Episode 320: Subconscious Mind’s Role in Healing Your Gut | Manifest Your Health Series
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
What if I told you the same programming that got you sick can also help you heal? In this episode, we dive into how our bodies and minds are always trying to keep us safe and how, at times, a belief that was once helpful may need to be updated. Learn how and why those with adverse childhood experiences (or ACEs) and trauma are more likely to experience chronic digestive, gut and health challenges and discover tangible resources to help shift from chronic stress into a rest and digest state. By getting out of the fear-based loop, you can change your biology (and use it to heal!)
In our Manifest Your Health™ mini series, Erin continues to offer up new ways to think about your health. You'll walk away with perspective shifts to help you view your own healing potential!
In this episode:
Subconscious versus conscious mind [10:35]
Taking advantage of the neuroplasticity of your mind [24:25]
How stress impacts your gut health [35:30]
How adverse childhood experiences and trauma can become chronic gut issues [46:02]
Changing your biochemistry & gut health by dismantling the fear loop [53:53]
Tips and tricks to resource your body & gut for better neuroplasticity [59:57]
Resources mentioned:
Shift Your Brain to Reach Your Health Goals
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective
FREE Digestive Guide
Body Intentions Breakthrough (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
Your Hormone Revival™ (Only available within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Ned Natural Remedies (get 20% off your order with code FUNK)
Qualia Senolytic (get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
Learn more about Manifest Your Health & Gut Health
Related episodes:
318: Reframing Chronic Health Symptoms | Manifest Your Health Series
319: Using Manifestation to Heal Your Body | Manifest Your Health Series
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I'm Erin Holt, and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect.
Erin Holt [00:00:39]:
So I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review, and share because you never know whose life you might change. And of course, keep coming back for more. Hello, my friends. I'm coming to you live and direct from the lake in Maine, where I've been posted up for a lot of this summer. I don't have a mic up here, so I'm just recording right into my phone this introduction to today's episode, which is all about the subconscious role in healing your gut.
Erin Holt [00:01:31]:
So I originally taught this as a class to the Collective, but I thought that you'd get a lot of benefit out of it here. So I wanted to share with you here, and this is really for folks who feel like you've done everything right for your gut. You've been working on your gut health for a while. You maybe even have worked with multiple practitioners. You might have done some conventional medicine stuff, you might have done some functional medicine stuff, you might have done some alternative modalities. You've been doing all the things, and you just feel like your gut is not getting any better. Or maybe it's getting a little bit better, but not as good as it should for how much effort you've put in. So if you're for somebody who's like, I've tried everything for my gut health, this might be the next level that you need to unlock for symptom resolution and for true healing.
Erin Holt [00:02:25]:
Really understanding what I call the mind-gut access, you've no doubt heard about the brain gut access. And we're going to talk about that today in today's show. But also the mind-gut access, specifically the subconscious mind's role in gut health, gut healing, or gut disharmony. Okay, so that's what today's gonna be all about. If you like this conversation and you want even more resources and tools to dive into the subconscious mind, I got you. I'm actually teaching a free workshop August 1, it's a Thursday. We're gonna do it at 04:00 p.m. eastern, totally free.
Erin Holt [00:03:06]:
So to get on the list, to be invited, go to manifestyourhealth.com and just get on the waitlist there. Even if you have no interest in purchasing Manifest Your Health, still get on the waitlist because those emails are going to be a vibe. Here's what I've been thinking a lot lately. Obviously, if you follow this podcast at all, you know that I've struggled with my health and I've gone through lots of different healing journeys. I just saw a meme today that said, can they invent a healing that is linear? Because that'd be great. So my healing journeys have not been linear and I have been through it. And so right now, in terms of the content that I am creating and the stuff that I'm putting out there to be consumed, I keep asking myself this question, what is the voice that I needed back when I was struggling? What are the messages that I needed to hear in order to heal? And that is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be that voice.
Erin Holt [00:04:08]:
And I'm attempting to give you those messages. And I think back to a few years ago when I was really, really struggling, when I feel I had done everything for my health from a conventional standpoint and from a functional standpoint and from an alternative standpoint, like, I was like legit doing all of the things. Like I'm a pretty good practitioner. I know the tools. I know all the tricks. I was doing them all, everything, all the labs, all the testing, everything, all the things. And I still wasn't fully recovered. And so I was suffering and I was really struggling.
Erin Holt [00:04:40]:
And there were certain messages that I absolutely, positively needed to hear in order to heal. And I'm so grateful that I had the resources and the tenacity, quite frankly, to find those messages. And so I want to pass them along to you. Because if I was struggling like that back then, there's no doubt there are other people in that same exact position. And if I have the tools and the resources to help, I'm going to give you those tools and those resources. So Manifest Your Health, the waitlist, it's going to be a lot of that kind of messaging. So even if you're like, I absolutely, positively don't want to buy Manifest Your Health, I'm not interested in doing that program. Still, get on the waitlist.
Erin Holt [00:05:23]:
One, because you're going to get invited into the free workshop, which is going to be awesome. And two, you're just going to get to read the emails and, like, let those messages, like, bake into your subconscious. Just kind of, like, receive that messaging and help to kind of, like, recode your programming, which is a really important for many of us struggling with chronic health challenges. Okay? So head to manifestyourhealth.com, comma, get on the waitlist. We'll invite you to the free workshop in August, on August 1, and then when you're on that waitlist, you will also receive early bird pricing for Manifest Your Health. So if you do, if you are interested in that program, get on the waitlist anyway, just because we are going to give you discounts. So yay. All right.
