Gut-Brain-Heart Axis: Insight by Ann Sinclair
Gut Health
Gut- Brain-Heart Axis: Insight by Ann Sinclair
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Several years ago I read the Mind-Gut book by Emeran Mayer and 10% Human by Alanna Collen and it changed the way I thought about illness and our mental wellness connection to the gut-brain axis.
Fast forward to 2019 and Dr. Emeran Mayer came into my focus again with him being on an advisory board of a mental wellness company. I was researching more about the gut-brain axis for my clients and came across more information. With my clients, my focus is reducing stress and finding balance in their body. I believe it is so important to reduce stress so that the body can work the way it should and not have to focus on calming your body down. Working with the gut-brain axis we learn how to reduce stress, anxiety and help our mood and focus.
New science is telling us that we can no longer just look at our brain for our mental wellness but we need to look at our second brain our gut and our third brain our heart (gut-brain-heart axis). Our gut, heart, immune system, the endocannabinoid system, microbiome are sending and receiving signals to and from our brain that determines how we feel and how we perform.
If you have a balanced gut then the messages that are being sent to the brain tell it you are feeling good, you have stress resiliency, focused, motivated and more.
Think about the first time you fell in love or watched a scary movie. You felt butterflies or knots in your stomach. This is a way to understand that our gut and brain are connected. Because we know they are connected we need to take care of both for our mental wellness. Our gut microbiome produces 60-90% of our feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Our gut produces 70% of our immune system. This is important to know because when our gut microbiome is imbalanced it is sending messages to our brain telling it we are anxious, moody, stressed, not focused, bloated, sad, fatigued or in pain. In our gut we have good bacteria and bad bacteria. The bacteria needs to be balanced! Just like when you have a garden and you have plants. If weeds start growing you don’t want the weeds to take over your garden. This can happen in your gut and when bad bacteria can take over they are sending messages to your brain.
If you have a balanced gut then the messages that are being sent to the brain tell it you are feeling good, you have stress resiliency, focused, motivated and more.
Balancing Gut Health
So the next question most people ask is how is my gut getting imbalanced and how do I get it balanced?
Your gut can get imbalanced from not eating healthy meals, eating processed meals and overindulging in foods with high sugar. You should try to eat around 30 different types of vegetables and fruits per week and 30 grams of fiber per day. In our Western diet, most are not getting enough fiber which can lead to inflammatory diseases, diabetes, anxiety, depression. The reason you want to eat different types of vegetables and fruits is because they are feeding different types of bacteria in your gut and you want this variety. Vegetables serving should be the size of your hand, fist-size of whole grains, beans, and legumes, a palm-size of the protein. Eating chicken or fish you want it to be a fist size and the vegetables on your plate should be the majority of your plate.
Imbalanced Gut
Your gut can also get imbalanced when you take over-the-counter drugs, antibiotics, if you weren’t a vaginal delivery, not breastfeed, or constant stress can alter your microbiome. All of these things can contribute to an imbalanced gut and sometimes you are aware because you will have constipation, IBS, Chrohns, constant upset stomach, and other times you are not aware but it can show with anxiety, sadness, not able to focus, fatigue and more.
When we have an imbalance in the gut it can cause damage to our gut lining which can lead to a leaky gut and this can interfere with our immune system signaling which can increase inflammation and lead to the blocking of signaling of certain neurotransmitters like serotonin (we will feel sad) and dopamine (we will lose motivation) and hormones such as our thyroid (we can gain weight) and cortisol (we start to feel anxious or tense). When there is an imbalance it can lead to more imbalance and more problems with how we feel both mentally and physically. But when our gut is balanced and the more it stays balanced we can improve our mental and physical health.
Tips To Take Action
What can we do to help the gut-brain connection for mental wellness?
Get 7-9 hours of sleep
Breathing exercises
Movement
Drinking water
All of these help your gut and brain for mental wellness. The next question is what happens if we are doing all the right things and we still don’t feel good. This is a good time to look at supplementation for the gut-brain axis in connection to mental wellness.
There is a link to heart disease and depression.
When we supplement we want to take a comprehensive approach to mental wellness. We want to work with the gut-brain-heart axis because many times we don’t know where our stress, anxiety, mood, focus issues are coming from. Many people who can’t focus can get stressed or anxious. If your hormones aren’t balanced you can be stressed, anxious or depressed. There is a link to heart disease and depression. These are just a few examples of why we need to take a comprehensive approach.
Probiotics
When we think of supplementation for our gut we think about probiotics. When you go to the store it can be difficult to know what probiotics to buy. There are probiotics that are refrigerated, on the shelf, in powder form, or in capsule form. Years ago I remember thinking the ones in the refrigerator were the best or the ones with the highest cfu’s. This is not the case! Each of these has a different function but what is important is the strain or number and letters at the end of the name of the probiotic. Let's take a look at Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, Lactobacillus is called the Genus, the Species is rhamnosus and the strain is GG. Lactobacillus Rhamnosus GG is a very common probiotic and used for travelers' diarrhea. There is also a probiotic Lactobacillus Rhamnosus R0011 which improves GABA neurotransmission and reduces stress by lowering cortisol exposure. This is just one strain for mental wellness and there are others for stress, anxiety and to help with mood and still improve gut integrity. As you can see when you go to the store looking for a probiotic it is important to know the strains. Equally important is to have a prebiotic that is specifically matched to feed the probiotic.
Supplementation is there for our brain, heart and axis (the communication highway between the brain-heart-gut). When we can’t focus or stay calm we can look at different herbs and phytobiotics that can help us to achieve optimum mental clarity and focus.
Working with the gut-brain-heart axis can give us many benefits both mentally and physically and help you to improve your life. If you would like more information about the probiotics, herbs, or phytobiotics for mental wellness you can contact me at 616-450-1174 or you can schedule a consultation call https://linktr.ee/Annsinclair
About the Author
Ann Sinclair is a Biomagnetic Pair practitioner and Certified Mental Wellness Coach. She is a former math teacher who had a son with lyme disease. During the time he had lyme she decided to learn biomagnetic pair so that she could help him. Now she is working with helping others balance their body with biomagnetic pair and working with the gut-brain-heart axis.
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