There’s a nerve in your body that runs from the base of your brain, down through your neck, past your heart and your lungs, and into your stomach and your intestines. It’s called the vagus nerve. And it’s the cable that connects how you feel to how you digest.
Here’s the bit that surprised me when I first learned it:
About 80% of the information moving along that nerve isn’t your brain sending instructions to your gut. It’s your gut sending information up to your brain.
Your gut is talking to your brain almost constantly. Far more than the other way around.
Which is why, and I want you to sit with this for a moment, when life gets stressful, your digestion goes haywire even when you haven’t changed a thing about what you’re eating.
The pattern shows up like this:
You have a busy fortnight. Maybe a difficult work thing, or a family situation, or just life being loud. You haven’t changed your diet. If anything you’re being more careful, because you don’t have time to be ill. And suddenly the bloating is back. Or you’re constipated. Or you can’t eat your usual lunch without feeling rough afterwards. Or you wake up at 3am for no reason. Or all of it at once.
The temptation, because we’re all trained this way, is to look at the food. To start cutting things out. To wonder if you’ve developed a new intolerance overnight.
But the food usually isn’t the problem. Your nervous system is.
When you’re calm, your body shifts into what’s often called rest and digest mode. Saliva flows. Stomach acid is produced in the right amounts. Enzymes are released. Your gut moves food through at the right pace.
When you’re stressed (and this includes the chronic, low-grade stress most of us are just living in) the opposite happens. Blood is redirected away from your gut. Digestion gets deprioritised. From your body’s point of view, you’re about to fight a sabre-toothed tiger. Now is not the time to digest your lunch.
The problem is that we are no longer dealing with sabre-toothed tigers. We’re dealing with inboxes and difficult conversations and the news and our phones. The body doesn’t tell the difference.
What this means in practice - patterns I see constantly:
Bloating that arrives in stressful weeks and disappears on calmer ones
Sudden reactivity to foods that were fine a month ago
Constipation during busy weeks, or the opposite - urgency, having to plan your day around the bathroom
Brain fog after meals that you blame on the food
What actually helps - none of which is “just relax”:
Five slow breaths into your belly before you start eating. Sounds too simple, but it’s genuinely one of the most effective things you can do for your digestion
Sit down to eat. Not at your desk. Not standing at the counter. Actually sit
Sunlight on your face in the first hour after waking. Daylight is one of the most underrated nervous-system regulators you have access to
A real wind-down in the evening. Most nervous systems never come down properly between work and sleep, and digestion does its overnight work in conditions that aren’t right for it
You don’t have to fix your nervous system before your digestion gets better. You just have to give it more moments in the day when it’s allowed to settle.
If you suspect blood sugar might be in the mix for you alongside the digestive stuff, my free guide Is Your Blood Sugar Working Against You? Ten Signs Most People Completely Miss walks through the pattern. Download it at francesnorgate.com/#bloodsugarguide.
And if you’d like a proper conversation about your symptoms specifically, I have a few spaces left for the 30-minute Blood Sugar Audits this month. It’s completely free. Book at francesnorgate.com/blood-sugar-audit.
Thank you for being here.
See you next week,
Frances x
Frances Norgate
Qualified Nutrition and Lifestyle Advisor
