Supporting Your Mood Through Your Gut

Written by Nicole Nyerick RD, LDN

Edited by Sarah Criscuolo MS, RD, LDN, CSN, CPT

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How can improving your digestive health also help to improve your mood? This happens through something called the Gut-Brain Connection.

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Think about the last time you were nervous and maybe felt a bit nauseous, or had an uneasy stomach. Or you were excited for something and got “butterflies” in your stomach. We use these expressions because the gastrointestinal tract is extremely connected to our emotions and feelings. Excitement, anger, anxiety – all of these directly impact the gut and digestion.

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But it also goes the other way around. Poor diversity of the probiotics (our beneficial gut “bugs”) living in our digestive tract has also been shown to correlate with mood disorders, such as anxiety or depression.

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Because of this direct connection between the brain and gut, it’s important to take care of our digestion if we want to also take care of our mood and general wellbeing.

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The Enteric Nervous System

Your intestines and digestive tract are like your “second brain”. That’s because of the enteric nervous system (ENS), which is housed in the gut. The ENS is part of the nervous system that controls different functions of the body including:

• Motor function
• Blood flow
• Immune system regulation
• Production of our “feel good” hormones (serotonin and GABA)

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The Vagus Nerve

As if that wasn’t enough, we also have a large nerve called the vagus nerve which the gut and brain communicate through. It runs from your brain to your colon, creating a physical connection between the two.

• 20% of the vagus nerve sends signals from the brain to the stomach to regulate digestive enzyme production to let our body know it’s time to eat and digest.
• 80% of the vagus nerve sends signals to the brain from the stomach to say “hey, I’m hungry!” or for satiation to say “hi, I’m full”.

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Stress & Digestion

Have you ever felt like you were running on auto-pilot or that stress was just your new norm? Our body unfortunately is not meant to face the types of ongoing stress that we experience in our modern day-to-day lives. Stress activates the body’s “fight or flight” response, and when we’re in this state, our gut can take a hit. This is mainly because we’re using energy elsewhere to try and bring our body back to a calmer state. This can look like:

• Decreased digestion and food breakdown
• Impacted appetite (decreased, increased, inconsistency)
• Nausea
• Indigestion or heartburn
• Slowed gut motility (i.e. constipation, bloating, or gas)

All of these can lead to troublesome or uncomfortable digestive symptoms, without having to do anything with specific foods.

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Supporting a healthy mood through the gut

So now that we’ve learned about the gut-brain connection, how can you support your brain and mood through your gut?

1. Enjoy probiotic-rich foods. Things like sauerkraut, yogurt, and kefir support diversity of your good gut “bugs” – which in turn supports overall digestion.
2. Eat prebiotic-rich foods. Think of prebiotics as a “fertilizer” for probiotics and bacteria in the digestive tract to thrive on. Cacao, slightly green bananas, oats, onions, garlic, berries, spinach, chia/flax seed are all examples of prebiotic-rich foods
3. Support vagus nerve function. We can support good digestion and digestive enzyme production by stimulating our vagus nerve, specifically before meal times. Some ways to do so are 2-3 minutes of humming, box breathing, or gurgling liquid (water).
4. Up your self-care. Managing your stress levels with regular self-care activities can benefit your digestion. Find what works for you – maybe your self-care looks like daily affirmations, listening to an audiobook, or getting outside in nature!
5. Move your body. Movement has been shown to positively promote good digestion. This can be anything that feels good for you from walking, to stretching, to lifting weights.

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Final takeaways!

• The gut-brain connection refers to the way your brain and gut talk back and forth through a network of nerves and chemical messengers.
• Your digestion can affect your mood and mental health, and your mood and mental health can in turn affect your digestion. Therefore, supporting digestion can support a healthy mood, and vice versa.
• You can support your gut health through incorporating pre- and probiotic-rich foods, improving vagus nerve function, focusing on self-care and moving your body.

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Interested in learning more about how you can support your gut and your mind at the same time? Use this link to schedule an intake appointment to get set up with one of our wonderful dietitians!

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Sources:
1. Book: Healthy Gut Healthy You by Dr. Michael Rusico

2. Appleton J. (2018). The gut-brain axis: Influence of microbiota on mood and mental health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6469458