Читать книгу Trust Your Gut - Gregory Plotnikoff - Страница 24

Sally was a young professional who suffered from IBS and had recently gone through a painful diarrhea and constipation cycle. She was on her way to a date and stopped in a convenience store for lip gloss. While there, she saw a shelf of Tums and other digestive remedies. Almost instantly she felt a minor rumble in her abdomen. What just happened?

The main brain and the intestinal brain just had a little scene together. The main brain took in visual input of Tums, which sparked memories of recent diarrhea and constipation, and automatically assigned an emotional evaluation of threat. The oversensitized amygdala exaggerated the severity of symptoms and sent an alarm message via the spinal cord to the intestinal brain, which activated her gut. If the threat is seen as a crisis, the system releases stress hormones such as cortisol or adrenaline—which cause a series of reactions including tightening of the gut muscles, resulting in pain, bloating, cramping, and more. Sally ended up canceling her date—not because she was sick but because she saw a Tums and that set off a feedback loop gone bad.