Alignment With Jenn - (#32) Your Gut Is Controlling Your Mind: The Missing Link to Anxiety & Negative Thinking (with Heather Munnelly)

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Your anxiety, overthinking, motivation, and self-trust may not be “all in your head.”In this episode, I’m joined by gut health expert Heather Munnelly for a powerful conversation about the gut��brain connection — and how gut health directly influences mood, emotions, nervous system regulation, and subconscious patterns.Many women are doing the mindset work but still feel anxious, dysregulated, or stuck. This episode explains why healing doesn’t come from pushing harder — it comes from creating safety in the body.We explore:How gut dysbiosis contributes to anxiety and negative thinkingThe gut–brain axis and emotional regulationHistamine, inflammation, and nervous system overloadWhy motivation and clarity disappearWhen emotional healing alone isn’t enoughSimple ways to begin supporting gut health todayWhat an integrated healing approach actually looks likeHeather also shares her personal healing journey and what she’s learned from helping clients restore gut health in a sustainable, compassionate way.If you’ve felt like something was missing in your healing journey — this conversation may be the piece that brings it all together.✨ Want to go deeper into gut healing?Heather shares how she works with clients and who her work is especially supportive for.Message Heather on Instagram @detoxheather for more information.✨ Let's keep the party going!🙌 Free TEAR Manifestation Method Guide: https://jenn-ditzhazy.mykajabi.com/TEAR-manifestation-method-opt-in🙌 My 7 Day Money Block Detox, Everything I Touch Turns to Gold, was just released! Designed to help you rewire the subconscious mind and nervous system so manifestation feels natural — not forced.Check it out here. https://jenn-ditzhazy.mykajabi.com/offers/PE995nM2/checkout🙌 Let’s be friends on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alignmentwithjenn/

Welcome to the alignment with Jen podcast. I am your host, Jen D'Sazy, and I'm really excited about this episode today because it is actually our first guest episode with my friend Heather Munnelly, who is a gut health expert and she's going to be taking us on the amazing journey of the connection between the gut and the brain and how it affects our levels of anxiety, our levels of health, levels of negative thinking. And I just can't wait to get to share this information because when I first learned about gut health and I really started diving in and healing my own gut, it made a huge, huge change for me in my life. And I am so grateful to get to have Heather here today. So welcome, Heather.

I'm excited to be the first guest. Yeah, me too. I'm so excited too. I would love to kind of start off and just share with people your story and what led you to the coaching work that you do now. I know that you've been coaching since 2019, so for about seven years. And I know that I know that it seems like you create amazing transformations. I've seen your transformation photos of yourself, and it's really amazing what has changed for you. So I'd love to hear your story. You know, where this started for you. Yeah. So it actually started. I always had really good gut health. And when I was around 17, it just kind of changed overnight. And I believe it was due to a food poison, or it was a contaminated water that I was exposed to while traveling in Mexico.

I actually had a lot of emotional and like, you know, trauma and stress going on that same year, too. So it took me a while to kind of piece together what I think happened. But I just had this like very overnight change in my, in my health. And that led me to this path. Interesting. So what was that change? Like what was the before and the after for you? Before I was just a very normal, like healthy athletic 90s kid.

And after I had chronic abdominal pain, digestive issues. choose. It was like I had a stomach bug, like chronically, basically. Oh, at 17. At 17. That lasted for like almost 11 years. Wow. Wow. So till you're 28. Yeah. That is so young to have gut health issues too, because I think most of the time, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like we're sort of buffered at that age. And then as we get older, that's when people start to see it. Yeah. I felt like I was the youngest person that I knew. And I could tell because when I went to college, I was like the only person running to the bathroom constantly. And like I could just tell that like nobody else was like dealing with it. I think it's a lot more prevalent now. But this was like early 2000s still. So yeah, I felt like I was