Erin Holt [00:06:09]:
That's all I have to say. Here's the workshop. Hope you learned something awesome. So welcome, everybody.
Erin Holt [00:06:40]:
So we're gonna talk about the subconscious mind's role in healing your gut. And I started. I'm a planner, so anytime I teach a class or workshop anything,
Erin Holt [00:06:57]:
There's a lot of hours of prep, and I started tucking into this, and I'm like, okay, this is like a four hour masterclass. There's just so many different ways we can take this. So it's gonna be a real practice for me to just, you know, be a straight shot. But there's a lot of different offshoots that we can take this thing to, and I will point you in those directions. But really, I just want you to understand the connection between this and this, especially for those of you guys dealing with any ongoing GI issues. I think this is really, really important. So I'm hoping that you walk away with some deeper understanding and maybe even some strategies, and I will be open for questions at the end. Um, so what made me think of this is, is because, like, what happens when you're doing everything right for your gut, but you're not getting any better? Or, you know, you've tried the diets, you're eating clean, you have done the elimination style diets, you're taking the probiotics, the expensive ones, even.
Erin Holt [00:08:03]:
You're doing the colostrum, the collagen, you're taking the enzymes, the hydrochloric acid. You're doing all of the things. Maybe you've even downloaded the free digestive and you've taken yourself through that. Maybe you've worked with a practitioner, you've done a full on gut protocol, and you're just not getting the healing or the relief that you think you should for the amount of effort you've put in and for how hard you're working on the healing. So in these scenarios, it's helpful to ask, gee whiz, I wonder if the subconscious mind could be holding me back. Because the truth is that ongoing chronic stuff, not just like an acute thing, like, oh, I went on a trip and I came home with bellyaches and diarrhea. That's not what I'm talking about here.
Erin Holt [00:08:49]:
This is, like, ongoing stuff. This has been a challenge for you for a while. Despite a lot of different interventions, it persists. So maybe this is chronic constipation or ongoing food reactions, or just like a sensitive stomach. Um, it might not be a pathogen, it might not be food sensitivities, it might be more of a brain gut axis issue. And this is not something that a pill or supplement can fix. They can help, they can reduce symptoms, they can provide support, but it's not going to solve the issue. And when I'm talking about the brain gut axis, which no doubt many of you have heard of before, I also like to include the mind gut axis, to which I'm pretty sure is not an actual term, but, like, let's coin it here, because it's a real thing.
Erin Holt [00:09:43]:
So the mind gut axis has to come online, and what we believe, what we perceive and what we experience has a direct connection and direct influence over our gut health. So we're going to spend today unpacking that statement, what we believe, perceive and experience as a direct connection and influence over our gut health. So we've got this subconscious mind, and we've got filters in place that the subconscious mind sets and these filters in this mind really dictates your beliefs and how you perceive experiences. And as the saying goes, perception is reality. So whatever we perceive is playing out in our life, and we're calling it reality. So let's talk a little bit about the subconscious mind. If you're familiar with my work, you're in the Collective, you probably know some things about it. But I always like to revisit this stuff because it's important and we can forget.
Erin Holt [00:10:48]:
That's a lot of details. The subconscious mind is programmed between the ages of zero to seven. So when we're little, little, because when we are little, we are in a very highly programmable, suggestible, almost like a hipnotic state. We are open to suggestions because the door between our conscious thinking, analytical mind and our subconscious mind is open. We don't really have a system of discernment or critical thinking, because the analytical mind hasn't really fully come online yet. That doesn't happen until later, like age, somewhere between seven and twelve. So we're just taken in eerything we see, we hear, we experience as absolute truth modeled behavior from our community, from our parents, from our peers, all of that.
Erin Holt [00:11:41]:
We're just taking it in and we're labeling it as truth. We are setting and creating programs. And some programs are great, you know, like tying your shoes, driving a car. If you had to relearn how to drive a car every single time you got into your car, it wouldn't be a very efficient or effective way to live, now would it? So some programs are great, but some programs are not so great, and these are the more disempowering ones. And the thing about subconscious beliefs is that they don't automatically update themselves. So things in our life might change, but our subconscious beliefs might stay the same. We might have new experiences, we might have new information that come in. And so it's our job to update those beliefs, because it's not an automatic, it's not just going to happen on, on their own most of the time.
Erin Holt [00:12:40]:
And in order to do that, we have to put conscious effort into it. So I want to give some examples that don't necessarily relate to the gut, but just so we can see what I'm talking about. So let's say you grew up and your parents gotten into an argument, and then maybe your dad left and your parents got divorced, and it just happened to be around a time where you internalize that as like, oh, I did a bad thing and then he left. And the belief becomes, people leave. And to keep people from leaving, I have to act a certain way. So this is how this could look. And then how this maps out into adulthood and into our lives is, let's say, so you've got this belief, people leave. If I don't act a certain way, people leave.
Erin Holt [00:13:27]:
Let's say you're a CEO of a company and you've got 25 employees, and you can't have a hard conversation with any of them because you are terrified that if you upset them, they will leave. And you don't know what you would do without your employees. You wouldn't have a company. We can have an experience. And that experience, something happens, and it plants a seed. That's a belief. And then that belief carries with us through adulthood unless we update it and say, well, that's actually not very true.
Erin Holt [00:14:00]:
You know, that's not absolute truth. People don't always leave me. So it just runs a program, and you live your life as a testament to that program, as though that program is categorically true. So whatever you heard, you saw, your experience between zero and seven becomes yourself. Subconscious foundation. It becomes the program that you run as absolute truth. You with me so far? I can see a lot of you. So just like a head nod.
