Could the answer to IBS lie in the ancient practice of meditation?
IBS is a world-wide problem and the most common gastrointestinal disorder.
For a long time, irritable bowel syndrome has just been thought of as a functional problem: there’s nothing measurably, or visibly wrong with the intestines, so labeling IBS as a functional problem is almost like a shrug from the experts.
Now, IBS has earned a new classification: a disorder of gut-brain interaction. So, instead of IBS being a functional problem, there’s actually something physical that becomes disrupted – it’s just not visible to the naked eye.
What is gut-brain interaction? It is the two-way communication highway between your brain and your gut. It’s also called “gut-brain axis”. When the connection is disrupted, there are misunderstandings and overreactions that lead to IBS symptoms. You can read more about the gut-brain axis in this blog post.
What disrupts the gut-brain interaction? Many things, but a big culprit looks to be stress (1). Stress causes stress hormones to surge in the body, which turn digestion off. With a lower digestive “fire”, food digests poorly, leading to abdominal pain, diarrhea/constipation and/or bloating.
To make matters worse, the brains of people with IBS are wired in ways that make them more sensitive to stress, triggering a stress response more easily, which causes a difficult situation to turn into gut symptoms more easily as well. (2)
Solution? To mend the gut-brain interaction through stress release practices and mindset shifts.
My favorite method is meditation. It feels like an antidote to pretty much anything, sort of how exercise and good nutrition are.
When it comes to IBS, there are studies linking meditation to improved IBS symptoms, like improved abdominal pain and improved quality of life. (3)
And what I’m really excited about, is meditation’s ability to change the brain to withstand stress better (4). This means that while stress is not going to go away, you cope better with stress, and a stressful situation less easily leads to IBS symptoms. Naturally, these effects come from a long-term practice. But, even a one-time practice of a few minutes of meditation can measurably reduce stress. (5)
Personally, after 15 years of practice, daily meditation has become my secret weapon. Not only do I feel great while meditating (though not always, sometimes my brain is just too restless), I’ve noticed in general feeling calmer, more empathetic, and having a better emotional control than I used to. It feels like my brain gets triggered less easily.
One of the meditation techniques I particularly love is Hong Sau (Sau pronounced “saw”). It’s a technique of attentive focus on the breath. Since the breath is always there, it becomes an excellent object for meditation (no, meditation is not about blanking the mind). A focused mind is a calm mind, and a calm breath leads to a calm mind and vice versa. Or how do you breathe when you are reading a book with deep focus?
I’m teaching the Hong Sau meditation technique live online starting today on Wednesday January 8th 2025. There’s still time to sign up! Even if you miss the first class, you can still participate live in the remaining four. All the sessions will be recorded, so you’ll get the recording of the first session, and they will be made available for purchase as a full course after the live course is finished. Go here for more info. Sign up by emailing me at [email protected]
Questions? You got my email address.
Let’s make the year 2025 the best one yet! Let’s start by taking up meditation, or some other stress release practice, and cultivating the belief that improvement is possible – I really do believe that. Even if you feel like you’ve tried everything, something will help you, if you keep working at it.
Love,
Anna-Kaisa
References
- Cryan JF, O'Riordan KJ, Cowan CSM, Sandhu KV, Bastiaanssen TFS, Boehme M, Codagnone MG, Cussotto S, Fulling C, Golubeva AV, Guzzetta KE, Jaggar M, Long-Smith CM, Lyte JM, Martin JA, Molinero-Perez A, Moloney G, Morelli E, Morillas E, O'Connor R, Cruz-Pereira JS, Peterson VL, Rea K, Ritz NL, Sherwin E, Spichak S, Teichman EM, van de Wouw M, Ventura-Silva AP, Wallace-Fitzsimons SE, Hyland N, Clarke G, Dinan TG. The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis. Physiol Rev. 2019 Oct 1;99(4):1877-2013. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00018.2018. PMID: 31460832.
- Mayer EA, Ryu HJ, Bhatt RR. The neurobiology of irritable bowel syndrome. Mol Psychiatry. 2023 Apr;28(4):1451-1465. doi: 10.1038/s41380-023-01972-w. Epub 2023 Feb 2. PMID: 36732586; PMCID: PMC10208985.
- Baboș CI, Leucuța DC, Dumitrașcu DL. Meditation and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Clin Med. 2022 Nov 2;11(21):6516. doi: 10.3390/jcm11216516. PMID: 36362745; PMCID: PMC9658118.
- Taren AA, Gianaros PJ, Greco CM, Lindsay EK, Fairgrieve A, Brown KW, Rosen RK, Ferris JL, Julson E, Marsland AL, Bursley JK, Ramsburg J, Creswell JD. Mindfulness meditation training alters stress-related amygdala resting state functional connectivity: a randomized controlled trial. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Dec;10(12):1758-68. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv066. Epub 2015 Jun 5. PMID: 26048176; PMCID: PMC4666115.
- Mandlik GV, Siopis G, Nguyen B, Ding D, Edwards KM. Effect of a single session of yoga and meditation on stress reactivity: A systematic review. Stress Health. 2024 Jun;40(3):e3324. doi: 10.1002/smi.3324. Epub 2023 Oct 11. PMID: 37822096.