Have you ever experienced butterflies in your stomach when you were nervous? Or had a gut feeling about a situation? Those feelings are all due to the direct connection between your gut and your brain. You may have heard that the gut is the second brain! This idea originated from the fact that our gut houses our enteric nervous system, which is responsible for the salivation that begins in your mouth when you smell a home cooked meal on the stove. It is responsible for the release of enzymes that aid in breaking down our food into smaller particles that are usable by our body’s cells. It is responsible for the absorption of nutrients required for physiological processes and the excretion of harmful toxins from the body.

80% of neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that affect factors such as our mood, energy, motor control, executive function, stress, and sleep are created in our GUT. So why is our medical system so quick to prescribe an antidepressant medication when the cause of the depression could be stemming from imbalanced gut bacteria and poor digestive processes? The building blocks of neurotransmitters come from proteins, so breaking down food to its entirety is crucial for building up the molecules that contribute to optimal neurotransmitter levels.