The Overlooked Cause of Stress
Stress. It may as well be a four-letter word.
Chronic stress can take its toll on your health, your emotions, your work, your relationships.
You can take steps to manage your stress… like deep breathing, exercise, and meditation.
You can take supplements to help keep your stress hormone (cortisol) in check… like ashwagandha, magnesium, and B vitamins.
All of those things can—and do—help.
Here comes the “but.”
But there’s a root cause of stress that often goes completely overlooked.
Fixing it can not only help your stress levels, but your overall health in general.
Stress isn’t all in your head… it’s in your gut.
There’s a superhighway that runs between your gut and brain, and it’s aptly named the gut-brain axis.
It’s a two-way street that connects what’s going on in your brain to your gut, and vice versa. For example, it’s the reason why feeling nervous can give you butterflies in your stomach.
Adding to that highway is the microbiota-gut-brain axis—which has to do with how the bacteria in your gut impacts what’s going on in your brain.
And as you probably guessed, bacteria can directly impact your stress levels.
In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, 22 healthy people took either a probiotic or a placebo for four weeks.
Researchers used functional MRIs while subjects performed a stress task.
Results showed that when subjects were taking the probiotic, there was reduced activation in the regions of the brain linked to the stress response.
This shows that probiotics specifically altered the areas of the brain that help regulate emotion and the stress response.
In other words, probiotics can physically help your brain manage stress.
The three strains used in the study included:
- Bifidobacterium longum R0175
- Lactobacillus helveticus R0052
- Lactiplantibacillus plantarum R1012
Your gut health is intimately connected to every aspect of your body’s health.
The best way to support a healthy gut microbiome is to make sure it has plenty of good bacteria, and to limit the bad bacteria.
One way to get things jumpstarted in the right direction is to take a quality probiotic.
Consider adding in a prebiotic as well, which will help feed the good bacteria to make sure they flourish.
P.S. Researchers have identified a way to measurably lower your stress—and it only takes 10 minutes a day. Read about it, right here.
SOURCE:
Daniells, S. (2022, April 22.) Probiotic Combination May Ease Acute Stress in Healthy People: RCT. Nutra Ingredients-USA.com. https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2022/04/20/Probiotic-combination-may-ease-acute-stress-in-healthy-people-RCT
