Emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant, work in the same way as a food that the body needs to digest, so it is not surprising that, depending on the type of emotion you feel, it affects the stomach as if it were a delicious or unhealthy food.
Feeling a knot in your stomach if you’re afraid, or the famous butterflies that fly when you’re in love, are just a few examples of this link between the mind and the digestive system. Can we control it or minimize its negative effects?
“Life is a gerondif, not a participant. ? Ortega y Gasset-
Dr. Mario Alonso Puig, a doctor specializing in general surgery and digestive tract, explains that the immediate impact of emotions on the stomach occurs because one of the most important emotional maps of the brain, the insula lobe, collects information from the digestive tract.
Additionally, the part of the nervous system responsible for the gastrointestinal system that lines the stomach contains neurotransmitters. Surprisingly, the structure formed by a network of one hundred million neurons allows this system to remember and learn independently of the brain, which is why it is called the “second brain”.
We don’t have one or two: up to three in the human body, besides what you already know, the second and third are located in the digestive tract and in the heart, in fact, 90% of Serotonin, the hormone that balances mood?occurs in the digestive system.
This 3? Brains: they need to be connected and work together. Puig says that when you become independent, the negative effects are physically apparent.
In the case of the digestive tract, does the person suffer from disorders such as irritable bowel, spasms, digestive problems?Unfortunately, from a medical point of view, little help can be offered to the person who is suffering from it. are solutions:
If the person reduces their anxiety or sees life with more hope, often and naturally, the digestive system resynchronizes with the brain in the cranial cavity.
Something as simple – or not so simple in some situations – as a smile, has the ability to change the anxiety circuit because it sends a message to the brain that everything is fine.
While it is difficult to do so at first, if in an uncomfortable situation the smile resists, the brain is forced to do something to adapt to the message received.
The authentic smile discovered by Duchenne in 1862, that is, the involuntary and spontaneous smile, would have the same effect as a false smile on the brain, is as if we had received a compliment or good news.
Between 60% and 90% of medical center visits are due to so-called “toxic” emotions (anger, anxiety, sadness, shame, envy, guilt, hostility, disgust?) And the release of cortisol, the stress hormone.
Seeking the positive side of life implies a physical change, the formation of a new brain tissue that allows us to reinvent ourselves so that we can continuously focus on the positive side.
The price of continuing to eat negative emotions can be a disease, so weight must diet to swallow negativism.
A technique recommended by Dr. Puig is to write them down, because by reflecting the emotions in writing, they move to the previous left or prefrontal area, the basis of positive emotions.
When art articulates a negative emotion in language, it necessarily passes through the left prefrontal zone and automatically reduces its strength.
Faced with an angry emotion, Mario Alonso Puig advises walking fast, so that oxytocin and beta endorphins produced by the breed extinguish the amygdala and hypothalamus, the basis of anger reactions.
With this information, it is clear that the best thing for our health and well-being is to stop eating negative emotions. In this way we will avoid indigestion or other more serious diseases in the stomach or intestines.
Before eating a disappointment, biting some anxiety or eating with rage, remember that taking a pen and writing down negative feelings on a piece of paper is a healthier alternative than swallowing them.