Science of Energy Yoga

“How the Gut’s “Second Brain” Influences Mood and Well-Being

The network of neurons lining our guts is so expensive some scientists have nicknamed it our “second brain.”

This little brain partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body.

About 90% of the fibers in the primary visceral nerve, the vagus, carry information from the gut to the brain and not the other way around.

A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut.

Everyday emotional well-being may rely on messages from the “brain below” to the “brain above.”

Irritable bowel syndrome, which afflicts more than 2 million Americans, also arises in part from too much serotonin in our entrails, and could perhaps be regarded as a “mental illness” of the second brain.

A drug that inhibited the release of serotonin from the gut counteracted the bone-detonating disease osteoporosis in postmenopausal rodents.

Serotonin seeping from the “second brain” might even play some part in autism, the developmental disorder often first noticed in early childhood.

Some scientists think that in coming years psychiatry will need to expand to treat the second brain in addition to the one atop the shoulders.
--Scientific American, Feb. 12, 2010

Make your “second brain” healthy through proper diet and intestinal exercises and abdominal tapping.  Come learn how in the Tao Wellness Center’s basic classes!

See you there!

Nicholas Fiorito
Tao Wellness Center Manager