the only one. Yeah. So for 11 years, that's kind of the symptoms that you experienced. Yes. Lots of like food intolerances, bloating. I looked six months pregnant after every meal. Even like a sip of water would make me bloated. Wow. I was intolerant to like absolutely everything and I was just so uncomfortable all the time. And it impacted my mood and my social life and the clothing that I wore because I was always trying to hide like the bloated belly and all of that. And I just felt horrible. Yeah. I think for me it was that I drank a lot when I was in college. Like I would party a lot. And I think that it negatively impacted my gut health. So for me, it was kind of in my mid-20s that it started. But it was a similar like a lot of digestive issues, a lot of anxiety. So for me, it was a lot of mental health. stuff that I think was connected to the gut. Did you experience any of that? A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think it is really connected. Like that was one of my earlier symptoms that I noticed because I never had anxiety before that. Yeah. And that was like the point too where my doctors would be like, oh, it's stress. And I was like, I don't really have like, you know, 17, right? Like I was like,

I didn't have stress like last week and or like it's the same stress. Like what changed? Yeah. Overnight. Like it did create like a lot of anxiety for me too. That was one of the really abrupt things that I noticed too. So you had this experience, right? Things started to change. And then what did you do? Like, what did that lead you on to try to solve it? So initially, because I was told by my doctors that it was caused by stress. And from the research I did, I realized that like stress can also be trauma. And I did have a lot of trauma. I think my ACE's score was like six or something I can't remember, but quite a lot of trauma, especially things going on in my high school at the time. So I looked there first, which I realized.

I'm realizing is like a little bit uncommon. But I just believed like the doctors when they were like, this is caused by stress. Like that's what causes IBS. I was like, okay, I did have some of that. Yeah. Let me look at that. Let me look at. Initially it was like trying to yoga, meditation, certain things like that. And then it got deeper into like having hard conversations with people in my life and forgiveness and really accepting things that I had been through. And that was a big part of my journey early on, I think. Yeah. What do you think was the turning point for you in terms of your health? It really was very overnight the way that I healed as well. Wow. Like I want to say that there was so much that I did in between in that 11 years that I would want to say was like helpful. But really it wasn't until

2018 when I did a gut protocol on myself. And I ended up purging like tons of parasites. Like I realized that the time that I was dealing with like multiple types of CBO, fungal overgrowth, I was super sensitive to mold. I was living in mold. Wow. And I had all these parasites. And like that was something very clear. Like when I went through my healing process, like TMI, but like seeing that leave my body and then feeling this huge wave of anxiety when they were leaving my body. And I was having like flashbacks and hallucinations. And then just waking up and having no food intolerances anymore. Wow. It was very crazy. What was that time span? Like how long did that take? 90 days. Wow. Yeah. And your program now is 90 days, isn't it? No, it's a little bit longer because we do

lab testing in the beginning. Oh. Just because it will help us like beeline to what we need to do with people. Yeah. Where I was throwing spaghetti at the wall for 11 years before I figured it out. So yeah. Wow. What's amazing about that. So I feel like when I did the gut health journey, it was like multiple years of me trying to heal my gut and trying to heal my gut. like I did so many stool tests, all sorts of like sebo tests, all sorts of things like that. And I felt like everything kept coming back. And for me, it was, I think I had cleared out the stuff, but it was my mind. And so what happened is I started diving deep into the subconscious, which is what I work with my clients now. And that is what really made the difference for me was really studying and understanding and really

changing my thought processes. And that's what I find so interesting is like you did that part. but for you, it was the physical healing that made the big difference. And I think oftentimes it's so easy for us to separate the two and be like, okay, if my spiritual health, my emotional health is good, I'm solid. Or some people think if my physical health is good, if I'm taking care of my physical body, which is what I thought, I'm good. But there's obviously this connection, you know, that we have to have both of them. 100%. Yeah.

