The Art of Preventing Gut Problems

Lesson Three

Are you feeling relaxed, breezy and at peace with the world? Or anxious, stressed and miserable?

Believe it or not, changes in your mood actually affect your gut. How? Well, first of all, your bowels are controlled automatically by nerves. When you’re stressed, these nerves react by rushing food through your body more quickly than normal. Which means diarrhoea. It also explains why you sometimes get ‘butterflies’ when you’re nervous.

If you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, your bowel is likely to be more sensitive than most. Which means the slightest anxiety can cause problems.

A few simple steps you could take to become less stressed today.

• First, sit down with a pen and paper and identify the things that make you stressed. Is there any way you could cut these things out of your life without too much trouble?
• Next, look at how you react to the stressful things. Is the way you react appropriate? Or do you tend to go a little overboard?
• Write a list of possible solutions to the things that get you worked up. Could you, say, delegate the odd thing here and there?