Welcome back to another episode of health hacks

as I continue talking about stress and how it impacts

various different systems in your body that you may not be

aware of. And today, I want to talk about how stress impacts

digestion. Because you see, with our autonomic nervous system,

you can either be in your fight or flight state high alert

because of chronic stress, or you can be in your rest and

digest parasympathetic nervous system, and you can't be in both

at the same time. So if you're in that high alert sympathetic

nervous system, your body is focused on getting you to

safety. It is therefore actually shutting down your digestive

system and your immune system, as well as other systems in the

body, in order to be able to give you the energy you need in

order to get to safety, to be able to produce the adrenaline,

the cortisol, etc, so that you can get to safety, and in that

moment, your body is not making salivary enzymes and other

digestive enzymes. There's no stomach acid being made in order

for your body to be able to break down your food. So if you

are eating in a state of chronic stress, that that sympathetic

nervous system, that fight or flight state and putting food

into your body, your body cannot properly digest it, and that

just causes problems down the line throughout your digestive

system, because the food stays in there too long, it starts to

putrefy, which nobody wants. And over the course of time, if we

do this on a regular basis, it has all sorts of negative health

effects, in the sense that, because the food isn't being

broken down properly, you're not feeling satiated. This the

goodness of the food is not getting to the cells that need

it, so you're not getting the energy that you need. Because

you're not satiated, you're going to eat more often. That

leads to weight gain. It can also lead to diarrhea and

constipation, because the bo The food's not being broken down

properly, and your your body can't use it and excrete it

properly, and it triggers all of these issues. And so that's

something that I really want you to be aware of, because we don't

often necessarily connect how stress is impacting our body's

ability to properly digest our food. Now I want to leave you

with something that you can do in order to support that stress

level, and that is to meditate. And there may be people that are

like, I can't meditate, and I want to invite you to think of

meditating as just sitting quietly for a few minutes. This

doesn't have to be a massive hour long or even a half hour

long meditation, if you can just start with the baby steps of

sitting quietly. Maybe it's outside in your garden, closing

your eyes and just listening to the sounds that are happening

around you and just focus on that, nothing else. And you

know, if your mind starts running. Just be aware of that

and say, okay, mind, this is my moment to calm and just ask

those thoughts to go away as you tune back in to the sounds that

are around you, or you might like to tune into the feeling

around you. It might be the soft breeze on your skin and on your

face. It might be the sun on your face. There's many ways to

meditate. It doesn't have to be sitting on a meditation mat and

tuning into something you know to your own inner self for 30

minutes or an hour or four hours. Start off small, and as

you start off small, you're going to notice you you enjoy

those little moments in time that you take for yourself, that

you could take several times a day, and as you build a little

habit around that, maybe you do it before each meal, so that

that calms your nervous system and then allows you to be eating

when your rest and digest state is turned on, and Your body can

actually be producing your salivary enzymes, your stomach

acid, and all of the other enzymes needed to break down

your food as it travels through your entire digestive system. So

I hope that's helpful for you, and I just want to wish you

happy digesting, because it is such a critical part in your

overall health.