And I think it's like whichever one you do kind of first, this is just my theory, but like I feel like whatever one you do first kind of like lays this groundwork that you might not feel like a lot of the yeah like spiritual emotional stuff like forgiveness and learning how to sit in silence and meditate like developing all these healthy like practices I read so many books in like the personal development spirituality like so many podcasts like I was just so deep in all of that stuff yeah and that I think allowed my nervous system to be in a state where it could heal yeah like a lot of people don't heal in 90 days, you know, on supplements and stuff like what I did ultimately that move the needle. And I attribute so much growth to that. Yeah. And it's like how much of it was

the prep that I had done for years, you know. Yeah. And I think that was for me, what I was missing is like I was so focused on, okay, well, it's a physical symptom. So I need to heal it with the physical. And I was missing that nervous system component, healing my mind, healing those aspects of myself. So I'd love to give people an understanding of the gut and really what it is, right? If people are new, they may not understand how important it is, right? We kind of think like it just digestes our food. And so oftentimes I think people aren't taught how important it is. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about what is the gut for someone that's new to this experience. Ooh, what is the gut? So I think of the gut as like a tube that kind of runs from our malice.

to the bottom of RGI tract when food enters and then it exits basically and everything in between. So we have primarily like the stomach, small intestine and large intestine and then the assisting organs like the gallbladder, liver and pancreas. With that, why does that cause so many impacts on health, right, and on mental health as well? At the core, this is kind of how we like mine energy. This is like humans, we run off air and energy. that we create through like foods. So we have to refine those resources that we eat into usable micronutrients and things like that so that we can then experience like downstream health, you know, like hormones and energy and all these things. Yeah. So I think at its core it's like we have to digest in order to run the whole body. Yeah. So I know that people can have imbalances in their gut.

And that's kind of what creates this host of issues of either mental health issues like anxiety and depression or overthinking or difficulty sleeping or the physical stuff like the bloating and the blue stool and the cramps and things like that. I guess tell us a little bit about gut dysbiosis and what that means. So gut dyspiosis is when we have sort of an imbalance in our microorganisms that live in our body. So in our body, we have more microorganisms than we do human cells. And the exact numbers changes at times. Like, it's an estimate that I won't say just because every few years they seem to adjust it. But yeah, we have all these microbes and they definitely outnumber us and they're really important. And they, we want them in balance.

So there's all basically good ones and ones that we want to have in lower quantities. And dysbiosis is when that shifts. and we don't have as many of the good beneficial microbes, and we start to get a little bit more of those more inflammation-promoting ones, the more like pathobionts that can be negative if they're overgrowing. Does that make sense? Yeah, and that causes those symptoms that people experience. Yeah, a lot of times it does.

So how does somebody's gut get into dysbiosis? So many different factors, but I think some of the main ones right now are Western diet, So like standard American diet, which is very high fat, low fiber, that can really promote dysbiosis and is one of the main. I think that's the main one. Yeah. I would say second to that would be medications. I almost want to say like pesticides is second. So like food quality, things like glyphosate cause a lot of dysbiosis, but then medications as well.

So things like PPI are known to drive things like CBO. What's a PPI? Like an acid blocker. a lot of people take for reflux. Oh. That causes birth control. And of course, anti-bide. Yeah.

I think that was one of the big ones for me is when I was growing up, I got strep. Like, they thought I was a carrier of strep. I'd get it like once a month. And so I took like 20 rounds of antibiotics before that I was like 10. And I'm like, it's crazy how much I've healed because I don't think my gut was ever really that healthy. And now I think it's pretty healthy. Wait, can we talk about strep?

because that's a really interesting thing that you dealt with. Yeah. So strep is depending on the strain and there's different ones, but the pathogenic streps, like they're mega producers of histamine. And they really bloom in. Did you live in a moldy home at all? Not that I know of. They tend to, a lot of like children and people that have a lot of strep infections,

strep really thrives in like a moldy environment. Oh. And it produces all this histamine. and that can be a really big driver of anxiety. And so a lot of times people that have strep infections, like recurrent strep issues, they will also deal with a lot of like anxiety as well as even like ruminating thoughts, compulsive thoughts and OCD. Wow.

