2 Unexpected Tips for a Powerful Digestion – with Emily Rosen

Are you interested in a more potent and reliable digestive experience? Have you ever considered how good you might feel if your digestion was all that it could be? In this fascinating video, Emily Rosen, Director of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating reveals 2 Unexpected Tips for a Powerful Digestion. The good news is, these tips are not about taking more supplements or changing your diet – they’re all about how changing YOU – the eater – can have a potent impact on metabolic efficiency. These tips are practical, straightforward, and doable. And you’ll learn the simple science that makes it all work.

Hi, I’m Emily Rosen, Chief Operating Officer for the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

Today’s topic: 2 Unexpected Tips for a Powerful Digestion

Good digestion is at a premium these days.

If you haven’t heard this all-important nutritional fact, then it’s time to get with the program – health begins in the digestive tract.

We could be eating the healthiest food in the universe, but if the digestive system isn’t fully able to digest, pulverize, assimilate, and excrete that meal – then we won’t even come close to reaching our metabolic potential. So many of our health issues are related to challenges in the gut. We can be experiencing fatigue, mood issues, brain fog, low immunity, joint pain, autoimmune diseases, cravings, and so much more – all of which can be related to poor gut function.

Our digestive system works so hard.
It’s such a good friend.
It really loves us.

All you need to do is eat a bunch of food, let it go down your esophagus, and then most people can pretty much sit back and forget about it all as your digestive system magically does the rest. It’s working overtime to take that food, break it down, turn some of it into energy, turn some of it into body building blocks, and turn some of it into various substances that participate in virtually every chemical reaction in the human organism. So the point is, we want our digestive system to be functioning at a high level.

In the interest of evolving the human body and being the best digesters and metabolizers as possible, I’m going to share with you 2 unexpected tips for a powerful digestion. I’m calling these tips unexpected because oftentimes, suggestions to improve digestion center around taking digestive aids and supplements of all different kinds.

This is a useful strategy, but there’s plenty more. The strategies I’m going to suggest work, and they work extremely well. They’re like money in your digestive bank account. But don’t take my word for it; please try them out for yourself and let us know what you think!

Digestive Tip #1 – Invoke the Relaxation Response

The most foundational aspect of the digestive process, the most important condition for full healthy digestive force that must be met in order for the body to metabolize a meal to the fullest extent that it possibly can – is for the digestive system to be programmed, at the time of eating, by the central nervous system, to be in its optimum state of functioning.

What this means is something called parasympathetic nervous system dominance. When the parasympathetic nervous system is more active, we are literally in the physiologic relaxation response and the digestive system is fully empowered.

The central nervous system can essentially be divided into two parts, sympathetic and parasympathetic – these are like the yin and yang of your nervous system. It’s a very simple hard-wiring. Think of it for a moment: when the body is in a stress state, it means that we are threatened, that we are in a survival situation, and that all of our metabolic energy needs to be rerouted into survival activity – which means some form of fight or flight.

During survival situations, evolution has figured out a way to re-route all of our metabolic energy away from the midsection and direct it to arms legs and head for quick fighting, fleeing and instinctive thinking. You don’t need to be digesting your jellybeans when you’re fighting for your life. It’s a total waste of metabolic energy. Conversely, the beauty here is that when we’re nice and relaxed, the parasympathetic nervous system literally switches on full, healthy, and empowered digestive and assimilative function.

So the point is this – if you’re eating under stress, your digestive capacity is weakened. Blood flow to the gut can be four times less, enzymatic output in the gut can be 20,000 fold less, activity across the intestinal villi is decreased, and nutrient excretion is accelerated.

Rest and digest. Relax into your meal. It’s a literal metabolic enhancer. It’s your number one foundational tool for a powerful digestion.

Digestive Tip #2 – Take Time

Closely related to putting ourselves in a relaxation response when it comes to digestive empowerment is to take more time for meals. Simply put, eating too much food in a small amount of time is considered a stressor by the body. Have you ever had the experience where you ate a big meal very quickly and then felt like the food was sitting in your stomach? Well, that’s exactly what the food was doing. It was literally sitting in your stomach. That’s because your body was in a stress state, and digestive activity including the muscular contractions called peristalsis in the stomach came to a halt. Your body was waiting anywhere from approximately 2 minutes to several hours for digestion to kick back into full function.

Some things need time. In fact, lots of things need time. Digestion is one of them. This is not a nice thought. It’s a scientific fact.

Digestion requires slow. It loves spaciousness. Think of the times when you had a nice relaxed meal, you were unhurried, you might’ve been sitting and eating for 30 minutes or an hour or even more, and your belly felt nice and warm and your food felt well digested. That’s what I’m talking about. Vitamin T – Time – is a very powerful digestive aid. You owe it to yourself to include more of this nutrient in your diet.

These are the real digestive aids: Relaxation and time.
And they’re both free of charge.

Try these out and see for yourself if they change your digestive power.

I hope this was helpful.

Please email us at info@psychologyofeating.com if you have specific questions and we will be sure to get back to you. Thanks so much for your time and interest.

In the comments below, please let us know: What’s your favorite way for increasing your digestive power? We love hearing your thoughts!