If you suffer from diarrhoea, IBS, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or other stomach issues, then you should keep reading.

The term “gut feeling” is a term most of us are familiar with. Perhaps you’ve experienced butterflies in your stomach when you’ve been in love, or a tight knot in your stomach when you’ve missed an important deadline. Perhaps you’ve even had diarrhoea before an important presentation or speech?

But how on Earth can emotions be felt in the stomach? Over the past couple of years, several scientific findings have shown the connection between the gut and the brain, and how we can improve our gut health through so-called mind-body medicine.

Our digestive system has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous system. This system has also been called our “second brain”, and it consists of between 50 and 100 million nerve cells! This system, or the brain of the gut, is connected to the brain through thick nerve fibres that ensure it’s possible to send information both ways and through communication channels using the bloodstream.

The enteric nervous system can, in many ways, control our digestion completely independently of our consciousness. Serotonin is an important signalling hormone and plays a key part in the regulation of our body temperature, mood, sleep, sexuality and appetite. It’s also an important substance in antidepressants. And 95% of the serotonin in our bodies is found in our intestines!

This two-way communication is called the brain-gut axis, and it involves constant communication between the brain and the intestinal system in order to control our digestion. This explains why your stomach can start rumbling at the sight of a juicy steak, long before the steak has reached your guts.

As mentioned before, you may have experienced getting diarrhoea before an important presentation, performance or competition, or had butterflies in your stomach before going on holiday, or when you’ve been in love. This “gut feeling” is a result of stress being communicated to the intestinal tract through these nerve paths.

Having an intestinal disease like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) can be incredibly stressful on its own. Even just the thought of always having to be able to find a toilet in record speed, or always being bloated and scared of releasing gas, can easily cause more stress, and maybe even anxiety. This stress can then negatively affect the intestines further, creating a vicious circle.

When we stress, our breathing automatically becomes quicker and superficial. Instead of breathing “into our bellies”, we only breathe into the top part of our chest. This breathing pattern causes very little movement of our diaphragm. And when the diaphragm is motionless – well, all our internal organs, including our intestines, stand still too! You can imagine what happens when our intestines stop moving. Our digestion becomes poor. It can stop completely, or the stool can become far too loose. That’s why practising conscious breathing is so important, both to control the stress levels in the body and to improve our digestion.

Many of those suffering from IBS or Crohn’s disease can be extra sensitive to stress. These are, however, very complex conditions, and medical experts don’t think the diseases are caused by stress to begin with. But stress can worsen the symptoms due to the connection between the brain and the digestive system.

In one survey, 70% of patients suffering from Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis said that situations in which the disease had flared up were linked to stressful events. Scientists confirm there is a link between stress and the digestive tract.

Research on animals has shown that stress can cause inflammation in the larger intestine or reactivate diseases that have been in an inactive phase. This is why stress can play an important role in the development of diseases in the intestines, even if it’s not the root cause of the disease.

Our digestive system reflects and reacts to any emotion that arises in the brain, and so does our breathing pattern. When we are angry, for example, our brain sends signals to our digestive system that can, for example, increase the production of stomach acid. Something similar happens when we are scared or upset. When we are sad or down, our intestines barely move at all; neither do they move if our breathing is quick and shallow.

It seems like some people are extra sensitive to stress. This “stomach sensitivity” seems to play a major role for people with IBS. The nerves in the digestive tract seem to be hypersensitive. This may be why some feel intense pain after eating a perfectly normal meal or when large amounts of gas pass through the intestines, while other people barely notice such things at all.

By practising slow, diaphragmatic breathing (breathing where we move our diaphragm and thereby out stomach and ribs) we can learn to regulate our stress response, and as a result, reprogramme our brain to turn off unwanted pain signals from the intestines.

At the same time, we ensure optimal movement of the intestines, which will also help us achieve far better digestion.

Emeran Mayer, “The Mind-Gut Connection” Harper Wave, 2016

Sarah Konsington, phD, Gastroenterologist “How Breathing Exercises Relieve Stress and Improve Digestive Health” 15 Dec, 2017

Nina Hanssen and Anette Aarsland “BREATHING – How to breathe to feel healthy, confident and calm” Cappelen Damm 2014

In Norwegian: Forskning.no “Er «magefølelsen» tarmbakteriene dine som snakker til deg?” 3 Jan, 2019