The following strategies can help you settle your mind and your stomach so you can fully enjoy every meal. Whether it’s a morning meditation, a predinner cocktail, or simply taking 10 deep breaths before the first bite, anything that allows the body’s rest-and-digest system to take over will improve digestion and help maximize the pleasure and nutrition you receive from your food. Yet when we take seriously how much digestion is influenced by our mental and emotional states, it opens up a treasure trove of techniques for improving it. “Most of us think about digestion only when it’s indigestion - bloating, gas, heartburn, constipation, and all the other unpleasant symptoms that quickly direct our attention to our digestive tract,” writes health coach Halé Sofia Schatz in If the Buddha Came to Dinner. We typically don’t consider the effect of stress on digestion until more acute issues arise. Peristalsis slows to a crawl and appetite disappears. When we’re in survival mode, other aspects of digestion also cease to operate. “You see that cat, and all your blood and energy is shot out to your arms and legs, so you can fight or run.” “We are each about 125,000 calories of yumminess to a saber-toothed cat,” he says. The sympathetic nervous response shuts down digestion for evolutionary purposes, notes wellness educator Kenton Whitman, cofounder of ReWild University in Cable, Wis. These two functions of the nervous system are aspects of the sympathetic response, which activates in times of stress, and the parasympathetic response, sometimes called the “rest and digest” phase. Likewise, he notes, “the part of the brain that turns on the relaxation response turns on full, healthy digestive power.” “The same part of our brain that turns on stress turns off digestion,” David explains. The ANS is the part of the nervous system that gets the stomach churning when we’re nervous it also gets the digestive enzymes flowing when we feel relaxed, safe, and ready to eat.
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