Erin Holt [00:14:28]:
All right, good. A lot of head nods. That's a good sign. Bruce Lipton says, when we look at the world, we're actually operating through the subconscious mind. So, like, everything we see is through the lens of the subconscious mind. The programs in your subconscious mind primarily came from downloading other people's behaviors. Your mother, your father, your siblings in your community in the first seven years of life. That's a really succinct way to put it.
Erin Holt [00:14:56]:
The subconscious mind works quicker than the conscious mind. So the conscious mind is your rational, logical. Like, let's look at the facts here. You know, you can kind of think of your subconscious mind as, like, a little child, whereas the conscious mind is the adult who's like, okay, like, let's look at all the facts here. We don't need to throw a temper tantrum, just like, let's look at all of this. But the subconscious mind works a lot faster, so we can react without slowing down to really assess the situation. We don't always slow down and wait for logic in reason to catch up.
Erin Holt [00:15:38]:
The example that I always use is because it's a good one. It's like your walking through your lawn and you see a coiled up green thing, and you jump back because you think it's a snake, but it's actually a garden hose. So that's an example of the subconscious mind reacting before the conscious mind can say, wait a second, let's look at the data here. That's just a hose. It's not scary. I don't need to recoil and jump back from this. The subconscious mind also influences our reality, how we perceive the world.
Erin Holt [00:16:11]:
The saying goes, your inner world creates your outer world. And that's why two people can be in the exact same situation and have two different experiences. Have you ever witnessed this before? This just happened last night. So, um, somebody said something. My husband and I were both there, and somebody said something. The way he interpreted it was so different than the way that I interpret it. What I heard, we heard the same words at the same time from the same person, and I heard a completely different story than my husband heard. Why? Because filters.
Erin Holt [00:16:50]:
We have filters, and all of our filters are very unique. Our brains can only consciously process so much information in data at one time. So when I'm talking about information and data, I'm talking. So I've got my sound machine out there. I can, like, sort of hear that in the background. The UPS guy just came, of course, because why wouldn't he come right when I start a masterclass? And so I could hear Maisie, my dog, barking. So I'm kind of, like, managing that off on the side and making sure things aren't getting too out of hand. I have two lights on because it's dark and gloomy out here, so I have the windows, but then I also have two lights on.
Erin Holt [00:17:32]:
I'm sitting in the chair. It's a little warm, so I can feel the sensation. I've got two screens. So it's like, information, information. That's what our nervous system's job is, to just experience all the things, right? But there's so much information coming in to our senses and our brain all at once that we can't retain it all in our conscious mind. Right. We would go absolutely crazy. We would lose our minds.
Erin Holt [00:17:59]:
So we can take in, and this stat is a rough estimate, but at, like, about 100 bits per second. That's like, how much we can consciously retain. And all the things that I just expressed to you, those are all conscious. That was all conscious because I'm aware of it. Um, but we have in modern day world, and this number will probably continue to increase, but we have 11 million bits per second coming in to our brain, so we can retain 100, and we have 11 million. So what do we do? We have to filter some of the stuff out. Our brain has to decide to just delete some stuff, to distort some stuff, and to generalize stuff. Our brain is all about efficiency, so it loves to drop things into buckets and categories, and it's just doing all this stuff behind the scenes without us even thinking about it.
Erin Holt [00:18:53]:
Again, not a bad thing. It's actually very, very helpful for efficiency sake. But it's not ideal for making conscious change, because these filters are based on your subconscious beliefs that, more often than not, were programmed a long time ago, a long ass time ago. They might not still be relevant, they might not still be helpful. But basically, our brains are designed to show us more of what we already believe. It's looking for proof positive of what we already believe. Whatever our experience is right now, it's searching out more information to reinforce that.
Erin Holt [00:19:28]:
Most of us spend most of our time trying to defend our current identity and our current beliefs rather than dismantle them. Because this is easier. This is easier. You all no doubt heard neurons that fire together, wire together. It's easier. It's like an ice luge. We don't have to put a lot of effort into it.
Erin Holt [00:19:50]:
Just, let's just back up and reinforce these beliefs and this identity. Dismantling them takes conscious effort and work. So this is easier to choose. Some of us, a lot of us, especially if you identify with having chronic health issues, we can build an identity around that. I have a sensitive stomach. I am someone with a sensitive stomach. My team and I went on a team retreat last month to Sebastapol, which is in Sonoma County, California. And there was this wicked cool farmers market.
Erin Holt [00:20:32]:
So we were walking around, and there was this one, like, super cool chick, and she was just, like, dressed in all sorts of color, and she made pottery, and all of her pottery was so cool. Just, like, super bright, bold, really unique. And they were funny, too. And so some of them said, like, IBS girly or, like, chronic illness lady, like, cutesy, funny things, you know? And I love the schtick, you know, and I love the levity. But I think about, like, labeling yourself as an IBS girlie, it's a really good way to reinforce and lock in that identity. Well, because I have IBS blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And so the more we lock in the identity, the more we reinforce the beliefs, the more we get exactly the same. Exactly the same. But the cool thing about all this stuff is that we have the ability to change our filters to change what we see, to change what we perceive, to change our reality.
Erin Holt [00:21:35]:
The mind and the brain can change. That's what neuroplasticity is all about. We used to think the brain was like a set it and forget it. Like, once you became an adult, it was like, too bad. So sad. You get what you get and you don't get upset. And now we know that that is not true at all. The brain is always changing and always evolving. But if we want it to change in a positive direction, we have to put conscious effort into that.
