Post #3: The Mind-Gut Connection
Life is like the bathroom: Sometimes everything comes out smoothly, but other times we find ourselves pushing through it. Stress hormones produced in the brain in response to difficult life experiences can lead to dysfunction anywhere in the body. Organ function can be altered in neuroplastic conditions or tissue can be damaged in inflammatory conditions. When functional neuroplastic symptoms are ingrained, they affect the involuntary smooth muscle of various body systems including the gastrointestinal tract. The GI tract includes the esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Beyond our conscious control, involuntary smooth muscle allows for food to move through the GI tract and to cinch closed the stomach, so food and acid don’t flow backward. Just as in a sewage pipe, neuroplastic conditions can slow, clog, or back up flow in the GI tract. Non-neuroplastic inflammatory conditions risk damaging the piping integrity altogether.
As for many conditions that have a mind-body component, the body is left to communicate what the conscious mind finds too distressing to face. Consider what life experiences at the onset of your symptoms had you “fed-up” or “sick to your stomach.” Have you “bitten off more than you can chew” in terms of obligations on your “plate?” Has a life experience got you “disgusted?” Have difficult memories been “regurgitated” in your mind too many times without truly processing the emotions of it? “Full” of a lot of puns and a little bathroom humor, the following is a brief selection of conditions for which a mind-body approach can restore GI function.
Esophagus
Esophageal Spasms & Globus Sensation
Has a life experience been “hard to swallow?”
Spasms of the esophagus make it hard for food to progress into the stomach, leading to difficulty swallowing and possibly pain. Symptoms may coincide with eating or not. The “globus” sensation describes the feeling of something in the way, yet appropriate tests show no tumor or other growth, and instead indicates a functional neuroplastic condition. I experienced persistent esophageal tension, difficulty swallowing, and weight loss in 2022 during an especially stressful time. When I became aware of the mind-body connection, I considered my relationship with food. I realized that during busy educational programs and medical work, I multitasked, shoving food into my mouth and swallowing it more quickly than it took to strip a wrapper off a protein bar. In so doing, for over 20 years, I conditioned my esophagus with stress. I subconsciously learned to hold tension in my food pipe, as the “gulp” of painful emotions. I developed fear of the symptoms, which created nervous system memory in my esophagus until mind-body techniques allowed for my recovery.
Stomach
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) & Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease (LPRD)
Has a life experience been “hard to stomach?”
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) may involve a burning sensation in the chest, and regurgitation of food. Often called heartburn, the sensation may be confused with heart attack pain. If stomach acid backs up even further into the throat and airways, it can also cause hoarseness and chronic cough as Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease (LPRD). Reflux is a functional alteration, but can lead to downstream tissue damage and cancer-promotion in areas not meant to be acidified.
Gastroparesis
What might be preventing you from “moving forward?”
In Gastroparesis, stomach muscle malfunctions, preventing normal forward flow of food into the intestine. This leads to early fullness, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and unintended weight loss. Food fear propagates the symptoms. Traditional medicine may lead to a surgically-placed intestinal feeding tube as a stomach bypass. Alternatively, healing through mind-body interventions can jumpstart stomach motility and avoid an invasive life-long surgery.
Intestines
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Have you had a life experience you need to emotionally “purge?”
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), with symptoms of abdominal discomfort, diarrhea and / or constipation, constitutes more than 40% of gastroenterology referrals from primary care (Laskaratos et al, 2015). Although symptoms are sometimes blamed on food sensitivities and bacterial growth in the GI tract, studies haven’t determined a causal link to irritable bowel symptoms. What have been clearly linked to IBS are stressful life experiences.
Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction (CIPO)
Do you feel “blocked” from speaking up about a stressful or traumatic event?
Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction (CIPO) is a despairing condition in which the flow of food within the intestines functionally ceases. Downstream bowel dilates, as would happen with true obstruction from a tumor or fecal blockage. Symptoms include abdominal bloating, pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. As for all neuroplastic conditions, the dysfunction and symptoms are entirely real. Without natural movement in the GI tract for vitamins and minerals to be absorbed and food waste to be expelled, patients may become dependent on a nutritional solution administered directly through the veins, bypassing the GI tract altogether. Alternatively, mind-body interventions can send healing messages to the gut, allowing for natural digestion to return.
