It has become apart to those of the science world that a human’s micro biome influences almost every other aspect of our body you could imagine. Recent studies have been done to suggest that our micro biome even plays a role in our mental health. One specific example talks about the impacts neurotransmitters have on the sensory receptors of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve interacts with the gut and relays that information back to the brain to processed and dealt with. Just like psychological stress, pathogenic bacteria will cause certain signals to travel to the brain which end up having negative effects.
Mental health states such as depression end up having other side effects that correspond with it such as stress, diet, and taking antibiotics. These contributions in turn shape the bacteria that live within our gut. High stress causes our bodies to go into “fight-or-flight” mode which causes hormones to be released into the blood which ultimately affect almost every aspect in your body. In the gut, particularly, sympathetic hormones cause our digestion and overall GI tract to slow down. This linkage between the gut and the brain is more apparent than people believe, and should be taken into consideration more when thinking about mental health.