Erin Holt [00:22:03]:
It's known as self directed neuroplasticity. We are the self in this situation. We need to consciously choose a new path, a new thought pattern, a new belief. We need to plant new beliefs in. So we can change, the brain can change, but it's always going to choose the path of least resistance. Because the brain is all about efficiency, right? Fast, let's go. It's a computer, it's a supercomputer. So if we want it to change, we have to be like, we're doing this.
Erin Holt [00:22:35]:
And by the way, that's what Body Intentions Breakthrough is all about. So a lot of what I'm talking about, I'm kind of giving you the, the information behind it. That program gives you the how to, how to change, how to rewire, how to choose a new path, how to do the self directed neuroplasticity.
Erin Holt [00:24:25]:
Really important thing to remember and keep in mind is that the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. It has no clue. No clue. So this can absolutely work to our disadvantage or our advantage.
Erin Holt [00:25:04]:
And when I say, use your own biology to heal, this is what I mean. It's like using this supercomputer to our advantage. It has all these really cool capabilities, but we're only using, like, a small fraction of them. So we can use the fact that our brain is neuroplastic to work toward our advantage is that most people are not doing that. So the subconscious mind is always going to bring to your awareness what it thinks it is important. And this is based on filters that are set. This is based on value tagging.
Erin Holt [00:25:36]:
So if you value tag digestive discomfort, pain, tummy pain, bloating as important, your mind is going to show you more of that. It's going to give you more of that. You will experience more of that. You will bring more of that into your awareness. So if you're like, oh, my gosh, my stomach hurts. This is a big deal. Sound the alarms. Your brain is going to go, okay, check.
Erin Holt [00:26:06]:
Got it. Red flag, red flag, red flag. This is important. So we're just going to make sure to keep showing her more of this. Think about digestive stuff. You are not experiencing digestive stuff 100% of the time, even if you've got chronic tummy troubles, it is not 100% of the time. But where do we focus our mind? On the times where it's acting up. We rarely, rarely, rarely spend time focusing on. Oh, my gosh, you know what? I feel really good.
Erin Holt [00:26:39]:
I feel really good right now. So we're value tagging. We're teaching our mind what is important, and it's usually the symptomatic moments. You know, another example of this is teeth. Like, I never am. Like, you know what feels really good right now? My teeth. My mouth feels great.
Erin Holt [00:26:55]:
But after a night of clenching my jaw or if I have a tooth problem, holy smokes. All focus all attention on that. Right? Okay. So this is the same thing that we can do with our guts. And if we want to change that, we have to put effort into changing that. And the way that we do that is by visualizing and embodying how we want to feel. Because guess what? The subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between feel and I and imagined. So the more you can play pretend, the more we can actualize that.
Erin Holt [00:27:33]:
You're showing the mind this is important, and it's going to show you more opportunities to experience that thing. I've been talking a lot about in another program, IMPACT, where I'm talking to entrepreneurs. So I've been talking about this from a business perspective, but it applies for everything. The difference between the field of predictability and the field of possibility. Many of us play in the field of predictability. This has happened in the past. So I'm just going to map that right over into the future. We make statements.
Erin Holt [00:28:05]:
This is how things are. This is how things have been, this is how things will be. The field of possibility. We don't access them through statements. We access that through question marks, through asking questions. How could it be different? I'm willing to see this differently. How could this be different? And it sounds silly, it may be even like a little fantasy land, but what you're doing is you're showing the mind, you're telling the mind, you're directing the GPS of the mind. Show me something different, I'm willing to see this differently.
Erin Holt [00:28:39]:
How could this look, right? So if you don't like the way things are, you got to stop playing in the field of predictability with statements. And you got to start asking questions to show your mind, to search for solutions, to search for other opportunities, to search for other experiences. That's what the mind is doing, but it needs to be directed. It needs to be given a directive. There's this interesting study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, which is a mouthful. And it looked at children with peanut allergies who are going through oral immunotherapy, which is a treatment where you basically consume small little bits of the allergen until you build up a tolerance to it. And what the researchers found is that by telling the children that any uncomfortable experiences or side effects that they had, that meant that the drug was working. The therapy, not the drug.
Erin Holt [00:29:43]:
The therapy was working. Okay? So if you experience some discomfort, that actually means that this treatment is working. And they found when they told the children that that reduced their anxiety. And when the kids did experience mild reactions and they registered that as, oh, this is good, these are useful. They were not only less anxious about those symptoms, but they were also less likely to experience side effects at the end of the treatment when peanuts were reintroduced. So all this was doing was changing their perception. In their mind, they were told a different story, and it impacted the physiological reaction in their guts and in their immune system, in their actual bodies.
Erin Holt [00:30:33]:
Part of the problem with ongoing symptoms is the significance that the brain attaches to it. So telling ourselves a different story can be really helpful to navigate any experiences of discomfort, because why? The subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. So I want you to just think about and notice the energy that you bring to food or the energy that you bring to eating, because eating a piece of fruit, believing it holds deep nutrition versus eating a piece of fruit, believing sugar is bad and is going to create an inflammatory response in your body, is going to create two completely different experiences. And it all starts up here with the story that you're telling, with what you're thinking, the energy and the beliefs that you are in when you do the thing matters. It absolutely matters. So another example of this, I'm going to pop into the chat in a second. Another example of this is eating food and expecting to have a reaction to it. Hey, guess what? You're going to be more likely to have a reaction to that food.