Celiac Disease & Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
Have you had an emotional “break-down” or a life experience that’s been hard to “absorb?”
Celiac Disease, a non-neuroplastic inflammatory condition related to autoimmune attack on intestinal tissue, involves an inability to break down gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and sometimes oats. Celiac patients can’t eat traditional breads, pasta, pizza dough, cereals, or crackers without experiencing symptoms of abdominal bloating, discomfort, diarrhea, constipation, or weight loss. Certain vitamins and minerals are poorly absorbed by the inflamed intestine.
In The Biology of Belief, cell biologist Bruce Lipton elucidates how conditions such as Celiac Disease may have a genetic vulnerability, but a stressor is necessary to “turn on” genetic expression of the illness. This concept of epigenetics, in contrast to genetic determinism, reveals how life experiences constantly influence gene activity. Our sociology and psychology shape our biology. We are not victims of our genes. And if we understand how life experiences modulate our health, we don’t have to be victims of our environment either.
In contrast to Celiac Disease, Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance is a neuroplastic functional GI disorder. A blood test for gut tissue antibodies and / or a tissue biopsy confirm Celiac Disease, but are negative in Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance. Non-Celiac patients have difficulty tolerating gluten, not from inflammation, but rather from an unhealthy mind-gut interaction. Through coincident stress and fear of symptoms, a Non-Celiac patient has subconsciously developed an association between gluten-containing foods and symptoms.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Has a life experience been a “punch in the gut” or “gut-wrenching?”
Although the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) of Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis involve tissue damage, they are produced by stress just as functional neuroplastic conditions are. As in Celiac Disease, epigenetics comes into play here. Beyond the genetic blueprint alone, stress hormones initiate inflammation, causing abdominal pain, diarrhea, blood in the stool, and other symptoms. Once dysfunction in the GI tract is learned, future stress resends inflammation there. Mind-body techniques and stress-reducing lifestyle changes can limit or remit IBD symptoms.
Healing the Mind-Gut Connection
In traditional medicine, treatments for GI conditions are oriented downstream, but the deluge of bodily symptoms created by stress in the brain has already been formed. Therefore, mind-body healing comes by addressing deep-rooted experiences and emotions to form new rivulets of healing to the GI system.
Pain & Symptom Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) directly addresses symptoms ingrained in the mind-gut connection. GI functions are retrained with fear-reducing exercises and structured habits of mindful eating and toileting.
Emotional Awareness & Expression Therapy (EAET) helps confront personal history to move forward and heal. In Rising Strong, professor of social work Brené Brown explains that “stockpiles of repressed emotional pain” link to physical symptoms. Brown encourages us to “rumble” with ourselves on the topics of grief, shame, fear, blame, or failure. In 2022, when I rumbled with my own history, I realized childhood experiences shaped my identity and personality. I formed habits of caring more for others than for myself, which created mind-body symptoms as an adult. Self-understanding allowed me to forge an empowering new phase of life.
Looking back on life experiences may be “a hard pill to swallow” or “leave a bad taste in your mouth.” It may “choke” you up. But if you are “hungry” for meaning, the introspection will be worth it and heal you. And isn’t it time to finally “let some sh-- go??”
Also full of GI puns and learning from life struggles: Alanis Morissette’s “You Learn”
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I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
Yeah, oh
I recommend walkin' around naked in your living room
Yeah
Swallow it down (What a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (Swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settlesYou live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn
I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (The caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (To the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clearsYou live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learnWear it out (The way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (You're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend
You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn
You grieve, you learn
You choke, you learn
You laugh, you learn
You choose, you learn
You pray, you learn
You ask, you learn
You live, you learn
Rachel Hollander enjoying dinner at her husband’s family home near Ames, Iowa, June 6, 2025.
