Repressed emotions and IBS

During Covid I worked with a sweet client who lost her soul dog a short while prior to developing digestive issues such as reflux and bloating. There were other digestive symptoms also, but the reflux and bloating were most disruptive and caused anxiety and despair.

We ran a GI Map and SIBO test and found that h. pylori and SIBO were present. According to the principles of functional medicine, h. pylori and SIBO were the “root cause” of the digestive symptoms.

I used all the tools I knew of to help her find relief. We did a natural h. pylori protocol, followed by a SIBO protocol. We made dietary changes to help reduce the reflux and bloat.

While there was a slight improvement during the h. pylori protocol, there was no significant resolution after both protocols were completed.

Typically I highlight clients who respond well to the functional medicine approach of testing, supplements, dietary change and gut repair, but not everyone gets better with this approach.

When the typical gut healing protocols don’t work, it’s a good idea to look deeper. Because it’s familiar, people often repeat different variations of an approach that didn’t work in the first place. Sometimes supplement protocols work and sometimes they only address symptoms on the surface level.

Working at the level of the nervous system and immune system is what I mean by going deeper. And what effects the healthy function of our defense and healing systems.

Intense and deeply repressed grief, guilt, shame or anger can throw the immune system and nervous system out of balance.

When buried emotions are part of the root cause, the problem can rarely be solved with diet and supplements.

My client’s inability to process the loss of her beloved dog created a lot of stress in her nervous system. Probably putting her into freeze mode, which lowers stomach acid and slows motility. These are the reasons people develop SIBO.

H. pylori is a very common infection that’s usually managed by the immune system. The stress of emotional repression and repressed her immunity and allowed h. pylori to overgrow.

With many people, h. pylori is not a newly acquired infection but an existing condition that causes symptoms when it overwhelms the body due to immune weakness.

Hiding the truth from yourself

I have had other clients in the same boat. And have explained the connection of emotion to their symptoms to refocus their attention on the real root cause.

The feelings of intense grief or emotion don’t that makes you sick. It’s refusing to feel and fully process them that throws the system out of balance. Repressed emotion can create numbness and there could be resistance to bringing it up as the body aims to protect you from emotional pain. But this protection also weakens you physically, increasing vulnerability to infections, overgrowths and other digestive issues.

Not knowing you are repressing makes it more complicated. Luckily there are ways around this. Subconscious work like hypnosis and somatic therapies can help bring things to the surface. There is a video below that’s an example of somatic work.

Grief, in particular, throws the nervous system into fight or flight as the mind deals with the insecurity of enormous loss. The healthy processing of emotions is not something we are taught, mostly left on our own to figure it out. We live in a society that tells us to be strong and push through. But this could really backfire.

The death of a loved one can bring up sadness, anger, abandonment, despair, anxiety, guilt, shame and helplessness. But so could the loss of the a job, relationship, move or dream.

The physical and emotional connection

When something is stuck, it doesn’t go away or heal. We need to release the energy of our stuck emotions from our body. This is not woo woo, this is science and physiology.

Overwhelming emotions, particularly the grief of loss, can be devastating, isolating and overwhelming. So we clamp down on them, and they get stuck in our body. Deeply repressed emotions can manifest as numbness, depression, anxiety, irritation, apathy, physical pain or digestive issues.

This is because emotions are physical. They are produced by certain muscle contractions and the release of hormones and other chemicals in the body. That is why stuck emotions can manifest as inflammation and physical pain. Physical pain can be a distraction from feeling the intensity of our emotional pain. And physical pain can also be the body’s way of trying to discharge emotional energy.

When our nervous system is in freeze it manifests as muscular tension and tightness, like wearing a protective armor. And this can affect our breathing, stomach acid production and pancreatic function. When we are in fight or flight, the adrenals release cortisol nonstop and can crash, which negatively impacts blood sugar and inflammation.

Our immune system and nervous system is deeply influenced by our emotional health. And both systems are integral to healing and balancing our digestive system. This is why stuck emotion can prevent us from healing.

How to test for emotional repression and stress

The GI Map is a popular test for gut dysfunction. It doesn’t test for emotional repression. That is why I started offering another test in my practice to look at the body and the mind.

The hair tissue mineral analysis test shows the effect of stress on the body through depleted levels of potassium, sodium and magnesium and either high or low calcium. Stress burns out mineral and depletes the body of energy to heal. When stress is high this is almost always emotionally driven. And something to explore as part of the gut healing process.

The point of this post is not to say your issues are in your head. Quite the contrary, stress and emotions have physical manifestations on the body and recognizing this is a way out as you focus your attention where it should be.

If reading this gives you pause to stop chasing the eradication of pathogens and look at what other kind of support you need then my job is done. I am looking particularly at those who suffer with SIBO and h. pylori, two of the most emotionally driven gut conditions that I work with.

Killing pathogens doesn’t address the reason we have them. What is preventing the body from handling them on its own like it was designed to do? This is a very good question to ask.

How to move forward

There are many ways to move stuck emotion. Talk therapy is my least favorite way because it ignores the body and its sensations.

Somatic therapies and subconscious work are my favorite approaches and what I used personally after big losses in my life.

You may feel worse when you start addressing and liberating emotional energy, but just like a healing crisis you get with supplements, it quickly goes away. And there are no side effects to this approach.

After more than a decade of health coaching I have learned that being yourself and expressing what’s inside is the quickest way back to health and the best preventative medicine. This is the deepest root of root cause medicine in my opinion. And will provide the most powerful and long lasting results.

Below is an example of a somatic practice I used to get over the death of my dog, who was my world and true love. The grief was so physical affecting my breathing, digestion and sleep. But not for very long because of the exercises below. They are much more powerful than they seem.

This is how I metabolized my grief and kept it from making me sick.

If your symptoms started after extreme stress or loss, get in touch for some truly holistic help with your body and mind. Meanwhile, try these exercises below to release stuck emotion from your body. We hold much of it in our chest, back, shoulders and hips.