Erin Holt [00:31:51]:
I've told this story before, but when I first received autoimmune diagnosis a lot of years ago, at this point, I put myself on AIP, which stands for, um, autoimmune paleo protocol. Is that. Am I saying? Yeah, I just second guessed myself there for a second. It's an extremely restrictive diet, but I was scared, you know.
Erin Holt [00:32:24]:
I didn't know what else to do. So I put myself on a diet. And then about a month later, I found out I was positive for SIBO. And at the time, one of the main treatments for SIBO was this low FODMAP diet. So I'm like, are you effing kidding me? I'm going to do autoimmune paleo plus low fodmap diet that, like, leaves, like, legitimately four foods to eat. And I just had a moment of. Was one of those moments where I look back and I was like, shout out to my former self. She understood the assignment.
Erin Holt [00:32:53]:
Good job, Erin. Good job. But I was like, this can't be it. I did not battle 13 years of disordered eating and restriction to heal through restriction. I'm not doing this. And I just decided. I just made a decision that this is not. This is not it.
Erin Holt [00:33:10]:
I'm not healing through restriction. So I refuse to believe that high FODMAP foods are going to be problematic for me. I'm just not available for it. I decided that's it. That's all I did, you guys. I decided I'm not doing this, period. And because I was so emphatic with that decision, because I set my mind to believe that I would be fine with FODMAP foods, I was fine with FODMAP foods. And I think about, there's a lot of practitioners who deal with SIBO and their belief.
Erin Holt [00:33:40]:
The practitioner's belief is that we have to put you on a low FODMAP diet. And so, of course, that belief is going to inform their patients and their clients, and that's going to influence their patients and their clients beliefs. So those clients are going to be more likely to react negatively to high FODMAP foods. Okay, you know what I think I'll do is I'm going to. I'll bang out. I'll do. I'll save questions for after, but don't hesitate to pop questions in the chat.
Erin Holt [00:34:15]:
It'll be really easy for me to get distracted if I start tucking into questions now. So definitely post them in the chat and I'll circle back around at the end. Another example of this is visceral hypersensitivity, which is a hallmark of IBS. Irritable bowel syndrome. And visceral hypersensitivity is just pain. I shouldn't say just, it's pain or discomfort in your visceral organs, like the internal organs. And with visceral hypersensitivity, your threshold for pain in these organs is lower than normal. So you'll feel normal sensations, sensations that everybody feels like the active food moving through your intestines, but you'll perceive them as painful.
Erin Holt [00:35:01]:
So it's just a decision that the brain is making. It's not because anything bad in the body is happening, but your brain perceives that as painful. It's a decision the brain makes. It happens here, but you feel it here. And so I think now would be a good time to tuck into the gut-brain axis, because the gut and the brain are talking to each other all the time, bi directionally, meaning that the brain talks to the gut and the gut talks to the brain. And this is part of the autonomic nervous system. So when I think of autonomic, I immediately think automatic, because this is the nervous system that just runs without you having to think anything about it. It's like breathing, blinking, your heart beating, blood pumping, making new red blood cells.
Erin Holt [00:35:55]:
Like, you're not consciously thinking of this stuff. It's just happening, right? It's just happening. Our bodies can survive without the need of conscious thought. All of this is subconsciously regulated by the way. It's not consciously directed. It's subconsciously. It's underneath consciousness, unconscious. And the autonomic nervous system modulates the enteric nervous system, which is just a fancy way of saying, your gut's nervous system.
Erin Holt [00:36:21]:
So your digestive system has its own nervous system, and it talks to the brain via the vagus nerve, which is just the set of nerves that runs from the brain stem down throughout the entire body. And the vagus nerve is the main control for the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest response. So we've got parasympathetic rest and digest. We've got sympathetic, which is fight or flight. And both of these are arms of the autonomic nervous system. So, as the name implies, rest and digest is where we want to be to appropriately digest our food. If we're not there, we're going to have some problems with digestion and with our gut health. So let me just back up and review this for a hot sec.
Erin Holt [00:37:13]:
The subconscious regulates the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the enteric nervous system of the gut. The vagus nerve connects the two, the gut and the brain, and its command control for rest and digest. So what's happening at the level of the subconscious can impact your ability to get into rest and digest. Anytime you eat, anytime you sit down to eat, your system is asking this basic question, do I feel safe enough to rest and digest? It's not a kind of maybe. It is a yes or no response. Yes or no response. That's it. So if no, you're going to have digestive issues. It's that simple.
Erin Holt [00:38:13]:
If your body is not safe enough to move itself into rest and digest in your eating food, you're going to have digestive issues. And all of that starts in the brain with what the mind is perceiving, because it's your mind that decides, am I safe or am I not safe? And this is based on subconscious beliefs and the filters. So our beliefs influence and inform our biology, our physical body. They're not. Our beliefs are not separate from our health. They're not, like, over here, existing. Like, this is our body of health. And here are our beliefs tucked away on that shelf back there.
Erin Holt [00:38:58]:
They're not separate. Any of our worries, our anxieties, our fears, all of those will impact our neurotransmitters, our brain chemistry, our hormones, our communication, and our gut health. So our thoughts signals down. Our thoughts signal down to the body. And this is how the mind and the nervous system have a role in the development of digestive disorders. Any chronic activation of that sympathetic fight or flight nervous system response affects the gut's nervous system. So there's many different ways that stress can affect the gut. It reduces blood flow to the intestines.
