3 Benefits of a healthy belly!

If you've ever said “I’m going to go with my gut” when making an important decision, or had “butterflies” in your stomach when developing a crush, you’re taking cues from The Boss: your belly. Here’s more about this complicated set of digestive system elements that influence digestion, mood, health and even how we think.
3 Benefits of a healthy Belly:
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Serotonin
A little about where the Serotonin comes from. The gut which science has now called The second brain, contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system. This second brain is filled with important neurotransmitters. Its function does more than merely handle digestion or inflict the occasional nervous butterflies. Our gut brain if you will, in connection with the big one in our head, greatly influences our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body. This second brain can’t balance our checkbook or pilot a jet, but it does communicate with the big brain, via the vagus nerve, with profound results. As Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of physiology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.) says, "The system is way too complicated to have evolved only to make sure things move out of your colon.” For example, about 90 percent of the fibers in the primary visceral nerve, the vagus, carry information from the gut to the brain and not the other way around! Isn’t that amazing?
The new train of thought in the science is that 95% of the body's serotonin is found in the gut. Serotonin as you may already know, affects mood, social behavior, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire and function, and regulates feelings of happiness. There’s a link between depression and serotonin.

Quality of life
A person’s day to day activities can be enhanced greatly with having a healthy, strong gut. Have you experienced having a wonderful plan, say an after-dinner movie or play that’s put to a halt due to bloating or a gaseous stomach, headaches, acid reflux, leaky gut, cramping or worse? Life can’t be lived fully tip toeing around your tummy-- it's compromised! Clients tell me that often, when they suffer from stomach issues, it affects those around them and they feel guilty about canceling plans. The millions of antacids and other products sold each year are purchased to try and soothe this second brain.

Clear gut = Clear Mind and a Relaxed Body
Balance is an inside job! When there’s tension in the belly there’s tension throughout the body: the jaw, the brain and believe it or not the uterus. How many times have you heard that when a couple gave up on trying to have a baby, they got pregnant? When the gut is balanced, the individual organ function is enhanced. The systems (circulatory, nervous, reproductive, skeletal and respiratory) all shift gear into a better level of functioning; the body is like a beautiful swan, gliding across a clear lake. Think of how you might feel when you’re away on holiday. I often hear “When I was away on vacation, my stomach was just fine and I could eat nearly everything”! This is your gut in relaxation mode.

In conclusion, there are so many benefits to having a happy gut. A happy gut supports state of well-being, our state of mind, creativity, clear-thinking and ability to participate/engage. Here’s a share from a new client: “This is the most powerful somatic/depth work I've experienced I think ever, anywhere...It's what I've been needing all along. Eyes are the window to the soul and the belly is the elevator to the unconscious...!” ~ Nathanael Chawkin, Santa Barbara CA

​Copyright © 2016 Jada Delaney CMT, All rights reserved.
 Transformational Abdominal Massage

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