HH567: Encore Presentation-Stress: Impacts Your Digestive System

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Welcome back to another episode of health hacks

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as I continue talking about stress and how it impacts

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various different systems in your body that you may not be

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aware of. And today, I want to talk about how stress impacts

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digestion. Because you see, with our autonomic nervous system,

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you can either be in your fight or flight state high alert

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because of chronic stress, or you can be in your rest and

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digest parasympathetic nervous system, and you can't be in both

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at the same time. So if you're in that high alert sympathetic

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nervous system, your body is focused on getting you to

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safety. It is therefore actually shutting down your digestive

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system and your immune system, as well as other systems in the

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body, in order to be able to give you the energy you need in

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order to get to safety, to be able to produce the adrenaline,

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the cortisol, etc, so that you can get to safety, and in that

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moment, your body is not making salivary enzymes and other

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digestive enzymes. There's no stomach acid being made in order

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for your body to be able to break down your food. So if you

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are eating in a state of chronic stress, that that sympathetic

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nervous system, that fight or flight state and putting food

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into your body, your body cannot properly digest it, and that

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just causes problems down the line throughout your digestive

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system, because the food stays in there too long, it starts to

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putrefy, which nobody wants. And over the course of time, if we

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do this on a regular basis, it has all sorts of negative health

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effects, in the sense that, because the food isn't being

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broken down properly, you're not feeling satiated. This the

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goodness of the food is not getting to the cells that need

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it, so you're not getting the energy that you need. Because

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you're not satiated, you're going to eat more often. That

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leads to weight gain. It can also lead to diarrhea and

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constipation, because the bo The food's not being broken down

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properly, and your your body can't use it and excrete it

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properly, and it triggers all of these issues. And so that's

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something that I really want you to be aware of, because we don't

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often necessarily connect how stress is impacting our body's

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ability to properly digest our food. Now I want to leave you

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with something that you can do in order to support that stress

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level, and that is to meditate. And there may be people that are

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like, I can't meditate, and I want to invite you to think of

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meditating as just sitting quietly for a few minutes. This

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doesn't have to be a massive hour long or even a half hour

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long meditation, if you can just start with the baby steps of

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sitting quietly. Maybe it's outside in your garden, closing

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your eyes and just listening to the sounds that are happening

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around you and just focus on that, nothing else. And you

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know, if your mind starts running. Just be aware of that

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and say, okay, mind, this is my moment to calm and just ask

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those thoughts to go away as you tune back in to the sounds that

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are around you, or you might like to tune into the feeling

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around you. It might be the soft breeze on your skin and on your

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face. It might be the sun on your face. There's many ways to

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meditate. It doesn't have to be sitting on a meditation mat and

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tuning into something you know to your own inner self for 30

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minutes or an hour or four hours. Start off small, and as

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you start off small, you're going to notice you you enjoy

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those little moments in time that you take for yourself, that

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you could take several times a day, and as you build a little

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habit around that, maybe you do it before each meal, so that

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that calms your nervous system and then allows you to be eating

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when your rest and digest state is turned on, and Your body can

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actually be producing your salivary enzymes, your stomach

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acid, and all of the other enzymes needed to break down

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your food as it travels through your entire digestive system. So

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I hope that's helpful for you, and I just want to wish you

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happy digesting, because it is such a critical part in your

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overall health.