STRESS.
The stuff is everywhere and it can affect every part of your life, including your digestion.
I know. You are so busy. You’re busy at work, at home, on the weekends and if you have kids, you’re at least seventy times as busy as a normal human.
Do you often find that you wish you had just five or ten minutes every day to yourself? This is your chance.
How?
For one meal a day, unplug.
Sounds simple, right? It is.
Pick one meal of your day and eat that meal without doing anything else. No phone, no TV, no Facebook, no reading, no listening to podcasts, no driving. Just eat.
If you are eating in a noisy place, download some nature sounds or ocean waves ahead of time to block out the chaos.
If you have urgent business coming up, set a timer to put your mind at ease, but try not to watch the timer. Instead, try to enjoy your food. Just let your mind wander for a change.
“But once a day is too much!”
I get that. Carving out time takes time. Try two meals a week and increase it as you can. If you are eating dinner in front of the TV, congratulations, you already have time to do this! The goal is to eat all or most of your meals in this way.
Bonus points
Think happy thoughts! Focus on something you find relaxing or uplifting. Maybe it was a trip you took to the beach last year or the way that tall grass looks blowing in a soft breeze. Whatever it is, try to focus on something that makes you feel more relaxed.
Why is this important?
When we are under stress our bodies start to ramp up in to fight-or-flight mode. Heard of it? It’s those primal instincts that kick in when you’re under stress and you’re figuring out whether you are going to fight back or run away as fast as you can from the saber-tooth tiger or whatever happens to think you might be delicious.
To get you ready to take action, your body does a few things: it increases your heart rate and breathing so you can get more oxygen to your strong muscles, it dilates your pupils so that you can see danger coming, and (here’s the important one), slows function of internal processes like digestion, so that all extra energy can be devoted to your extremities so you can run as fast as you are able.
So, if you are eating under stress, any kind of stress, and your digestion feels like it’s not working like it used to, this could be why. Take the time to treat your digestive tract to something special, like adequate blood supply to help it do the job that Mother Nature intended. You might find that this small change can make a big difference.
Want to learn more?
https://www.everydayhealth.com/hs/better-digestion/how-stress-affects-digestion/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/stress-and-the-sensitive-gut
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037