That Gut Feeling
I live on instinct and trust my gut 99% of the time. I say if it feels right but doesn’t necessarily make logical sense, then I know I’m on the right track. Clients constantly ask me how to better tap into their intuition or gut instinct. Well, the answer is: the more you connect to your gut feeling, the more you connect to your gut feeling! With the key word being “feeling”.
We are all familiar with butterflies in our stomachs when we are excited and some sort of digestive discomfort when we are scared or nervous. One of the reasons for this is that our physical brain and gut brain are interconnected so when one gets upset so does the other.
The gut brain is sometimes referred to as the second brain which is not surprising considering that there are around 100 million neurons lining our intestines.
The gut brain is highly regarded as a source of intuitive knowing and insight by many cultures around the world. Located in the digestive tract and housed under the mucosal lining and between the muscular layers of the oesophagus, stomach and the small and large intestines, scientists know the gut brain as the enteric nervous system (ENS).
The ENS is a network of neurons and neurochemicals that sense and control events in other parts of the body including the brain. The 100 million neurons located in the ENS are greater than the number of nerves we have in the spinal cord and there is a greater flow of neural traffic from the ENS to the physical brain than there is from the physical brain to the ENS. So it would seem that the our command system is located in the gut rather than the brain!
We know that gut brain develops from birth and has its major foundation phase up to the age of seven. It is the initial unconscious force that drives us to “become” human.
Scientists are starting to understand that the gut brain does so much more than handle digestion. Because of its connection to our physical brain, it plays a big part in determining our mental state and plays a key role in particular diseases throughout the entire body.
We also now know that this mass of neural tissue and neurotransmitters is way too evolved to only to make sure that things move out of your colon. 90% of the fibres in the bodies primary visceral nerve, the vagus nerve, carry information from the gut to the brain not the other way around.
Because a large part of our emotions are influenced by our gut, our everyday wellbeing relies on messages from our gut brain to our physical brain, tempered by our heart brain.
The key to healing and your intuition is through your gut brain.