Erin Holt [00:39:45]:
We need blood flow to all of our body in order for it to do its job well. So it will send blood flow into our limbs, you know, to get us ready for fight or flight. This is what fighting and fighting looks like, evidently, but it sends our blood flow to our arms and our legs, and it moves it away from our intestines. High cortisol. So stress can pump out cortisol. If we have high cortisol, that can degenerate the intestinal lining. Our intestinal lining has the ability to regenerate itself every few days. So cool.
Erin Holt [00:40:21]:
So cool. Side note, I refer to this as Wolverine because wolverine has self healing properties. I'm sure you guys have heard me say that, but just last night, I found out there's a new Wolverine movie coming out, and I am so excited. But it seems a little fresh because there's definitely some swear words, and so I don't know if we can take Hattie to it. So that might just be him. Me and my husband go solo to the movies, but I love Wolverine. He's my favorite superhero, and I love superheroes. So are, you know, think of.
Erin Holt [00:40:47]:
Think of that. Think of that little nugget, Wolverine. When you think about your gut, it can repair itself, like on a dime, no problem. But if you're stressed and cortisol is high, it's breaking down the lining of your gut faster than you can build it back up. It's putting you in a catabolic breakdown state. High cortisol also suppresses, or, uh, yeah, suppresses. That's a fair way of saying it. Secretory iga, an immunoglobulin when that guy is low, that a lot of the different pathogens can come into your gut.
Erin Holt [00:41:17]:
Stress can disrupt the vagus nerve, that command control, that signal from the brain to the gut and gut to the brain. And fight or flight activation just basically suppresses that rest and digest response, right. So when we're under stress, it is negatively influencing the gut and what causes stress, but what we're thinking, our thoughts, you know, how we're perceiving things. That's what causes stress. This what I want folks to understand and hold on to your butts because we're going to get into trauma, right? And so this can be a really dysregulating conversation, but we'll end on a positive, hopeful note, I promise. It's not always current stress that we're talking about. It can be, but it can also be unresolved trauma, stress from the past that has not been resolved. So I use unresolved trauma on purpose.
Erin Holt [00:42:18]:
Because just because you experienced trauma, whether it's capital t or little t, doesn't mean that you are destined for health issues or gut issues. There's a link, but it doesn't mean that you are destined for it. But unresolved trauma, when we think of like root cause of illness, the body will eventually show evidence of anything that we have resisted, hidden, or pushed down. That stuff doesn't just go away, I joked before. It doesn't just like roll out of your ear like a ball of earwax. That eventually comes up and it usually comes up and out through the form of symptoms or chronic health challenges. So there is often in IBS patients, a history of emotional, physical or sexual abuse. More than half the women with IBS report childhood trauma. There is a higher prevalence of childhood trauma in patients, all patients with GI disorders versus controls.
Erin Holt [00:43:26]:
This is pretty well backed up, well established stuff, and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the subconscious mind is programmed zero through seven. So your childhood and what you experienced in your youth could dictate your current perception of the world, and it might cause you to see things through a more fear based lens. So it's back to that perception. How are you perceiving things?
Erin Holt [00:46:02]:
So I want to give a little bit of definition. Who here has heard maybe type a one in the chat if you've heard the term ACE? Adverse childhood experiences? Okay, so this is not brand spanking new to us, a lot of you, but some of it, it might be. So let me give some context and some definition in case, because a fraction of you here have heard of it.
Erin Holt [00:46:52]:
So these are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. For the sake of this definition, childhood is zero to 17 years old. So this could be experiencing violence, abuse or neglect, witnessing violence in the home or community, having a family member attempt or die by suicide. It can also include substance abuse problems, mental health problems in the home or instability due to parental separation or household members being in jail or incarcerated. So there's actually a test that you can go online and take. It's called the ACE score test, and it spits you out a score. And the higher your score, the more likely you are to experience health challenges. It's pretty wild.
Erin Holt [00:47:44]:
It's all, of course, backed by research. A lot of this, if not all of it, is unconscious. So there's this level of anxiety and nervous system activation that we're not even aware of. We're not even aware that we're bringing this into our day to day life. Trauma produces actual physiological changes. It's like a recalibration of the brain's alarm system, and it increases stress hormone activity. So this is where we can see adverse childhood experiences eventually become chronic health challenges, autoimmunity. I would just type in ACE score, and you should, or ACE score test, and that it should just pop up.
Erin Holt [00:48:36]:
There's a few different ones. I mean, they're all the same test, but there's a few different sites that host it. So once this stress system, this alarm system is damaged, I don't even like to use that word. Delete. Delete. Delete. Is impacted because damage sounds like it's, you know, broken beyond repair. It's not. Once it's impacted, we can over respond to stress.
Erin Holt [00:49:05]:
And our ability to recover from stress is impaired. So we're just more sensitive to stressors, and we perceive things that somebody else might not perceive as stressful, as stressful. It's all about perception. So it can make negative thoughts. It can make fears, reactivities, anxieties, and worries more likely over time. And our body physically and physiologically responds to fear based thoughts. When we have fear in the mind, it creates stress hormones in the body and inflammatory compounds in the body, and that can lead to more dysfunction in the brain, and that can create a cycle. So, unresolved trauma can often lead to a dysregulated limbic system, which is a part of the brain where the amygdala lives.
