How Psychedelics and Nervous System Regulation Supports Digestion in Eating Disorder Recovery
Our digestion is intertwined with our nervous system. When we feel safe, we can digest.
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Sacred plant medicine can support this process of entering into the parasympathetic part of our nervous system which is the state that the body needs to digest our food effectively.
When we feel stressed, anxious, or in danger, our nervous system prepares us to be on high alert to fight or flee, activating our sympathetic nervous system. When this part of our nervous system is activated, our adrenal glands are stimulated causing an increase in heart rate, muscle contractions, and a dry mouth. Additionally, blood gets directed away from the digestive tract, slowing down digestion.
The reason for this is that all non-essential bodily functions slow or shut down (such as the immune and digestive system) so that the body can reserve energy needed by vital organs like the heart and lungs. In this way, the body can concentrate on taking necessary action to alleviate the danger.
For many of us, due to early traumatic experiences and living in the larger environment in which we live in today (characterized by stress, hustling, and diet culture), we remain in this state of heightened alertness, feeling vigilant, on edge, and frazzled. This in turn leads to digestive problems such as IBS, constipation, bloating, or diarrhea.
These digestive issues which cause their own kind of discomfort and stress, can trigger eating disorder or disordered eating behaviours. And eating disorders themselves continue to exacerbate these symptoms, straining the digestive system further.
It is important to support the body and the eating disorder recovery process by entering into the parasympathetic nervous system. We need to be in the rest-and-digest portion of our nervous system to properly digest our food (and our emotions).
The parasympathetic nervous system has two branches: the Ventral Vagus and the Dorsal Vagus. The Ventral Vagus is the part we really want to help us calm down and downregulate. It is the part that governs our ability to socially engage with safe people, make sound, or hear soothing sounds.
The Dorsal Vagus, on the other hand, is more like the emergency brake. When a lot of energy goes into it (aka “High Tone Dorsal”), it activates the freeze, or shutdown response. This will also bring us out of our sympathetic nervous system, but it is a survival response - so not that great when it becomes the go-to option.
On the other hand, “Low Tone Dorsal”, which is also part of the Dorsal Vagus, lets us rest, digest, and repair our cells. It supports immune function and barrier-keeping in the gut. It uses a lesser amount of energy is in this system and is needed for healthy immune function and barrier-keeping in the gut. When we have more access to the Ventral Vagal part of this system, we will also have more access to this healthy ‘Low Tone’ state. This is what we want for coherent, smooth digestion of food, of memories, feelings, and sensations.
With unresolved trauma in the picture though, it is much more common to flip between high sympathetic activation (fight/flight), and High Tone Dorsal (freeze). This leads to our gut being impacted because we don’t have enough access to healthy digestion and barrier keeping in the gut.
One way we can start to access more healthy ventral function is by using a pillow or a weighted blanked on the abdomen, which sends a signal of containment and safety to the organs there, which in turns helps the Vagus.
Additionally, engaging with safe people also stimulates the Ventral Vagus. If there is past trauma, it may result in resistance to engaging with people in general, because our system interprets people as potential threats. So, if we notice an improvement in our ability to interact with others in a grounded, calm way, this is a sign that our Ventral Vagal function is improving and healing, and less energy is going into the survival responses.
Relaxing, resting, pausing, connecting with loved ones, and feeling genuine safety is important to avoid sympathetic overdrive. Our bodies need to register that they can put down the defensive armour and can stop running. Our bodies need to register that it is safe to rest.
When the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, it produces the feelings of connection and calm that allows your body to repair and heal itself. In this state, food is broken down into an absorbable form which is carried to our cells for energy and nourishment – nourishment of body, heart and mind.
Sacred plant medicine and psychedelics can support this process of entering into the parasympathetic part of our nervous system. They interrupt the deeply entrenched habitual patterns of the eating disorder which are often existing in sympathetic energy.
An eating disorder is an accumulation of rigid thought patterns and ritualised behaviours that has slowly imprinted itself more and more deeply into the psyche, taking root and affecting the many aspects of one’s life, including energy levels, digestion, mood stability, and cognitive focus.
Over time, this way of being can start to feel normal. The food thoughts, habits, and digestive issues - that eventually arise after prolonged sympathetic arousal - can become so automatic and unconscious that one doesn’t even realise they occur.
When we enter a psychedelic experience, these unconscious patterns come to the surface, and we are able to see them in a new way. The default mode network – the part of our brain that navigates life when we are not consciously directing it – become quieter, and as such, so do the unconscious disordered eating patterns.
This means that in altered states, we diverge away from the standard way of operating, which can support the recoding of the default mode network activity into more beneficial pathways.
In these critical windows that expanded states offer, especially in the integration period post-journey, we have more space and capacity to shift the eating disorder beliefs into more empowered patterns that support the recovery process.
As such, we also have the opportunity to see the interconnected relationship between our digestion, nervous system, emotions and thoughts. When there is the felt sese of safety, the fight or flight part of the nervous system can soften, allowing for a gentler way of being to take root.
No longer needing to protect and defend, one’s emotional and mental bodies are positively affected, which also supports the energy and vitality of the body, the regulation of the nervous system, and the overall functioning of the digestive system. We need to feel safe in order to digest well. And we need to digest so that we feel safe.
As we shift the nervous system pattern of sympathetic arousal as well as the racing thoughts that come along with this highly charged and into parasympathetic, our digestion, nervous system and overall recovery land in more and more safety and rooted presence, and as such innate heal and transformation emerges.
Photo by processingly on Unsplash