This year has been a bit of an emotionally stressful one for me and I have definitely felt it in my body. I don’t think we realise how much pressure our body takes and how hard it has to work when stressed.
In the work I do, I spend so much time advising the women I see to ‘Slow Down’ or ‘Relax’ as they have so much to do and hence become more stressed than they realise. Look at yourself – what is your day or week like? How much time do you actually spend on yourself – stopping and sitting and relaxing – even for 5 minutes a day?? I bet you don’t do ‘nothing’ very often.
So it is important to look at your everyday life and see if you can try and just STOP for 5 minutes, BREATHE – deep into the rib cage and then a lovely, slow exhale. If you are at home all day or work from home think about getting a diffuser and burn some lavender oil, or if you need more of a pick me up oil try grapefruit oil. I have one going in my office and will put a different oil in it depending on how I am feeling!
Emotions and the gut
There are so many receptors in our body and the main nerve – the Vagus nerve runs all the way down our body from the brain, down through the diaphragm, between our lunges and that is our main & important connection around our body. The gut has a network of nerves – so think about when you have been really scared or heard some very bad news – have you noticed you may suddenly feel sick, can’t eat or may have to run to the loo??
The gut sends signals up to parts of your brain and research was first done in 2011 to see if putting ‘good bacteria’ into the gut could have an effect on our emotions/depression – you know what – YES, they found fewer stress hormones in their testing. Now, in 2019 we hear about Probiotics and the benefits of the good bacteria and getting the different strains in our bodies so much more.
There is now so much more research going on and people are talking about the ‘gut brain’ as being the most important organ and where our illnesses begin.
Maybe for some of you reading this – when you are stressed – either emotionally or physically overworked – do you get a looser bowel movement, or your routinely regular ‘poo’ is harder to pass or you become constipated?
Probiotics
My stress definitely manifests itself in my bowel conditions and also my skin. I don’t want or mean to be stressed but circumstances may affect me and I react with irritable bowel or problems going to the loo.
If you do find you suffer with a ‘dodgy tummy’ when under stress I really would look at taking some probiotics – look at which strands they have in them and take them till you finish the pack then maybe find different probiotics which have different strands in them.
Put it this way, they can’t do you any harm and children can be given them from 6 weeks old. In fact medics are now researching mothers in their 3rd trimester – giving them probiotics to see if it can help babies & avoid getting eczema or illnesses when they are little babies.
Finally, there is a great book called Gut by Giulia Enders – it is such an informative read and really is not all the yucky stuff!! It is all about emotions, health and how our gut is related to it all. I can’t recommend it high enough. Its not for physicians, she writes it for the likes of us!!