OCD has been linked to strep. And if you look in like the pans and pandas communities, they're very aware of this in the mold and strep and OCD connection. Wow. See, that's what I find so, so like illuminating, right? Because basically what you described is like, was the journey that I had where I had this strep and then I took antibiotics and then I had anxiety for years and years and years. Yeah, really interesting. Did you ever have like the intrusive thoughts or like, no, it didn't get there. No, it was more just like I was anxious all the time about like anything I could be anxious about. No intrusive thoughts, no OCD, nothing like that.

And it was probably similar to what you said where it was like all the gut healing I did laid the foundation for the spiritual, emotional healing that I did later to heal that. That's the really big piece I want people to take away is that oftentimes we can get so focused on one hand when the mind and the body are one, right? Our whole energetic field is one. And so when we work on them both together and we care for them both together, I think that's when we reach our ultimate potential. Can you explain a little bit about the histamine connection as well with.

gut health because I know that's big for a lot of people too. Yeah, histamine is something that is produced by certain gut bacteria, not all of them. And it tends to be more of like the pathogens. Straff, E. coli, things like that can produce histamine. And it doesn't feel good. This is like what kind of raises your heart rate. It can make you short of breath, anxious. You could also have just even like a runny nose sinus congestion. Think of like allergies. Yeah. So a lot of people take anti-histamines to calm down those symptoms because they're pretty uncomfortable. Yeah. And a lot of that histamine can be driven just by dysbiosis and an overgrowth of these histamine-producing gut bacteria. Interesting. For our listeners, what is, how can they tell if they probably have some

dysbiosis going on? A couple ways. I think the obvious kind of gut symptoms would be if you deal with any kind of food intolerances, bloating, digestive issues. But then it doesn't always have to be digestive. You could experience things like low mood, anxiety, things like that, skin issues are big. I had that too. Yeah. I posted this photo on Instagram. I had eczema all over my face as a little kid. For years, I know.

And it was like probably until like elementary school. And then when I was in college, I had it all over my body. Yeah. Wow. I didn't actually know that either. I had a crazy health history. Was that after the antibiotics for strep? Mm-hmm.

Oh, girl. I know. And so like my 20s, I feel like I spent it healing, like similar to you. And I almost, even as we're having this conversation, I'm sort of thinking, I'm like, the mindset stuff was so huge. And I really think what you said is so accurate of like it probably was so effective for me because I had done so much physical healing. And like you had done so much spiritual and emotional healing. And so your gut health stuff was so much more effective. Totally. I really believe that. I think it's a holistic lens that we need to look at it through and not just, you know, because people want to fight about like different things in wellness. Yeah. That work for them. So it's all about like, know, this diet, know that diet or yeah. It's like the spiritual, emotional side. No, it's the physiological. But it's like, I think that we can like zoom out and really look at these all play a role. Yes. I so agree. I so agree. And we're so much more powerful having the information. So, okay, let's say somebody feels like they're like, yeah, I raise my hand. I feel like I have some dysbiosis, what are some of the things that they can start doing now to start healing that?

Let's start with like lifestyle changes and then we'll get more into the actual getting in there in the gut or even just to support a healthy gut. One of the main ways to support a healthy gut is to remove like the constant irritants. So I know it's like a little bit boring but getting pesticides and like chemicals out of your food is like the number one thing that you can do. you'll pay more money for like not having poison in your food it will just like eat organic yeah and it will taste the same like people often just are like why would I pay more for that the point is that pesticides are linked not only to gut dysbiosis but to depression and like mood you know changes in