Erin Holt [00:49:59]:
It's our fear center, and the amygdala really is there to identify danger. Is this incoming input relevant for survival? It's designed to keep you alive, and it puts fear and learning together, so it's not going to be caught off guard in the future, you know. So if it identifies something as fearful, it's going to remember that and it's going to lock it in so you can be on guard for the future. Again, super duper helpful. So it's like, you know, if you touch a hot stove and you burn yourself, chance are you're not going to touch it again. But with past traumas, there may have been a lot of experiences of danger. And so this is going to kind of calibrate the alarm system to be more sensitive to scanning the environment for threat and for alarm. So adults with ACEs tend to stay on high alert. And it's a habit they learned in childhood because they couldn't really be sure of the next high tension situation.
Erin Holt [00:51:15]:
You know, there's a lot of unpredictability, there's a lot of difficulty and stress with not knowing, waiting for the other shoe to drop, catastrophizing. And so if you're like, my childhood was squeaky clean, jelly bean, this stuff can still map over. Trauma isn't just childhood trauma, it can be any type of trauma that we experience. So anytime, we were under resourced to deal with the situation at hand. I put chronic illness in navigating the medical institution with chronic mystery syndromes. I put that in the bucket of trauma because it's very similar. It's the unpredictability of symptoms, not knowing what's going to trigger the symptoms. Right.
Erin Holt [00:52:07]:
You stay on guard, it leads to hypervigilance. Hyper vigilance is just this elevated state of constantly scanning the environment for threats and overestimating threats. So perceiving things as threats, even if they're not threats, your filters are scanning, scanning, scanning for more and more threats. We know if you're in a heightened, activated hypervigilant state, the body is not in rest and digest. If we're here constantly keyed up, we're not going to be able to access this. And if we can't access this, hey, guess what? You're going to have a lot of trouble with your digestion. It's just how the body works. And it's that saying, neurons that fire together, wire together.
Erin Holt [00:53:03]:
So when a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become the default setting, the response that's most likely to occur. So it's not like we wake up and we choose violence every day. I'm going to be in a hyper vigilant state today. It's just our default setting. It's just where we go without conscious effort. It's just we just slip sliding away right into that hyper vigilant state. And if you continue to tell yourself a fear based story, a fear based narrative. Food is not safe.
Erin Holt [00:53:37]:
Every time I eat, I have a lot of reactions. I'll never heal. You're going to stay locked there. You're going to stay locked in that hypervigilant state. So essentially what needs to happen is that we have to somehow dismantle and break the fear loop. And the truth is we can change our biochemistry by getting out of fear. And if we can change our biochemistry, we can change our physical body and we can change our health. So for real healing, we have to send our bodies the message that we're not being attacked, we are not in danger, we are well nourished, we are well supported, we are calm, and this might require conscious effort. This might be that self directed neuroplasticity.
Erin Holt [00:54:31]:
Here's where it gets a little tricky. The thing that we want to heal can also be the thing that the subconscious mind thinks is keeping us safe. Because the subconscious, like, the body's not an asshole, you know, like, the brain's not an asshole, it's not doing things just be like, hahaha, you know, I don't believe in self sabotage. I don't think it's a real thing. I don't. I think there's a lot of things that can look like and present like self sabotage, but I think at the end of the day, your mind, your brain, your body, your nervous system is just trying to keep you safe. So the subconscious mind might be saying, I know I have to because of past experiences. I have to keep her locked into hyper vigilance because it will keep her safe.
Erin Holt [00:55:24]:
And I want to keep her safe. Our brains will always prioritize safety and survival over growth, over regeneration, over healing. Safety and survival first and foremost. But we know, we understand that we have to be able to get into and access parasympathetic mode more often than not in order for healing to happen. So part of healing chronic gut stuff is to become aware of our fear based thinking because we can't change things that we're not aware of. So we have to become aware of it. And then we do need to ask the hard questions of what is the wound? Why does my subconscious mind think this is keeping me safe? In Body Intentions Breakthrough, we get into the idea of secondary gains, that might be a helpful thing to look into. We have to ask ourselves the question, like, what programs are we running? What beliefs are we running? And do they need updating? The body, remember, will eventually show evidence of what we have resisted, what we have hidden, what we have pushed down. Again, when I talk about root cause approach, this is the root cause approach, you guys.
Erin Holt [00:56:45]:
We can do the functional lab testing. I love it. I love some data. This is real root cause. This is the real work right here, right now, what we're talking about. We process and digest our life through our digestive tract. All of the components of our physical body have energetic and emotional components, too. So where in your life can you not stomach what is happening? If you have chronic GI issues, these are questions you have to ask. Or where in your life were you unable in the past to stomach what was happening? So it could be current situation, it could be past situation.
Erin Holt [00:57:25]:
Where are you in resistance? Where are you refusing to process something? Where are you unable to adapt? So, again, we can look at what's happening right now, present time. We can look all the way to our past, zero to seven or beyond. Another helpful thing to do is, when did these symptoms start and what was going on at the time? What was I unable to stomach? What was I unable to process? What was I resisting? What was going on at the time that these symptoms started? The beauty of the brain is that it is plastic. Like I said, the brain can restore itself. And if the brain can rewire and restore itself, then the patterns of the body can as well. We are energetic beings living in a physical world. So if we're only dealing with things on the level of the physical, we're probably missing stuff. We're probably missing an opportunity for healing.
Erin Holt [00:58:30]:
Not always. You know, if this belief doesn't work for you, delete, delete, delete. Get rid of it, kick it out the door. But if you're still struggling despite doing all the stuff, this is probably the work, like the next evolution of your healing journey, in your healing work. But I also want to say the flip side of that. We don't want to get too carried away, because if we're only dealing with things from the mind, then we're probably also missing something. So we always have to go mind down and body up. Both are relevant, both are required for healing.
