The Nutritional Institute

“The body is the unconscious mind” 

These have perhaps been the most powerful collection of words for me with regards to mind-body understanding over the past several years. They were said by the late Dr Candice Pert in her 2007 book Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d. Pert, as a young post-doc student in the 1970’s was the first person to discover the opiate receptors in the brain - what followed was an extended period of discovery within the world of neurochemistry - basically, every neuropeptide or neurotransmitter that was discovered in the brain, she also discovered within the body. This led to her publishing her landmark book Molecules of Emotion, which should be on the shelf of every person who has any ambition of understanding at least a little about the body-mind connection. Her discoveries also blew the old theories of the mind and body having separate functions out of the water.

The Sydney Morning Herald profiled Pert in 2004: “Pert’s discovery led to a revolution in neuroscience, helping open the door to the “information-based” model of the brain which is now replacing the old “structuralist” model…"

Some neurotransmitters are actually in much larger quantities in the body than in the mind. Let’s take GABA for example - it is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mind-body and is needed to keep us calm and balanced. Most notably, in this modern life we live in, via use of questionnaires, it is mostly the first one to become depleted in clients that I see, and hence one of the most common supplements that I recommend. 

GABA is present in and around our gut in much larger quantities than in our brain. It is heavily involved in intestinal motility (breaking down our food via movement), gastric emptying (going to the loo), gastric acid secretion (digestion of our food via stomach acid), and oesophagus sphincter relaxation (avoiding heart burn) (ref)*. Therefore, if GABA is low due to over-use by our mind (i.e. trying to keep us calm and relaxed), don’t expect your gut to work optimally. I frequently have individuals in my clinic who despite the best dietary changes and the use of probiotics and/or anti-microbials, still have IBS symptoms or problems with colitis or Crohn’s disease. Treatment of neurotransmitter balance can make a profound difference to them.  

This strong connection between mind and gut is often called ‘gut instinct’ or ‘gut feeling’ and in functional medical terms is called the ‘gut-brain axis’. An awesome read in this area is Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell McBride, an English medic and neuroscientist who cured her son of autism by working on his gut. 

Back to my original ‘ah ha’ moment that Candice Pert’s book provided me with. I had long been told that we can hold a certain amount of information in our conscious mind, but it is our unconscious mind that holds onto all of our memories and experiences. It is also this part of our mind that does complex tasks such as driving a car or riding a bicycle or playing basketball - once we have mastered the techniques consciously, the body-mind can then perform the task without really thinking - make that observation next time you get behind the wheel of your car. 

If, however, you study the classic understanding of the anatomical function of the brain, the conscious mind finds it’s home in the large areas at the top of the brain - indicated by ‘voluntary’ in the picture below. Memory, however, is confined to the small middle section, known as the limbic system, which has a very instinctual function. I had always battled to understand how we can store memories from our entire life, plus unconscious processing, in such as small area of our brain. Until that was, I heard those words from Candice Pert - if our entire body is actually our unconscious mind, then we have an enormous capacity for unconscious programming, and of course some individuals, such as top sports people, achieve quite remarkable feats with their bodies. This makes complete sense. 

These thoughts are very much in line with those of other mind-body pioneers such as Deepak Chopra, who has written masterpieces like Quantum Healing and Synchro Destiny, books that literally blow your mind with regards to what our mind is capable of. According to research that he shares, every cell in our body is capable of storing memories and processes. In one of his publications, he shared research that demonstrated the existence of neurotransmitter receptors in white blood cells in our body. Since white blood cells constitute a large part of our immune defences, this means that our immune system is directly affected by our thoughts and emotions via the neurotransmitters - one reason for repetitive infections or chronic scenarios of post-viral fatigue, which is common in people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Treatment for these people should be including a lot of mind work, including the all-so-important question of life purpose.

I’ll finish with a personal example of mind-body connection. I used to be a middle distance runner, but I had a career dogged with injury. Looking back, I now understand that my mind got in the way - I was pretty intense with how I went about my training and race preparation. I would have experiences of getting injured a few weeks out from an important race - nothing serious, perhaps a mild calf strain which should theoretically have allowed me to recover in plenty of time to still race. But sometimes the injury would not shift despite my hardest efforts of rehab and seeing the best physio in town. Then I would miss my race…. the very next day, however, I would be running pain-free again. Perhaps, just perhaps, I was trying too hard….. 

*Hyland N & Cryan J (2010). A Gut Feeling about GABA: Focus on GABAB Receptors. Front Pharmacol. 1:124.