mood changes in how you experience life your quality of life uh so I would say like if you're not already making the investment and you can find a way to do it just getting onto more of an organic diet, even if you just do the clean 15, get rid of the dirty dozen, something like that. And there are a list of those that you can look up, they change once a year. But just making most of your food not have antibiotics in it. Yeah. And that's the thing is like glyphosate, which is like a really common pesticide right now, or not a pesticide, it's like an herbicide. But it's actually patented as an antibiotic. So it's known that it causes guise, disruption. What? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. They do not know that. No. I'd assume people know that. I had no

idea. Yeah. Yeah. So glyphosate, which is round up. You know, it's sprayed on like all of our corn or grains, all of that. Our neighbors like sprayed all over the place. Yeah. You want to stay away from that. It's an antibiotic and it causes disruptions to the gut lining as well. So leaky gut. And that's also connected to anxiety. But it leads to dysbiosis. So if you're just eating, you know, things like that on a regular basis. You might think that you're eating healthy salad or something, but if it's not organic and it's been sprayed with things like that, then you are actually selectively harming your beneficial species.

Glyphosate actually kills beneficial bacteria more than it does the pathogens. Wow. So you end up getting way disrupted. Way disrupted. So it leads to these blooms and like overgrowth of these bad bacteria, like proteobacteria. Wow. And those are the ones that really promote anxiety and, mood disorders and stuff because they're so high in endotoxin.

Wow. Well, you tell us a little bit about in case people don't know what leaky gut is. Yeah, leaky gut. So your gut lining is just, it's designed to be kind of permeable so that you can absorb nutrients into the bloodstream. But sometimes they can get a little bit too permeable. And that's one of the effects of chronic stress causes leaky gut or, you know, glyphosate that I mentioned causes leaky gut. Even like running, you know, a lot of like ultramarathoners and so. stuff like that will have leaky gut. That's part of why they can have like digestive issues while they're

running and things like that. So lots of different causes of that. But a really high fat meal that lacks fiber can cause leaky gut. Oh, wow. And of course, dysbiosis. Wow. I didn't know that about the high fat diet. Yeah, it's a big cause of it. Yep. So keto? Could keto diets cause leaky gut then? Yeah. It's eating a lot of fat. So we tell us about the endotoxins. Yeah. So, certain types of gram-negative bacteria, things like E. coli, things that are not super great to have a lot of. Yeah. Their cell membrane contains something called LPS or the other name for it is endotoxin. So just hearing the name toxin and you know that it's not great. You don't want a ton of this. We all might have like a little E. coli somewhere in our gut, but like we don't want tons of

this. And yeah, there's other bacteria that have it too. So when you have a lot of that endotoxin, Yeah. It can often, especially if the person has leaky gut, it can get into the bloodstream and cause systemic inflammation and brain inflammation. Wow. It actually has an impact on neurotransmitters as well. So then this is disruptive to your like gab, serotonin and all these things that we know really impact mood. Wow. So it also, I would imagine all of this gut health stuff also impacts like focus and motivation and being able to really show. up for the things you want to show up for? 100%. Because if you have a ton of endotoxin in your gut, let's say your gut is really dysbiotic. You have a lot of these pathogens that have endotoxin in their cell membrane.

You eat a really high fat meal or you have a really high stress experience then. Your gut is permeable and some of this gets into circulation. It inflames the brain and then it disrupts the signaling of the dopamine that might motivate you. So you might feel really demotivated even though you're like, wait, why? I really want to do this thing, but like, why can't I get myself to do it? Wow. And you're also, like, typically when you're dysbiotic like that, you're lacking the beneficial microbes that produce B vitamins and things like that that that we really need to stay focused, like, fully.

