How to Support Stress Belly with Celiac Disease Ep. 116

In Episode 80 I talked about how your body may be showing symptoms of being glutened but it being related to stress. In today's episode I'm giving you some strategies to deal with stress belly.

Previous episode mentioned:
Is it Gluten Belly or Stress Belly? Ep. 80

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

All righty . Welcome back to this week's episode of the show. Now, I wanted to touch on this today because back in episode , um, 80 of the Healthy Celiac podcast, I talked about stress belly, and we touched on the vagus nerve and how that can affect our digestive system. But I didn't give you some ways to support your vagus nerve, and I wanted to do that today because I know how important it is for gut health. So if you haven't listened to that episode, just really, really quickly, the vagus nerve is basically the longest or autonomic nerve in the human body, and it's important for regulating your heart rate, for , um, your blood pressure, your breathing, and also your digestion. So if your vagus nerve is outta whack and it's not being supported and it's not working at its best, then these areas of your body will not function correctly. And the one I want to hone in on today is your digestion because it's so, so important. Now, this can help with you because you have celiac disease, but just having good gut health in general makes a huge difference to your life when it comes to so many different areas, including mental health. So I've got 16 ways for you to support your vagus nerve today. And what I've done is I've broken them down into categories for you. Now, I've put together a really cool infographic, which you can find over on my website, which is belinda wheelin.com , or you can also find her on Instagram, which is the Healthy Celiac. So some of these are really simple and can be added into your life. You don't need to do all of them, okay? You definitely don't need to do all of them. You can just pick and choose which ones work for you and, and find the ones that basically fit in with your lifestyle, because some of them are super easy, some of them take a little bit more effort, but you'll find the ones that work for you and make you feel better and help with supporting your vagus nerve . All right , so the first category is things that you can consume. Okay, so we've got three things that we can focus on. The first one is making sure you're getting enough fiber in your diet can make a big difference. The second one is adding in omega threes. So whether you take a supplement or whether you focus on consuming foods that have omega threes in them. And the third one is probiotics. So again, you can focus on food that I've got probiotics in them, or you can take a supplement with probiotics. Now the next category is all about connection. And if you were one of those people that felt a massive, massive lack of connection during lockdowns in recent years, you would know how much better you feel when you have connection with others. So when we talk about connection, we are talking about connection with

Speaker 2: 3:23

Just other people, whether it be people in the workplace, when you go to the shopping center, your friends, your family, just being able to communicate and talk to people is huge. It's just such a powerful thing that really, really supports our vagus nerve. So super, super, super important. Now when it comes to this as a category, connection is the main part of it. But then we also have hugging. So hugging has proven to lower your stress level and I make my kids hug me for 30 seconds. If they're stressed out, I just grab them in a bear hug and I make them hug me and their whole body just changes the way that they feel in my arms when I just give them that big bear hug and make them calm down. So try hugging. If you're a hugger, it can make a big difference. Another one is foot massage. So the nerves in your feet, if you're stimulating them, that can really support you as well. So try foot massage. You might have to beg your partner, your children, someone else to give you a foot massage, but it's worth a try. Now the next one is to do with your body. And we have some different areas that we can focus on here. And one of them is singing. Would you believe? So singing or chanting can support your vagus nerve. Also positive self-talk or doing affirmations. So I've talked about affirmations in the past. So super powerful. So when you use affirmations, the best way to start them is to say, I am. So you're talking to yourself. So you say, I am loved, I am amazing, I am worthy, I am powerful. Whatever feels right for you, you say it in the positive about yourself, right? The next one is laughter. So whether you can laugh for yourself, you can laugh at a joke, you might even need to just put something on Netflix that's going to make you laugh, that can really help as well. I found that watching Schitz Creek was a huge one for me when I felt quite down in the dumps. When we were in lockdown, I found that creek was just something that I could laugh at. It was just easy to watch and I just love that show. So find something that you enjoy watching on Netflix and just yeah, get some laughter out and and see how that makes you feel as well. ASMR is another one that can really support your vagus nerve. My daughter has been obsessed with ASMR for years. If you don't know what it is, it's listening to different sounds and it will depend on many, many factors. So some people, it can be white noise. Um, there's lots of ASMR videos on YouTube, so you can go on there, type on, type in asmr , and it'll come up with lots of different sounds. So some people it will be tapping noises, it can be scrunching noises. It's different for everyone. But my daughter, when she was having a hard time getting to sleep, she would put

