The interaction and relationship between your immune system and the outside world can be complicated and confusing, though it doesn’t have to be! One powerful way to improve the health and function of your immune system is through food. Think back to last week’s post about our foundation of eating a nutrient dense, properly prepared, whole food diet. Your immune system is built by and runs on nutrients. Macronutrients, in ample amounts and the right balance for your body, provide building blocks and fuel for the immune system, while micronutrients act as cofactors (a substance needed for the activity of an enzyme) in both the production of immune cells and their functions. Eating a nutrient dense diet isn’t the full picture. We need to ensure we are optimizing our digestion and assimilation of these nutrients, as well as properly eliminating waste products out of the body. Working on optimizing the digestive system as a whole is a great foundational approach to directly support your immune system and overall health.
In this upcoming digestion series, I’ll explain to you the importance of addressing digestion from north to south and give you ways to support your digestive system with easy lifestyle and food-first approaches. My intention is to give you an overview and framework that will help you understand how things should work and where dysfunction may be occurring in your own body.
Have you noticed some digestive issues popping up in the past few weeks? Bloating, gurgling, constipation, heartburn? Our tendency is to grab onto the most prominent symptom we are experiencing and try to alleviate it directly. While you may be experiencing a symptom in one location, the dysfunction may be happening in another, causing you to experience symptoms further down in the digestive system. This is known as the digestive cascade. This week, we’ll focus on where digestion begins.
Digestion is a north to south process beginning in the brain. Digestion is controlled by our autonomic nervous system. In order for our body to signal to our digestive system to prepare for incoming food and the digestive process, we must be in a parasympathetic state, also known as “rest and digest”. This is counter to our sympathetic state, or our “fight or flight” response.
To illustrate the difference, think about a time when you were sitting down at a nice restaurant eating a long, luxurious, dinner. How did you feel afterward? Satisfied, comfortably full, content? Compare that to a lunch on your lap while driving in the car, running late to a meeting, and stuck in traffic. How did you feel after eating that meal? Bloated? Like the food was just sitting in your stomach? Cramps? Unsatisfied?
The parasympathetic and sympathetic states are both equally important to the body. The key is to be aware of when we are in a “rest and digest” state vs a “fight or flight” response. When we are in a sympathetic state, heart rate and breathing accelerate, senses sharpen, and blood is diverted to the muscles for fast action, inhibiting digestion. The sympathetic nervous system is what once prepared and helped us to escape from physical threats and survive. Our body is meant to switch automatically between a restful and a fight or flight state as needed. Although we are no longer fleeing from danger, we are tapping into our sympathetic nervous system more frequently than we may realize. Our body cannot distinguish the difference between a mental, physical, or emotional stress. We can become accustomed to feeling “stressed out” and in a state where our body feels like we aren’t safe.
In a parasympathetic state we are relaxed, conserving energy, and gastrointestinal secretions and motility are increased. Our body is primed for the digestive process. When the body is parasympathetic, the sights, smells, and anticipation of food triggers our brain to tell the salivary glands to release saliva and digestive enzymes. One enzyme released in the mouth is called salivary amylase. This enzyme is critical for the digestion of carbohydrates. Without salivary amylase, the pancreatic enzymes downstream will have potentially more work than they can handle to break down carbohydrates into their simplest form. When we are in a rest-and-digest state, our brain signals downstream that “food is coming!” and prepares our digestive system for the work to come.
Digestion is both a mechanical and chemical process. One of the most important mechanical processes you can consciously support every day is properly chewing your food. Chewing begins the breakdown of food, thus reducing the food particle size and sparing your digestion work. The more we can break down our food before it arrives into our stomach, the easier time our digestive system will have to finish the job.
What are some things you can do to support your digestion from the top?
#1: Raise awareness around your meals and your body
This one goes back to the parasympathetic and sympathetic states. I encourage you all to bring awareness to when and where you are eating your meals. Are you eating in the car? On the run? While walking around your house? When you are stressed about a work deadline? These are all examples of situations when you may be sympathetic and not in a state to digest your food properly. Conversely, how do you feel when you spend quality time around the dinner table, fully savoring each and every bite? Raising awareness to where and how we are eating can help us get into the “rest and digest” state necessary for optimal digestive function.
#2: Make mealtime relaxing
I’m not going to drive home the benefit of removing distractions at mealtime. While this is extremely valuable for increasing hunger/fullness awareness, accessing the parasympathetic state, and bringing presence and appreciation to eating, I realize it’s not always an easy or completely doable solution for everyone. As a first step, how about figuring out something you can add in to make mealtime more relaxing? Try turning on your favorite music during dinner instead of the news. Start a gratitude practice where everyone in the family talks about what they are thankful for that day and what the best part of their day was. Allow yourself to really and truly savor the cooking and eating experience. Get creative! Whatever helps you to relax when you are eating is an excellent way to prepare your body for digestion.
Tip: When reheating your True Food Missoula soups, use your stove so the aroma permeates throughout your house.
#3: Slow down mealtime
I’ll be the first to admit that I was a food inhaler. Why did I spend all that time cooking a meal only to inhale it in less than 5-10 minutes? Did I even taste my food? Once I became aware of how quickly I was eating, and the digestive pains that followed, I began to question why I ate so quickly and made adjustments based on what I learned. Some questions you can ask yourself to bring awareness around meal duration: Why am I eating so fast? Do I like the food that I’m eating? Does it taste good? Am I eating foods that I think are “healthy” even though I don’t like the taste of them? Am I even hungry? When we can slow down our mealtime, not only does it help us tune into our hunger cues and ensure our digestive system is ready to work, but it raises awareness around the foods we are eating and whether or not they taste good and truly satisfy what our body is asking for.
#4: Chew your food
This one goes hand in hand with slowing down mealtime. I’m not going to provide a specific number of times, consistency, or instructions as likely we’ve all heard it before, and frankly, many of us are still not chewing our food. What I’d like to encourage you to do is to bring awareness to how much you are putting on your fork. Can you cut your food into smaller pieces? Put less on your fork for each bite? Do you feel like you are swallowing full pieces of food or is it something that less resembles what you have on your plate? Bringing awareness to how much we are putting in our mouths at one time, coupled with the tips above for slowing down, can naturally set you up for eating and chewing your food in a way that is enjoyable to you and easier on your body.
Please note: This information is for educational and informational purposes only. All concerns regarding digestion and overall health should be brought to the attention of your doctor.