Wow. Yeah. It's wild to me how there's just so many cascades of different effects that happen. Yeah. So we have avoiding pesticides. So eating organic is a really good step. What would be another step someone could take? To overcome.

bios. Yeah, and just have a healthy gut in general. Yeah, definitely cutting out. I mean, like any kind of food chemicals, just keeping it really clean, going to farmers markets, that's big. And then medications, if you're taking things like acid blockers, birth control, every medication, I have not found one that doesn't have like some sort of impact on, like, the gut or depletes nutrients in some way as a result of taking it or something like there's negative side effects of medication. So even like SSRIs or Adderall, yeah. Yeah. So all medications will deplete certain nutrients. Like a lot of times it's like magnesium or different things like that. So there are, I want to say it's called like the nurse's handbook. I can't remember. But there's ways you can look up if you're on a medication that you really need to like stay on. And I'm not advocating that people like discontinue their mats or anything. But just being aware that these do have side effects. Yeah. In theory you could look up and see, okay. what medication am I on? What nutrients does it deplete? And then am I getting enough of those through my diet and making an effort to do so? Yeah. So medications, it's interesting that those are

two of the biggest ones because you would never really associate that with the health of your body in general. Like most people are probably not even thinking about pesticides on a daily basis. I know because they're invisible, right? Yeah. So what's one more that we could tell that people could do? Yeah. So being conscientious about your. your use of meds, your exposure to toxins, and just managing, I think this is where it comes back to your wheelhouse of like definitely managing stress. Yeah. Stress hormones drive dysbiosis specifically. Oh, like cortisol. Yeah, cortisol leads to blooms of those endotoxin producing bacteria. No way. It does. Yeah. That's so interesting. What about sugar? Because I, this is just my own

personal observing of myself is that when I have sugar, I feel more anxious, more irritable the next day. Is that something that's going on to my gut? It probably is. You know, I think like sugar is really demonized, but if you can get your gut to a really good place, you should be able to have a little bit and not notice anything from it. Yeah. So if you're noticing something like, I mean, if you eat like an entire cake, you know, obviously you're going to feel bad.

But if you have, you know, like a serving of sugar. and you feel bad that day or the next day, I would be thinking there's things that you could do in your gut to improve. Yeah. Let's talk about that a bit. Let's talk about if somebody is like, yes, I really would like to focus on my gut health. I'd like to do some, I'd like some help with that. What is kind of the process you take people through? Yeah, so we always start out with lab testing. I didn't really have access to functional lab testing when I was going through it. And what's functional lab testing? That's a good question. Most people do like traditional lab testing through their doctor. And that'll be things like a colonoscopy or blood work. After you've done that, if you've kind of rolled out like the scary things, I call it like colon cancer or something like that, then you can do functional testing. And that's things like looking at the microbiome, looking at the gut bacteria, looking at the things I'm talking about. So like how much of your gut microbiome is actually like promoting inflammation and endotoxin and all these things. So. we can look at the gut through lots of different functional testing, through breath, through stool,

through urine even, because they're not considered medically necessary. They're not things that doctors order. Yeah. But if you, like I said, if you've gone through like traditional med and you haven't gotten the answers you're looking for, that's where I think functional testing is really key. It can provide so many insights of like what's out of balance. And yeah, so basically we start with that. So doing some functional testing. And then is it like, like an herbal protocol and dietary changes that people would expect? We do a combination of diet, lifestyle, and supplements. Yeah.

And most people experience a lot of changes in 90 days? We do a little longer. So we work with people right now for like five to six months. And then that gives us like a month, month and a half to do testing. And then they'll be on a protocol for three to five months depending on what they have going on. And it will vary, you know. Yeah. The reason we do this is because the issue.

I had causing my symptoms, like they're different than, you know, what you had causing yours, even though we had similar symptoms. Yeah. It's like we both had bloating, but where that bloating was coming from is different. Yeah. So it's kind of customized to where the person's at. And testing really helps us to see, like, where is your bloating coming from? Yeah. So then after somebody does a protocol like this, is it like they go and eat whatever they want or like what? Because I can imagine that would probably not be the thing to do. I mean, I eat whatever I want. Really?

