Digestion under attack? Escape state of chronic crisis by slowing down
By Nancy Ludwig, MS, RD, LD,
Siletz Tribal Head Start Nutrition
As part of my role as a consultant
nutritionist to Siletz Tribal Head Start, I
offer information for families. Last month
I reminded readers that ideal nutrition
is a powerful ally to stress. This month,
however, I state that stress can significantly
interfere with digestion, even when nutri-
tious vital food is consumed.
I eat a very healthy diet and have for
many years. I have struggled with my
stress response and I’ve come to realize
that I spend most of my time in the hyper-
alert state of fight, flight or freeze.
After many years of this, while
believing that I was handling stress fine,
I learned that this chronic state of fight,
flight or freeze may be harming my health
by interfering with proper digestion
despite my attention on high quality food.
Fight or flight really works well in a
state of short-term crisis (freeze is less
adaptive). When this heightened state
becomes chronic, however, it does not
work so well.
Adults and children who have experi-
enced trauma tend to spend more time in
this hyper-vigilant (or hyper-alert) state.
Trauma isn’t always a direct experience
with a memory. Trauma can be a collective
experience passed down through families,
and groups. Collective trauma is at work in
the Native population and adds a burden
to health.
When individuals live in a chronic
state of fight, flight or freeze as though
they were in crisis, they miss out on the
state of rest and digest and this actually
interferes with digestion. Digestion is at
the root of health because it extracts the
materials we need from our food to func-
tion, to grow and to repair.
Did you know that our bodies actually
have the ability to turn our digestion on or
off? Our central nervous system controls
our body’s ability to digest and use food.
How we respond to our environment,
our thoughts or our meal will determine
whether our central nervous system turns
our digestion on or off.
Our nervous system has two primary
aspects:
1. The sympathetic nervous system, also
known as fight or flight response
2. The parasympathetic nervous system,
also known as rest and digest response
They each have a powerful and essen-
tial function.
Our sympathetic nervous system kicks
in whenever we experience any kind of
real or perceived threat. If fear, real or
imagined shows up in your thoughts or
environment – being chased by a bear,
running late for a plane or the never end-
ing to-do list full of urgent deadlines – or
even judging ourselves for eating all that
cake – we activate our fight/flight response
and shift into a stress response.
As this occurs, our sympathetic ner-
vous system moves our energy and blood
flow out to our extremities so that we can
fight or flee, escape the situation or freeze
in the presence of our stressor.
When our body shuttles our energy
and blood to our arms and legs, it also
moves them away from our internal organs
– including our digestive tract. Digestion
is hardly essential when we are fighting for
our lives, so if we find ourselves in a full-
tilt stress response – like a bear chasing
us – our digestion completely shuts down.
Yet even in a moderate or chronic
stress response – like our to-do list for the
day at work or our constant self-criticism
– our digestive system still experiences a
negative impact. When we live in a state
of worry or anxiety, our ability to digest,
assimilate and metabolize our food is
hugely reduced.
Our stress response holds great influ-
ence over our digestion and metabolism.
This is one of the key principles in the
field of eating psychology.
There is simply no way that our body
can fully assimilate the nutrition that we’re
ingesting when our sympathetic nervous
system is activated. If we can shift out of
the physiologic stress response and back
into parasympathetic, we can improve our
digestive wellness.
The activation of our parasympathetic
nervous system is also called the rest and
digest system. It’s our relaxation response.
The parasympathetic system con-
serves energy while it slows the heart rate
down, increases intestinal activity, opens
blood vessels and allows us to take those
deep, calming breaths. When it comes
to improving our digestion wellness, the
parasympathetic nervous system is critical.
The Institute of Eating Psychology
suggests three strategies that will promote
digestive wellness by shifting into the
physiologic relaxation response. Check
out this link for more information –
psychologyofeating.com/secret-digestive-
wellness/.
The strategies include 1. Breathe, 2.
Slow down and 3. Enjoy your food.
Breathe: Unless you’re choking or
sick, few of us really pay attention to our
breath and its connection to our mood
and emotions. So before you begin eating,
take one minute to breathe fully, gently
and slowly. Bring yourself to your body,
sitting there at the table. Be committed to
be being nowhere else and begin breathing
with the intention of relaxing and becom-
ing fully present.
This is the fastest way to shift our bod-
ies into a more relaxed state. Isn’t it about
time we paid more heed to the power of
our breath?
Slow Down: Imagine shifting your
body from 100 miles an hour to 25 miles
an hour. In other words, bring it down to an
easy coast. So many of us are racing through
life. If we can slow down more by sitting
down to eat, by being realistic about how
many things we can actually get done in a
day, by focusing on one task instead of five
at once, we can shift our body out of fight or
flight mode and into rest and digest mode.
Life happens so fast. It deserves our
full attention and it deserves its full due.
Relax. Enjoy the process. There’s no
good reason to move so fast that we can’t
metabolize our meal. Health is not about
speed; it’s all about slow.
Enjoy your food: When we focus on
enjoying our food, we activate our pleasure
receptors, we tune into our senses – our
sense of taste, touch, smell is initiated.
Enjoyment has the positive impact of acti-
vating our parasympathetic nervous system.
You may have noticed that none of
the above suggestions is purely focused
on food. What we eat certainly has an
impact on our digestive wellness, but it’s
not the whole story. Digestive wellness and
nutritional healing are much more than
just the food and supplements we choose
to ingest. I invite you to see what happens
when you add pleasure into the equation.
In order for our food to impact our body
in the most positive and nourishing way,
we have to focus on the deep systemic level
of our nervous system. Everything is con-
nected – nothing in our body stands apart.
Nutrition is at the core of health, yet it
is influenced by more than nutritious food.
For starters, breathe, slow down and enjoy
your food. For trauma, additional help may
be needed (at any age, regardless of cause).
Siletz Tribal Head Start offers my
time at no cost to you to support family
nutrition over the telephone. Please con-
tact your Head Start teacher for a referral
if you have nutrition concerns about your
Head Start child.
CEDARR
Community Efforts Demonstrating the Ability to Rebuild and Restore
Mission Statement
We will utilize resources to prevent the use of alcohol and other drugs,
delinquency and violence; we will seek to reduce the barriers to treatment
and support those who choose abstinance.
Feb. 8 • Noon
Siletz Community Health Clinic
200 Gwee-Shut Road, Siletz
Siletz Tribal Behavioral Health Programs
Prevention, Outpatient Treatment, and
Women’s and Men’s Transitional
Siletz: 800-600-5599 or
541-444-8286
Eugene: 541-484-4234
Salem: 503-390-9494
Portland: 503-238-1512
Narcotics Anonymous Toll-Free
Help Line – 877-233-4287
For information on Alcoholics
Anonymous: aa-oregon.org
February 2017
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Siletz News
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