Erin Holt [00:59:09]:
Neuroinflammation and neuroplasticity are antagonistic mechanisms. So, neuroinflammation, inflammation in the brain, compromises neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. This is how we create change, create new neural pathways, new neural networks, change in the brain, change in the body. The brain and the body are never static. They're always in the process of becoming and changing. The nervous system is constantly assessing what is going on inside and outside. So we get to use this to our advantage. Always.
Erin Holt [00:59:44]:
It's always on the table, right? We can use our own biology to heal. If we resource our bodies, we can better change our minds. So if we bring down chronic inflammation in the body while blood sugar swings, if we support the gut using a lot of the stuff that I talked about at the very beginning of this class, all of this serves to reduce neuroinflammation, inflammation in the brain. And when we do that, we can more readily change neural networks, we can stabilize the mood, we can change behavior. So both of it, all of it, needs to come online, and there's ways that we can reduce inflammation. So I'm just going to give you some right now. Inflammation in the brain and the body, anti inflammatory diet, balance your blood sugar, support the microbiome in overall digestion, support a strong lining of the gut so it doesn't get leaky. Leaky gut can lead to leaky brain.
Erin Holt [01:00:57]:
Be aware of toxins coming in, you know, so if you're, like, living in mold, it's going to be pretty challenging to rewire the brain. You know, you're fighting an uphill battle. Chronic stress. We have to look at chronic stress because that makes the brain less wireable, less neuroplastic. So do things every day to get your body into parasympathetic mode. Support the body from the mind down, but also the body up as well. And luckily for all of you within the Collective, you have the tools and the resources to work on all of these things. So you get to prepare the physical body to build out new neural networks.
Erin Holt [01:01:45]:
Okay, so what I don't want you to hear in this conversation is that we're throwing out all the work that you're doing for the physical body, because it doesn't matter. That's absolutely not true. It is important, and it matters, and it is good work. We don't have to throw out one whole paradigm in order to build a new one. There is a third way where everything comes online together. That's the work that I'm mostly interested in, because that's where I see big healing potential. So it's all on the table. All on the table, all the time.
Erin Holt [01:02:14]:
The magic happens when we combine them all. So Your Hormone Revival, that's going to help you with nervous system regulation and getting into that parasympathetic mode, Body Intentions Breakthrough. We get more into rewiring the brain. Manifest Your Wealth. We do that as well. Even though we're talking about money, it's still totally brain rewiring. And I have. Manifest Your Health, not to be confused with wealth.
Erin Holt [01:02:44]:
Manifest Your Health. We are rerunning that in August. It is a totally separate program, but anybody in the Collective will give a deep discount to if you are interested. It is definitely some like next level healing stuff. We're taking all of this and blowing it way up so there's resources and opportunities for you for sure. I'm gonna, that was a lot. So I'm going to tuck into questions. I need to tell myself this for die off symptoms.
Erin Holt [01:03:20]:
Yes. So that was back when I was referencing that the peanut allergy study with kiddos. Tell your brain exactly that die off reaction. This means that it's working. This is a really positive reaction. I will say if die off reactions last longer than a few days, then definitely talk with your practitioner because they shouldn't be long term ongoing, um, just from a practical standpoint. But yes, you can reframe what you do, especially if you tend to be sensitive to stuff. Reframe what you do before you do it.
Erin Holt [01:03:53]:
Jen asks, how do you handle it when you are experiencing a symptom? For example, I've recently started experiencing digestive cramping almost daily. I'm decreasing my humira and I know my brain is associating the two things. Okay. I say out loud that the two are not related, but I think focusing on the cramping is causing more cramping for sure. Um, and the subconscious mind doesn't hear no. So if you're saying the two are not related, I would come up with a different mantra that doesn't involve a negative, a no or a not, because the subconscious mind basically just deletes that. So you're kind of installing the two are related. So I would come up with, it's always so hard for me to think of like mantras on the fly, so I would say I would give you one, but it's probably going to be garbage.
Erin Holt [01:04:40]:
So I don't want to give you a garbage mantra. But I would think through that and rephrase that and um, you know, maybe like this is a transition and um, it's not permanent or this is a transition and it's temporary. See, I was even doing it too. Um, but I would, I would definitely continue with some self talk. And when I'm experiencing a symptom, like a acute symptom, I really do try to ask those questions. What would it feel like to not experience that? And it's not like we want to bypass the physical body because like a lot of us have a longstanding history with divorcing ourselves from our physical body. So we don't want to override symptoms and just completely go dark on ourselves. If this is more for chronic symptoms.
Erin Holt [01:05:26]:
The acute stuff, I'm like, listen to those. Pay attention to that. That's a message from coming inside the house. This is more chronic pain, chronic GI issues that are really resisting intervention. Okay, just to make that that clear, I probably should have led with that. So thank you for that question, Jen. I feel like they need another test where a stands for antibiotic use in childhood. That should definitely, definitely be part of some type of scoring system, for sure.
Erin Holt [01:05:58]:
Especially if you're a product of like, the eighties and nineties where we were just like, mainlining antibiotics all of the time. It's a wonder any of us have an immune system at all. Any other questions for this, or do we feel complete? I'll wait a couple of minutes just in case anybody, something pops up. I know this is, like, big picture stuff, and I didn't give you a lot of, like, action steps, but you do have the action steps available to you through the Collective, so definitely utilize those. Oh, thank you. And thank you all for being here live, and I will see you all soon. Have a wonderful evening. Thanks, friends.
Erin Holt [01:06:52]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
