Stress: have you looked inside?

Have you been stressed lately? If you have, have you felt a sinking feeling in your gut?

Do you really feel stress in your gut or is it just imagination?

Your gut is home to something known as the enteric nervous system. Made from millions of neurons, the gut can independently think and act. Independant from the brain, that is. That is why the gut is called the second brain.

So what is the role of stress in triggering a reaction from the gut?

When you feel anxious, your body produces neurotransmitters. The intention is to signal to the body to enable you to prepare and respond.

Much like everything else, neurotransmitter can be dysregulated. You can make too much or too little.

Take serotonin. The gut produces about ninety percent of it. But when serotonin is dysregulated, it can cause irritable bowel syndrome. In fact, not just IBS, but also constipation and loose motions.

The direct link between stress and digestion.

So what can you do?

Stress, in this case is directly affecting your body. Your thoughts and emotions are triggering a wave of response, but all of them are physical.

So your best bet is to work directly with the body to stop this from happening.

It is called somatic awareness. The ability to look inside.

Typically, this happens autonomously. Without your permission. But the second you override the autonomous function and look inside, you are already releasing stress.

Think of this as a magic tool given to you by the gods above.

Simple as it may sound, focusing your mind within, the muscle, the limb, the heart and so on, allows your body to release stress.

You could not be focusing on your body if there genuinely was stress, so to speak.

Somatic awareness is a skill. It goes beyond merely looking inside. But it is a skill that we have not cultivated, instead relying on our body to do all the work.

Pause. Stop. Look inside. The answer to your stress may lie within.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain