The Enteric Brain

The Enteric Brain
MrDon

MrDon

Registrant
I will write a little about a workshop I am going to this weekend and hopefully once the workshop is done (and I'm still standing), I will share more.

Here is the text from the flyer.
Buried in your digestive system is your other brain which contains over 95% of the serotonin found in the body. Serortonin is the ecstasy neurotransmitter, which is involved in depression, anxiety and fear. The enteric brain also produces dozens of other substances like Valium and Xanax.

Now for the first time, somatic or body centered therapy is beginning to access these hidden reserves. Freedom from a past history of painful and stressful experience is easier than we imagine when we unlock the secret of the gut brain. With anxiety, panic attacks, and fear becoming epidemic this is a real hands on way to help you and your clients find deep inner peace.
Click to expand...
This worked is based upon what Peter Levine is doing and if you go to the following website https://www.traumahealing.com it gives much more information. There are some pretty good articles for trauma and ptsd as well on this site.

Probably a year or two ago, I wouldn't have even considered going to something like this (let alone start a career in massage therapy/body work). However the more I work with people the more I see these things not only in myself but in many others as well. I can't deny it because it does show up. I know that the facilitator of this workshop has been doing this work for some time now as well and I have had the opportunity to hear him speak about it a couple of times. It is powerful stuff.

I will be interested to see what happens with me as I go through this workshop because it could get intense for me but freeing at the same time. After the workshop, I will try to post an update as to what took place and as I learn more, I will post more as well.

Hopefully I haven't scared everyone off with this type of work, but it is something that I am very much interested in learning more about and experiencing for my own self.

Don
 
Good luck with the workshop Don. Although, I will admit, I hear 'enteric' and I think of the coating on asprin!

Leosha
 
That is some pretty cool stuff. Please keep us all informed (or at least let me know via PM). There are some phrases in the King James Version of the Bible that always puzzled me until I read about the enteric nervous system...It had to do with someone asking God to open up the bowels of compassion or something like that. When you consider the enteric nervous system, then it makes complete sense. It seems that the ENS was "discovered" some time back early in the last century and then "forgotten" (or ignored) until recently. Again, very cool stuff....

Philip
 
Leosha, I got a chuckle out of your reply... hadn't thought of aspirin coating... A little scary going to this type of a workshop for me personally because of what it could bring up, but I think I'm ready for it.

Philip, I never put these things together but you may definately have something there. I think I was reading about something regarding the discovery of this and it is not recent, but it did get forgotten about or "hidden". For me personally, it makes sense and the more people I work with, the more I see these things in others. Will keep this post updated as I learn more.
 
All I can say right now after the first day is

WOW!

WOW!

WOW!

WOW!

WOW!

Will share more after tomorrow but learned a lot, and had an amazing experience personally with it.

Don
 
In the workshop I just completed this weekend on Trauma and the body, I've learned a lot about what trauma and/or stress does to the body. It affects the body in a chemical and biological way.

I'm going to try and give some information that I learned this weekend and hopefully it will help. If I don't explain something well, please ask me as it will help me learn too. Hopefully I've not over simplified it to the point that it sounds more confusing than helpful.

We have two primary nervous systems.(well three when you count the enteric nervous system). The parasympathetic is the "rest and repair" system while the sympathetic is the "fight or flight" system.

When the body encounters a situation where there is a threat or a danger, the sympathetic nervous system kicks in. Basically the sympathetic nervous system stops higher level thinking and focuses on the part of the brain that is needed to solve the crisis. At the same time, the heart increases blood flow, the lungs increase oxygen and the muscles get ready to engage in a strong and powerful way. Digestion also shuts down and any unnecessary body functions that will not help the "fight or flight" response are shut down. In this state we are in a "hyper vigilant state because we are trying to assess the threat or danger.

Normally in a biological system, after the threat or danger has passed, than all systems should go back to homeostasis or balance. When we encounter trauma, what we hear, see, feel, smell or take in can become frozen in our body in some way. Take for instance someone being in a car accident and just before impact, their body freezes in place. That event is then energy which is kept within the body. Unless that energy is disapated, it remains there. As long as it remains there, it keeps the sympathetic nervous system working and does not allow the body to return to homeostasis. Once there is intervention to disapate that stored energy or frozen memory from the body, than the body is able to return to homeostasis.

In the parasympathetic nervous system, it is the rest and repair or the one that rebuilds us and heals us. Our body has a core way of knowing what to do to repair parts of ourself that are damaged. However we as a society do not alway allow ourselves to get to the place of relaxation for "rest and repair" like we should.

There is also the Enteric nervous system which was the focus of this workshop and it deals with the "gut". The gut brain as it is also called produces 95% of the serotonin found in the body. It also produces dozens of other substances like Valium and Xanax. Serotonin of course is the ecstasy neurotransmitter which is involved in depression, anxiety and fear. The enteric nervous system is a meshwork of nerve fibers that connect the viscera like the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, and gall bladder. Even though there is one of the cranial nerves (Cranial Nerve #10 called the Vagus nerve) attached to this same area, it is not always the best and quickest conductor to the brain of what is going on. If the response is not fast enough when the body is presented with a danger or threat, the gut brain has the capability to take over and release the things that it needs to in order to deal with the stress or trauma. So much of the energy of the emotions surrounding particular events are stored in the gut. This has an adverse affect on the release of serotonin and the other substances.

