Trust Your Gut is the first book to address intestinal distress from this perspective—a viewpoint that sees the gut as a vital messenger to heed and trust, rather than as an enemy to fear. Your symptoms are messages from the body to rely on, rather than to ignore or medicate. We focus on those functional relationships between the brain and the gut—including the neural and hormonal interactions—as well as the interactions with each patient's inner and outer environments. Because we know that everything is connected, we must pay attention to all aspects of a person's life to pinpoint possible areas where the system isn't functioning properly.
Two Powerful New Tools for Gut Healing
This book introduces two powerful new approaches to reducing chronic gut distress: Neurohormonal Retraining and Ecological Rebalancing. These techniques calm the hypersensitivity of the digestive tract and the nervous system, a key factor that prolongs gut distress into a chronic ailment. Pills may temporarily block the symptoms, but they mask hypersensitivity instead of addressing it. Ecological Rebalancing restores the body's natural harmony by subduing external causes of stress and their internal consequences. Neurohormonal Retraining uses your power of concentration to short-circuit the hypersensitive feedback loop between the digestive system and the nervous system, which reduces both pain and gut dysfunction.
These techniques are effective because they are based on the holistic understanding that everything is connected and your gut goes haywire when these connections are imbalanced. These two approaches are the foundation of our systematic approach to gut distress that we call the CORE program.
The main components of our program are summed up in our acronym: CORE.
Center
Observe
Restore
Ensure
The CORE self-help program provides a new set of tools beyond the pharmaceutical shelves, beyond tests and conventional wisdom—tools under your control. True primary care is not what a physician does for you but rather what you do for yourself, and this book will enable you to do that. CORE will teach you new ways to deal with your gut and to break the vicious cycle of symptoms, fear, and pain.
Are You Ready to Use This Book?
If you have not yet seen your primary care physician and/or a GI specialist to have your intestinal pains and discomforts evaluated, you are not ready for this book. Some potential problems are extremely serious and even life threatening, and the health care system is excellent at recognizing and treating them. Your doctors or specialists can run tests to find out what is wrong, and then they can work with you on the problem. That is why you should first go to your physician and be thoroughly examined. (Please see our website www.trustyourgutbook.com for a list of conditions that require other treatments before beginning the CORE program.)
After you have been comprehensively tested and all organic, structural physiological problems have been ruled out, then you are ready to use this book. When your doctors tell you that they find nothing wrong on your diagnostic tests—yet your symptoms, pain, and discomfort continue—that's when we can help you. Clearly, you know something is wrong after you've been suffering for five, ten, or twenty years. The good news is that these chronic maladies are not life threatening. The great news is that there is something you can do to diminish your distress or make it go away altogether. You are ready to start trusting your gut!
This book is for you if you have been diagnosed with:
IBS—Irritable bowel syndrome
GERD—Gastroesophageal reflux disease (the type caused by functional disorder)
Dysfunctional bowel
Or have any of these chronic symptoms:
Bad breath despite good dental hygiene
Burping, belching, hiccuping
Esophagitis, reflux, heartburn
Stomach upset, gastritis
Nausea, with or without food
Food intolerances
Appetite concerns (too much, too little, hungry but can't eat, full too quickly)
Bloating
Abdominal cramping, spasms
Diarrhea: urgent, frequent, even incontinence
Constipation
Alternating diarrhea and constipation
Undigested food in stools
Mucus in stools
Gas: frequent, bothersome, noticeable
Food avoidance
Food craving
How to Use This Book
Trust Your Gut is organized according to the guiding CORE principles.
Part I: Center
Chapter 1 addresses the foundational concept of centering, a notion closely tied to the ancient idea that your gut is the center of your emotions, energy, and intuition. As you learn to trust your gut, you begin to realize that it is the source of healing power and can help your body/mind system to regain its balance. Proper function replaces dysfunction, and symptoms begin to go away—sometimes very quickly. You will also learn specific strategies for centering practice as well as ways to identify your own strengths and inner resources. Centering is the prerequisite for the skills that follow.
Part II: Observe
To begin the healing process, you must first become aware of yourself, your bodily sensations, and the various forces that keep you out of balance. Only then can you restore your balance. However, many gut sufferers tend to ignore their pain, mask it with medications and painkillers, or distract themselves from their physical sensations by worry and anxiety. Chapter 2, “Observe Your Gut,” teaches you how to pay attention to the unpleasant sensations in your gut with greater acceptance and how to interpret them as meaningful clues about your problem. The very act of shifting the focus of your attention helps you to become more centered and calm.
Chapter 3, “Observe Your Stresses,” looks at the five main sources of stress on your body/mind system: environmental, physical, emotional/spiritual, pharmaceutical, and dietary. Most gut sufferers carry a negative connotation of the word stress and take it to mean “your digestive problems are all in your head.” Stress is actually a normal part of life, but it can directly affect your gut distress. We will guide you through a self-assessment of the five forms of stress in your life. From this will come the awareness necessary for effective and lasting change.
Chapter 4, “Observe Your Diet,” presents ways to start tracking how the food you eat may be correlated to your symptoms. These results can help pinpoint foods that need to be removed from your diet.
Chapter 5, “Observe Your Sleep,” examines the very close relationship between chronic gut distress and sleep problems. Abdominal pain, cramping, and diarrhea during sleep hours keep you awake, and the lack of sleep makes you more vulnerable to gut distress the next day. This chapter features a self-assessment of the most important dimensions of sleep along with specific solutions to guide you out of this vicious cycle.
Chapter 6, “Observe Your Life: Your