Yeah. But you eat quality. I do eat quality. So one thing that I've never changed since I was like maybe 21 and I started eating organic. I still eat organic to this day. I never changed that. So I think food quality is really, really important. I follow an 80, 20 approach and this is my only expectation of like my clients as well, is you

don't have to be perfect. We're not going to put you on some like really rigid thing. Yeah. If you have a birthday party in the middle of your protocol and you're going to go have some wine in cake, it's going to be okay. Yeah. I figured this out because I used to think that you had to be really rigid and my healing diet was very rigid. I thought if I had one bite of sugar, I would feed the candida and the parasites and it would all backfire. Yeah. But then I had clients who were like young girls that would like, you know, we'd be working on CBO or something like that and they would go

out and like binge on whatever sugar and alcohol. And they would come back and like check in with me and I was like, oh my God, they're not going to get better, but they got better, you know, and the same speed as, as everyone else. Do you think it was because they were younger? Or why do you think it was? No, I think it was just that I realized that the rigidity of the diet was not as important as I believed. It's more the quantity being at that 80%ish. Yeah, 80, 20, like, you know, I think if you're trying to create really ideal gut health, it's not going to make sense to continue to. consume antibiotics on a regular basis, which you would be doing if you're eating animals that have been fed antibiotics, which is common. If you're consuming glyphosate, sprayed crops, like we want to

eliminate this 80% of the time at least, if not more. But as for like the actual foods themselves, I don't think it's important to cut out all of the foods that we think of as like a problem, like having like a little bit of sugar or alcohol or something. It's not going to completely derail your progress. It's not going to help you heal, but it's not going to completely derail everything. You can still heal. If you're doing 80% of the things, right, it's like okay to be a little bit. Yeah. That's such a healthy thing because I tell my clients the same things in terms of their mind and their subconscious. There's so much stress that we place on ourselves trying to do that last 20% that ends up having more negative repercussions than just focusing on doing a good job 80% of the time.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. That's like that's so documented too, like in science and studies and the impact of like cortisol spiking and what it does to the gut microbiome so quickly. So it's super, super validated that thinking. Yeah. So amazing. So any last things that you want to mention that we didn't talk about? There's so many ways. Like I feel like we kind of talked a lot about the gut microbiome and how it can impact mood and emotions and how we both believe in taking a holistic approach and addressing all of it. One thing that like we've known like since the 70s up until like the early 2000s was the impact that the brain has on the gut. That's very, very clear.

Oh yeah. That's like mainstream. But then it wasn't until like maybe the last like 15 years or so. They started doing a lot more studies on the gut's impact on the brain. Yeah. And that's the part that like people don't give any credit to it. Yeah. And so there's a lot more knowledge coming out about how our gut bacteria and our gut line.

and all these things that we kind of scratch a surface on today really can impact our thoughts, our moods, our emotions. So how does that work? So you're saying the signals from the gut are influencing the neurotransmitter release from the brain? Yeah. And that's just like one of the ways. There's so many connections. They did like a meta-analysis, which is like the gold standard of studies.

It's like where they look at all the studies done on the topic. They did this for like depression and antibiotics. And they basically found that in every study done on this, that antibiotic use always resulted in increased risk for depression. Wow. Yeah. In every study. Wow. So there's things like this.

So we think of like our moods and our thoughts and our mindset, but it's like there is a physiologic component. So basically it's bidirectional is what we now know. We used to think it was top down. It was brain impacts gut. Yeah. And in the last, like I said, like decade and a half, we've learned. learned that the gut impacts the brain equally so. So it's a bidirectional communication that's constantly going back and forth. Isn't that amazing? The heart is the same way. So 90% of the