Speaker 3: 6:21

On ASMR on YouTube and she would just listen to it and she'd drift off to sleep. She now has discovered that if she has her ceiling fan on in her bedroom, that is enough to help calm her down. So it could just be as simple as having some white noise on, such as, yeah, a ceiling fan or a , or a standing fan can be, yeah, supportive as well. Alright , the next category is to do with body movement. And the first one is exercise in general. So exercising the body, so many benefits, but of course it's fabulous for vagus nerve stimulation. Now the next one is mindful meditation. If you , um, have never done meditation, it might scare the bejesus out of you or it might be something that you want to try. So there's different ways of meditating. Again, I recommend that you learn a little bit more about that. We're not gonna go into every single one in depth , that's just gonna be too long of an episode, but you can jump on Google and, and learn how to meditate more. Or you can just simply go to YouTube, type in meditation, and you can listen to a meditation or walk you through it. Um , so that can be very supportive as well. I love listening to meditations when I drift off to sleep, but pop my headphones in and I just love to just drift off and have someone talking in my ear that helps me wind down. So they are beautiful as well. So there's lots of ways that you can do that. All right , the next one is deep breathing. So yeah, really simple because you can do this anywhere at any time and add that into your life so it's free like many of these things are. So yeah, deep breathing, give that a go. And then in this category, the last one is yoga. And I love yoga. I'm obsessed with yoga. I should do it more than I do <laugh> . But yeah, it is , it's powerful and it can make a massive difference to how you feel. Um, if you've never done yoga, it is definitely something I recommend. Everyone gives a go. Lots of people think that yoga is not really exercise, but holy macaroni, when you start doing yoga, you will feel it in your body, you'll feel it in your muscles, and you'll never bag out yoga ever again. That it's not exercise. It truly, truly is. Uh , super, super strong bodies are made doing yoga. So if you haven't tried it, check it out. And what I love about yoga as well is there is a meditation component usually at the end of every class of yoga. So you can kind of tie in two components in one there. So that's supportive as well. All right , the next one is to do with water. And um, so it is basically two things. So it's gargling . So garing , whether you gargle water or whatever, is it's stimulating the vagus nerve. So you could even try this in the shower. You could do it after you've brushed your teeth. You could do it whenever you feel like that . You could just stand in front of a sink and gargle

Speaker 4: 9:19

Some water. It can be helpful. And the other one is cold exposure. So um, you could have a cold shower, you could go outdoors in the cold, you could head down the beach on a cold day. Some form of cold exposure stimulates your vagus nerves. So pretty, pretty powerful. So that's something worth looking into as well. Alright , they my 16 ways of supporting your Vagus nerve. I hope that inspires you to add some of these into your life and see if it makes a difference with your digestion and the way that you feel in general, because they are very, very powerful. And like I said, you don't have to do all of them, you can just do some of them. You might find that you wanna add in one or two a week and see which ones become a habit for you or which ones you really, really like. Um, like I said, some will be easier than others and some you'll have to be much more mindful of adding in. So like I said, head to my website, belinda willin.com , grab the infographic. You might wanna download that to your phone. And then you've got a copy of it there to refer back to as well. Cause I don't expect you to be able to remember all of these 16 things. So yeah, I hope that really helps you. I've loved sharing this information with you today . And as always, head to the Healthy Celiac over on Instagram to connect with me if you haven't yet, if you wanna send me a dm . I absolutely love hearing from you guys that message me and say how much you love the show. So if you've got a few moments to do that, I'd really appreciate it. It helps keep me going and I keep this , um, podcast ad free for you guys because I wanna share this information with you and part of my payment is hearing from you. So <laugh> , gimme some good feedback. That's enough to pay me. I'd love, I love it, I love it <laugh> . So yeah, send me a message or even do one better and rate and review the show over on Apple Podcasts and help me get the show out there to more people. That would be amazing. All right , I'm gonna leave it there and I will talk with you again next week on the show. So until then, have a fabulous week. Look after you yourself, look after your vagus nerve and yeah, take a, take a leaf outta my book and try some of these amazing tips to help support you. Bye.