#71 - Your Anxiety Might Be a Gut Problem (Here's the Science)

What if the anxiety you've been trying to think your way out of isn't coming from your mind at all?

In this episode, I share what I discovered when I began my own gut healing protocol — not from the other side of it, but from inside it. Because the science behind it is too important to wait for a tidy transformation story.

The research is profound: your gut has 500 million neurons. It produces 90-95% of your body's serotonin. It communicates with your brain through the vagus nerve - and 80% of that communication travels upward, from gut to brain. Which means your gut is influencing your emotional life far more than most people realize. And a dysregulated gut may be the biological root of anxiety that has nothing to do with your thoughts.

In this episode you will learn:

• What the enteric nervous system is and why your gut is called the second brain
• Why 90-95% of your serotonin is produced in your gut — not your brain
• How the vagus nerve connects gut health to anxiety, mood, and nervous system regulation
• What the microbiome has to do with GABA, dopamine, and neuroinflammation
• Why blood sugar swings feel like anxiety — and how to stabilize both
• The one somatic eating practice that shifts your nervous system before every meal

You can find my 30-Day Low Histamine Reset Guide here

If you want to take a microbiome test yourself, my discount code ALIGNMENTBYTUVA gives you 10% off at Gutsie

Connect with Me

Instagram: @alignmentbytuva

Website: www.alignmentbytuva.com

Topics: gut brain axis, anxiety and gut health, nervous system regulation, serotonin gut, enteric nervous system, microbiome mental health, vagus nerve digestion, gut health anxiety, how to regulate nervous system, gut healing, leaky gut anxiety, food and mood, psychobiotics, blood sugar anxiety, nervous system food

SCIENCE REFERENCES

Gershon, M.D. (1998). The Second Brain. HarperCollins.

Furness, J.B. (2012). The enteric nervous system and neurogastroenterology. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 9, 286–294.

Bonaz, B., Bazin, T., & Pellissier, S. (2018). The vagus nerve at the interface of the microbiota-gut-brain axis. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 49.

Yano, J.M. et al. (2015). Indigenous bacteria from the gut microbiota regulate host serotonin biosynthesis. Cell, 161(2), 264–276.

Cryan, J.F. & Dinan, T.G. (2012). Mind-altering microorganisms: the impact of the gut microbiota on brain and behaviour. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13, 701–712.

Cryan, J.F. et al. (2019). The microbiota-gut-brain axis. Physiological Reviews, 99(4), 1877–2013.

Dinan, T.G., Stanton, C., & Cryan, J.F. (2013). Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic. Biological Psychiatry, 74(10), 720–726.

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