neurons going from between the heart and the brain are from the heart to the brain. Isn't that crazy? Wow. I like I love that fact. Yeah. I love that too. It's so good. But you know, when you think about that, you're like, okay, the heart is basically kind of controlling the brain. The gut has a lot of control over the brain. We put so much emphasis on thinking and the conscious mind, you know, when we have all of this access to these other parts of our body. They did this other study where they showed just side note about the heart. They showed photographs on the screen. They showed one that was like a scary image of something. And then they would show a photograph of something that was happy. And they would pause in between. So they'd wait like 10 seconds. And it was all randomized by a

computer. So you didn't know if you're getting happy or sad. But what's fascinating is they measure the rhythm of the heart. And the heart knew if it was going to be a happy or a sad image before it was shown. So like five seconds before the heart would start to react, which what the researchers concluded is that the heart has this form of intuition that is outside of space and time. Isn't that crazy? How? Like make it make sense? I know. I can't make it make sense yet, but I was like, I love it. I just am obsessed with the heart. The heart I think knows so much. you know, Dr. Joe always says the heart knows and the mind thinks. Whoa.

Good, right? See, it just goes to show. It's like the brain is obviously important. You know, we've always known that. But like these other organs also can influence the brain in a big way. Yeah. And we think all of us is created from the brain. And it's not.

You know, like you just showed the gut is also controlling who we are as a person. If it's controlling our mood and our neurotransmitters and how we're showing up. And same with the heart. Yeah, what do you think it's a way that you could impact your heart to have a positive brain impact? So I do a lot of meditation on heart coherence. So like really focusing on bringing energy into your heart because you have your heart chakra. And a lot of people think that's like a very woo-woo thing. But what it actually is is there's like a whole plexus of neurons in each of our chakras.

And there's blood vessels and things like that. So our chakras actually have a physical basis too. when you focus on it, you draw energy into that area. So it expands your heart and it expands your, I imagine that intuitive capacity. I haven't studied it or anything, but if the heart has that intuition. Yeah, that makes sense. So doing like heart specific meditation work? Yeah.

Even just putting your attention on it. Like even if you go into, say you go into a conversation and we could have even done it before this conversation and you just drop your awareness just to feel. feeling your heart. You don't even have to think anything. You just feel that space. You're putting energy there. So you're expanding that. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah, pretty amazing. I would love for you to share if people want to be able to work with you, if they're like, I want to do a gut protocol. I really want to get my gut in order, which I think everyone should do ever in their life. I'm like, it's one of the top five things I think people should do. How can they work with you? How could

they contact you? Yeah, if you're struggling with gut health and you want to work on this or just want to optimize your gut health, you could always reach out to me on Instagram and just send me a DM and say you came from the podcast and we'll take care of you. Awesome. And your Instagram's detox, Heather? Yeah. Okay. And I'll put it in the show notes so people will have that. Well, I'd like to ask one last question. So for someone to live truly in alignment, since this is the alignment with Jen podcast, what is one thing that you think would be helpful for them to do? To be an alignment, I think it would be great if people could, you know, sit and maybe write down all the things you're doing and focused on right now that are, that you feel like are working. And then certain

things that you feel like are maybe not totally in alignment or not happening the way you want them to and kind of think about like why that might be. And it could be, in this case, it could be, you know, your gut is holding you back or it could be that you're not doing the heart-centered, you know, work or meditation or the spiritual side. So identifying what that is for you. Yeah. And just keeping an open mind to the fact that maybe all of these things do play their role can be really easy for us to get really excited about one path. But I think true alignment is about like taking a holistic approach to your life and not being so fixed on one, you know, thing, but really looking at like, like, where am I deficient? Where can I? Because we tend to focus on the thing that we like the most, you know.

So it's like, can I really look at what I'm deficient in and put effort there to? Yeah. So, so, so, so agree. It's so easy to just keep focusing on the things that you like and you're naturally good at. Yeah. And then wondering like, why can't this happen? You know, it's like I love to be in my feminine energy and be in flow state, but why is my business suffering or something like that? It's like. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're like dynamic beings. You know, we have so many facets to us. Thank you so much. That was such a great conversation. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it was really fun.