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Your Second Brain Is in Your Gut

Dr. Eric Berg 09/28/2021

Your gut health affects your brain far more than you may realize—find out why!

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction: Your second brain is in your gut

0:15 The autonomic nervous system explained

0:50 How your brain and gut affect each other

1:31 Neurotransmitters and your gut

2:53 Share your success story!

In this video, we’re going to talk about the important relationship between your brain and your gut.

Your brain and gut interact bidirectionally. This means that there are nerve signals that go from your gut to your brain and from your brain to your gut.

There are two primary parts of your autonomic nervous system: sympathetic and parasympathetic. Your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the “fight or flight” state, while your parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the “rest and digest” state. Fasting can influence the autonomic nervous system in a very positive way.

The vagus nerve that comes from the brain stem down into the gut is a part of the parasympathetic nervous system.

However, there’s a third part of the autonomic nervous system that I rarely talk about called the enteric nervous system. There are more nerves in your enteric nervous system than there are in your spinal column.

So if there’s anything going on in your gut, signals are sent to your brain. For instance,toxic poop is something to be aware of. This can cause unexpected symptoms such as:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Stress

• Schizophrenia

• And other altered emotion states

Anything going on in the brain (like stress) can cause issues in your gut, including:

• Nausea

• Heartburn

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

• Cramps

• Ulcers