Meditation On Gut Brain Connection

Meditation to enhance gut instinct, digestion. This meditation will improve symptoms of anxiety and depression and effect vagal nerve tone.

Transcript

Welcome,

My name is Celia Roberts and today we're going to do a meditation for gut brain health or connecting brain and biome.

So make sure you're in a comfortable seated position with the hips higher than the knees,

Spine nice and tall and not touching any object if possible.

This keeps the mind alert and concentrated for the practice of mindfulness and deep meditation.

As you come to your comfortable seated position,

Make sure that the belly is lovely and soft.

In yoga and meditation essentially we look for a softness of belly.

This elicits the relaxation response.

The blood flow moves towards the belly,

Towards the gut.

As opposed to moving towards the hands and feet when we're in the sympathetic activation,

Flight or fight.

When the blood flow moves towards the belly we're in the relaxation response.

We elicit it consciously either with the breathing or with thought.

Allow the belly to rise and fall with the breath.

Let the out breath become very important.

The out breath will calm the rate of the heart,

Further eliciting the relaxation response.

To elicit the relaxation response further,

Come to the eyes and relax behind the eyes.

This affects the ocular vagal reflex,

The vagus nerve,

Telling the heart rate to slow down as the eyes draw gently back,

Relaxing the muscles behind the eyes.

Increase the amount of saliva in the mouth.

Again,

Quite the opposite of going for a run.

We want the saliva in the mouth to increase so that the body understands we're relaxed,

We're rested and we're ready to digest.

Now continue to focus at that belly centre.

Keep the belly soft and each out breath the point of your focus.

Now our gut brain health,

Particularly our gut health,

Is linked to many things,

But eliciting the relaxation response is going to have a very positive effect on a regular basis.

There are many reasons why.

When we've been stressed for a long period of time,

The amygdala in the brain enlarges.

Now the amygdala is linked to diversity of biome.

The larger the amygdala,

The less diversity in the biome.

So what we might do now is focus on the exhale,

Almost relaxing the mental energy and letting it pour down the body via the gut brain access into the belly centre.

So the exhalation almost pulls energy from the brain down into the belly,

Reducing the size of the amygdala after long periods of chronic stress and fatigue or trauma or PTSD,

And allowing that energy to almost come down and into the navel centre and allow the diversity of the biome to increase.

Use this visualisation to understand the process,

The size and activity of the amygdala reducing.

And dropping that awareness down via the gut brain access,

Essentially the vagus nerve,

And increasing the diversity of the biome in the belly.

If you can,

Really imagine yourself right now really well,

Happy,

Content,

Mentally happy,

Physically happy,

And at ease,

Able to digest life,

Both physically and mentally,

Completely at ease.

And if you can,

Really note how that feels in your body,

That sense of steadiness and ease,

Particularly in the belly centre.

Deep within the body,

Notice that steadiness and ease,

That sense of peace.

For our mental states will definitely affect our digestive health and vice versa.

So allow this top-down processing,

This mental imagery to assist you,

To allow the body to really remember and know good health.

Then we'll use the body,

The long extended exhalation,

To remind the brain how to be calm and still and in good health.

Keep the posture tall,

This will help with the breathing apparatus muscles,

The diaphragm,

And will help you with your breathing,

The extension of the inhalation and then also the exhalation.

Now as you practice,

We're going to change from mindfulness and visualisations into compassion meditation.

Compassion meditation is said to assist with vagal tone and increase levels of oxytocin,

Improving heart rate variability.

And these premises,

These ideas,

Are all linked to mindfulness and good mental health.

Now we know through compassion-focused therapy that compassion affects the amygdala.

So although it's not proven yet,

It's highly likely that through that link between the amygdala and the diversity of the biome,

That compassion meditation will also affect the biome.

Send yourself a wave of loving-kindness all throughout your whole being.

And often we offer compassion meditation to all living beings,

So knowing that your body is made up almost entirely of microorganisms and other beings,

Send all living beings or all the microorganisms,

Including the gut and its biome,

The sense of loving-kindness,

Care and nurture.

Long,

Compassionate breaths,

Particularly a longer exhalation to stimulate the vagus nerve,

To calm the heart rate,

Elicit the relaxation response,

Over time reduce the size of the amygdala and increase the diversity of the biome.

Thank you.

Reviews

Fascinating! And the meditation was so well done! Thanks Celia

This is really a beautiful meditation just what I’ve needed to better care for myself during a recent stressful event.

i love this. great positive energy! 💚🤍🩷💜💚🤍🩷💜💚🤍🩷💜

Thank you. My whole body feels as if you gave it water after a drought. Thank you🫶

Been using this meditation as often as I can. Such a great one to link gut to state of mind! Thank you

Very good meditations , thank you , strange that they end rather abruptly!

A wonderful approach for using the gift of imagination to relax deeping quickly to support the health of our gut biome.

My hyper brain activity calmed right down and my gut loved it. I think I’ll try using this right after a meal to get me to rest and digest right there in my chair.

Really enjoyed learning the connections very relaxing. Thanks

Very relaxing. How often should I do this? Thank you!

Wow, this was a fascinating and wonderful meditation, very helpful. I will definitely follow & listen to your other meditations, thank you!!

Love this meditation! Swallowing sounds though distracted me. But she’s awesome!

Helpful, informative. Grateful for these meditations that help with I'll health.

Any meditation around my gut feels correct and very important to focus on

This is just what I needed today.. So glad I found it!

thank you so much Celia! this was very valuable information for me! I have always felt that my gut and brain were connected because of the migraines. I know of the importance of gut health and neurotransmitters there, but nit the connection with the amygdala. As a mental health professional, this will help myself and many clients with PTSD and/or stress reactions to connect this practice with mindfulness and the mind body connection! So grateful for you. I'm donating now! 💗🙏🌻

Very cleansing, thank you 🙏

This is so wonderful AND informative 🧡 thank you!!

Amazingly helpful!
Thank you.

Thanks Celia for this interesting meditation. I think the importance of the microbiome for good health cannot be overestimated.