How to Improve Digestion Naturally

Feeling a little nauseous because you’re nervous about seeing your doctor? Really, who wants to be probed or prodded while wearing an ill-fitting gown? It doesn't rate high on our list of favorite things, either, although we know it’s important.
But how we feel about things can be revealed by our stomach. There’s an intimate brain stomach connection – commonly referred to as the “mind gut connection” – that’s hard at work 24/7. As research now shows, those butterflies are like pin pricks of dread for the tummy, turning you into a physical and mental ball of nerves. The stomach is like a control center for mood and other brain functions.
A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a person’s stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress or depression. The brain and the gastrointestinal (GI) system are intimately connected, so much so they should be viewed as one system. So when you look at how to improve digestion naturally, you’re also benefitting the health of your grey matter.
Making the mind gut connectionr
Researchers at the University of Califo
ia, Los Angeles revealed some of the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans. In other words, eating the right food can help your mental outlook, changing how your brain responds to the environment. Stressed out? Eat yogurt, for starters.
In their study of healthy women, they found that women who regularly consumed beneficial bacteria known as probiotics through yogurt (one serving, twice a day) showed altered brain function, both while in a resting state and in response to an emotion-recognition task.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans conducted both before and after the four-week study period looked at the women’s brains in a state of rest and in response to a task where they viewed a series of images of people with angry or frightened faces and matched them to other faces showing the same emotions. This task, designed to measure the engagement of affective and cognitive brain regions in response to a visual stimulus, was chosen because previous research in animals had linked changes in gut flora to changes in affective behaviors.
The researchers found that, compared with the women who didn’t consume the probiotic yogurt, those who did showed a decrease in activity in certain areas of the brain linked to emotion and behavior. They remained calm and “in control” throughout.

Read more at http://www.belmarrahealth.com/weak-gut-weak-mind-understanding-the-brain-stomach-connection/