few nights of poor sleep knows that it's hard to be happy when you're overtired and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Our language provides clues to the connection between the gut or digestion and our mood:
- Something is on my stomach
- I'm upset
- I have to digest it first
- It's like a punch in the gut
- I could throw up or it makes me sick
- Butterflies in my stomach when we're in love
- I have a good gut feeling
Stress, worry or anger also have an effect on the gut
The effect of stress on the gut is massively underestimated. In my Gut Happiness course, I always get feedback from participants that they would never have imagined what a big impact stress has.
In the past, people were actually only exposed to stress when they were attacked. They then had to decide whether to fight or flee. To ensure that this worked well, the body prioritized the intestines and digestion so that there was more strength left to fight or run away. As the muscles had to be particularly well supplied with blood, the blood flow to the digestive organs was reduced.
After successfully fleeing or defeating the enemy, humans were able to retreat and rest. But what is it like today?
Today we are actually under constant stress! As a result, the gut is almost always put on the back burner.
This explains why digestion does not work well under stress. Some people react to stress with constipation, others with diarrhea or other digestive problems. Incidentally, many people think that they have no stress. That they have everything under control. But stress has many faces, noise, for example, is also stress for our system, as are the many images we are bombarded with today, the rapidly changing demands, the many deadlines, the demand for perfection and constant availability, for example. And emotions such as anger or worrying are also stress.
Interesting fact: studies have shown that being angry for 10 minutes weakens our immune system for 6 hours. Wow. Wow. Anger is pretty toxic. And so is worrying, by the way. Because when you worry, the only person you're really hurting is yourself. The person you're worrying about is usually unaware of your negative feelings!
Stress can also cause the intestinal mucosa to become leaky. You may have heard of the term leaky gut. And if this is the case, then there is also inflammation in the body. And an inflammatory system has a hard time relaxing and people have a hard time being happy.
What does our state of health have to do with happiness?
So, you can probably see by now why I say that the gut can be connected to our brain, our feelings and therefore also our happiness. But I would like to look at the whole thing from a higher perspective and become a little more abstract.
To do this, I invite you to simply ask yourself for a moment: What do I actually need to be happy? What would my life circumstances have to be like for me to be happy?
And then comes the crucial step:
Who do I have to be to feel this way right now?
This lays an important foundation.
But there's more.
A second important foundation is how you feel in your life. body. If you are constantly tired, in pain, in a bad mood, unable to concentrate, then it will be difficult to live your life the way you want to!
Earn enough money, do things, travel, look after your friends, spend time with your animals and so on! To do this, you need energy and a functioning body. In order to have the energy to tackle all of this and not just sit around at work all day and fall onto the couch tired in the evening.
And so that your body is fit and doesn't become a brake pad for you, that's why the gut is so important and that's where I see the main connection between the gut and happiness.
There's the saying "Death is in the gut". I say life is in the gut. When you start taking care of your gut, it has a positive domino effect on your whole life. Far beyond the boundaries of "what healthy thing am I going to eat today"! It's not about eating healthy for the sake of eating healthy. To soothe your guilty conscience. It's about enabling your body to give you the life you've always wanted.
And you often only get the courage and drive to do this when you feel light and full of energy and also when you're clear-headed. And I really hope I have been able to convey to you that you will lose this clarity if your gut is not working and is poisoning you from the inside.
What you can do from a nutritional and gut perspective to feel as happy as possible and why chocolate is not the solution
It is of course very tempting to approach the topic of happiness from a dietary point of view. Chocolate, ice cream and red wine are high up on the popularity scale of foods that supposedly make you happy.
The problem is that this is purely symptom relief. It's a rewarding kick for the moment, but in the long term it takes you further and further away from happiness.
I'm not saying you should give up everything you like forever and that chocolate is unhealthy and alcohol anyway... No!
But: The foods that we normally see as a reward are almost always full of fast carbohydrates and/or sugar. They cause your blood sugar levels to skyrocket, your body to produce too much insulin, stress hormones to rise and inflammation to be promoted. What's more, if you eat these things on a regular basis, your gut flora gets mixed up. And let's be honest: it's a vicious circle and often it doesn't stop at once every few weeks but you need the kick pretty quickly on a daily basis.
Exercise:
How can I reward myself that has nothing to do with eating or drinking?
Write a list of at least 5 things that make you feel good!
Once you've figured this out, you won't need food to reward you at all and you can make your food intake healthier and more relaxed.
What you can do with food to increase your feeling of happiness:
- Eat warm. Start with a cooked breakfast.
- Generally not too much raw food.
- Varied, fresh, real food
- Cook for yourself (cooking is grounding!)
- Take breaks between meals
- Use spices! Chili, for example, is considered a mood enhancer. Or saffron. You can read about this here, a highly recommended book: Brain doping with spices by Dr. Sabine Paul
- Drink enough water
- Take probiotics and prebiotics
Otherwise
- Go outside, in Go out into nature
- Get enough sleep
- Take care of your relationships and friends
- Follow your heart and do what you are here for
- Do what you do with love
If you don't just want to listen, read and think, but want to get into action, then I recommend my Gut Happiness course.
Because there we take these steps together, week after week there are instructions, exercises and above all: a live call with me, where you can ask questions, tell me where you are at the moment, how you are doing and, above all, where you may have got stuck or where hurdles arise in everyday life.
You'll also find exciting guest interviews and lessons, for example from nutritionist Ulrike Gonder, doctor and Ayurveda specialist Dr. Janna Scharfenberg and biologist Sabine Paul.
Now I recommend that you subscribe to the podcast so that you don't miss an episode, and if you like what you hear, I'd really appreciate a rating on iTunes or Apple Podcast. Because these reviews also help other people to find the podcast so that we can spread the knowledge about gut and health more.