There is so much more to all of this and while I have a much better understanding of it, I find it a little difficult to explain. So if I have done nothing but confused everyone, please feel free to ask me and I will try to explain more. Also check out the website called www.traumahealing.com as there is a wealth of information there.

I am beginning to understand through this workshop just how much stress and the big whopper "trauma" affect the body. If these things are left in the body, than they affect the body in so many ways that our society just treats as "medical conditions". That's a long discussion in itself.

Don
 
I had some pretty wonderful experiences with the work we did in this workshop. In fact, my stress level is reduced right now and the anxiety is reduced as well.

It is amazing that the procedure we used to access the natural chemicals found in the gut brain was a very quick and simple process. It is not hard to access this at all if you know what you are doing of course.

It focuses on releasing stored energy with the body that the body holds from stress or traumatic events. You don't necessarily have to be able to put words with it as you are just trying to remove any blockages and let the energy of your body flow freely.

Like I said, it was an amazing experience and I plan on doing more of this work to recover more of my own body. I find as I do more body work I am being faced with more of my own issues. This has gotten a little tough and I know that I need to continue to rid my body of the things that have been locked inside for years.

For the past year, I have been reading a lot on somatic therapy or therapy of body awareness. Yes I did the talk therapy and have worked through a lot of issues in my healing. But I have felt for some time now that the remainder of my healing will need to come from within my body. My abuse happened from the time I was an infant until the time I went to college and there are so many of these events that are stored in my body.

Even people without these things store stress in their body and if the stress is not gotten rid of, it begins to have an affect on how the body functions. I see this every day in people that I work on. You find an area that is tense and if this is not worked with, it remains and then starts to have an affect on the area around it. The more it stays there, the more areas and structures of the body that it can affect. I did not understand any of this until I started doing body work and the more people I touch, the more I am awakened to the effects of stress on the body.

Anyway, I will be scheduling some appointments to do more of this work on my own as I am to a point in my life, I want to fully experience what it is like to live in my body. I experienced the extreme opposite of this by being paralyzed and according to the workshop facilitator and people who shared their experiences, healing of all of this is possible.


Feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will try to keep everyone updated on this thread as I progress through this form of therapy and body work.

Don
 
Update

Normally my anxiety level when I go to bed, I fight anxiety pretty hard and it starts just as I realize it is time to go to bed and last until I fall asleep. It of course is connected to every freakin night as a kid that I was abused by my older brother. So I went to bed knowing that this shit would happen. Of course I have known all of this but my body continues to react as if I still have the same event taking place each and every night.

So when the anxiety gets high, 5 air conditioners running couldn't begin to keep me cool enough. I have a fan that runs on me and I still sweat as if I have been running 5 miles. It isn't fun to say the least and it keeps getting worse and worse.

Well after doing some of this stuff that I learned last weekend, last night I was actually able to go to sleep with out feeling like it was so damn hot. I even covered myself with a blanket as the room felt cool. Of course it isn't completely gone, but I will take the reduced anxiety level right now.

So, I'm continuing down this path because it appears that it is going to be very healing for me. I want to get beyond all of the body stuff.

Don
 
Don,

Thanks for the topic. The subject is very interesting. I checked out the site and while there a memory was joggled for me regarding 2 major incidences of trauma that coincidentally both happed at YMCA's.
TRIGGER WARNING--GRAPHIC SEXUAL ABUSE DETAILS

Once was during boot camp, when on 12 hour leave in Chicago, myself and a buddy got a bottle and rented a room. We had a party and I was orally raped by an older man who got drunk with us while my buddy went out of the room.

The second time, more traumatic, when I was in the Navy in Norfolk, when I was on my way to a pawnshop to pawn my portable stereo system and I ran into a person who I knew who frequented one of the local downtown clubs. I was 18 at the time, and Virginia had (has?) a drinking age of 18. He asked me if I wanted to smoke some bad-ass weed, and of course I did, so I went with him and we sneaked into the YMCA and went into a conference type room. It was in what I remember to be a somewhat older building. We smoked the weed, and it was bad-ass all right. Next thing I know he pulls out a knife backs me up against a wall and sticks it at my throat and cautions me to keep quiet. I can still remember that terrifying moment as if it were right now, still happening. He forced me on my stomach and literally raped the shit out of me. He was well endowed. I kept waiting for the knife to come plunging down into my back, as well. When he was done he got up wiped himself off using the long drapes, buckled up, took my portable boombox and left me there bleeding and covered in shit.

I can't believe I just relived that just now. I have never written about it before. O my God.....................

Pause....................

I am getting ready to embark on a weeklong Impact course sponsored by the VoiceCare Network called Lifespan Voice Education in the Real World . The text for the course is entitled Bodymind & Voice: Foundations of Voice Education . One of the largest chapters in Book I have to do with

Teaching and Learning:
The Psychobiology of Memory, Learning, Behavior and Health

We received the textbooks in advance and were instructed to have absorbed the content matter prior to attending the course. This chapter alone has been phenomonal in explaining the neuropsychobiological development of human experience and its effect on the human bodymind.

Jeez, I am exhausted.........gotta go

Ron
 
Jeeze, Ron. Some heavy stuff you've been holding on to. Writing it out must have been really tough. I added the trigger warning because it shook me a little and I hear this kind of stuff all the time. My heart goes out to you.

I hope you will process this with your therapist. It's not easy to bring this up, especially the first time and see it in text.

Take good care of yourself and stay focused on positive deeds and people in your life. Getting numb or acting out won't change what happened. Processing it and moving on will help.

Ken
 
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