Can HYPNOSIS Cure Your Bloating, IBS & Food Sensitivities with Dr Ali Navidi

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: What Is the Gut–Brain Connection? (Vagus Nerve Explained) How Stress Disrupts Digestion, Hormones & the Microbiome Hypnotherapy for IBS: What It Actually Is (And What It Isn’t) Gut-Directed Hypnosis vs CBT and Traditional Talk Therapy Inside a Hypnotherapy Session for IBS and Gut Pain Real Case Studies: When Hypnotherapy Transforms Gut Symptoms Learned Food Sensitivities: When the Brain Creates GI Symptoms How to Tell a True Food Intolerance from a Conditioned Response Can You ‘Unlearn’ IBS Triggers? (Travel, Weekends & Habit Loops) Daily Habits for the Gut–Brain Axis + Mindful Eating Tips Check in with today’s amazing guest: Ali Navidi drnavidi.com gipsychology.com instagram.com/gipsychusa References: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1545033/full?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2811239 Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  Through hypnosis, we are able to influence that gut-brain connection at a more powerful level.

• 0:42Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today, we are diving into one of my all-time favorite topics, the mind-gut connection. If you have ever had butterflies in your stomach before a big event, or lost your appetite when you're feeling anxious or stressed, you know just how potent and impactful that connection can be. Joining me today to discuss this in a lot more detail is Dr. Ali Navidi, a psychologist and founder of GI Psychology, which is a group of mental

• 1:24Abbey Sharp?

  health clinicians who focus on helping patients with complex GI pain. Today, we'll be talking about how the brain and gut communicate, how habits can support both mental and digestive health at the same time, the role of hypnosis and mindfulness in IBS management, and even how food sensitivities can be conditioned and deconditioned through mental health care. I'll wrap things up with a solo segment on some tips and exercises to improve interceptive awareness through mindfulness training. Now, before we get into it, as always, this is never a replacement for one-on-one health care advice. Also, if you are new here, welcome. I would love if you would hit that subscribe button and leave me a little comment and a five-star review.

• 2:10Abbey Sharp?

  Ever you're listening right now. And if you haven't heard my brand new book, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is finally out. I would love your support on this because of course I've worked so hard and I've done this for you because I know it's going to help so many people reimagine their relationship with food and their body. So if you haven't already, check out the links in the show notes for where to order. All right, folks, let's get into it.

• 2:41Abbey Sharp?

  Hello, Dr. Navidi. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm very excited by this conversation.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, Abbey. I'm excited as well. I can't wait to get started.

• 2:50Abbey Sharp?

  I have so many things I want to ask about, but I just thought we'd like start with the basics here. You know, we hear so much about the gut-brain connection, but can you kind of like break down kind of how that's structured biologically and just like what that means in our everyday lives?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that most people don't realize how much it affects them and how much it affects probably many of the people they care about. So the gut-brain connection, or the gut-brain axis, is that interconnection between the brain and the gut and the gastrointestinal system. And it's essentially that connection between the central nervous system and what we call the interic nervous system. So there's a whole nervous system for the gut. A lot of people nowadays, I think, are hearing about the vagus nerve. That also plays a very important

• 3:50Speaker 01

  role in the gut-brain connection. But bottom line, bottom line, what people need to understand is that there's a special relationship between the brain and the gut. And what happens in the brain often affects the gut, and what happens in the gut can often affect the brain.

• 4:07Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah. And you mentioned the vagus nerve. Can you give us just like some examples of ways that the brain could influence digestion and the microbiome and how the vagus nerve kind of comes into play on that?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  We all know just, just kind of living in our bodies that You know, you get these butterflies in your stomach sometimes if you're nervous or if something surprising happens. You know, they're always interconnected and for good reason. If we feel we're in danger, the the body system does not want you investing energy in digesting food. And so when we're anxious or when we're stressed, digestion is going to suffer because we pull energy away. And what the vagus nerve does, you could think of it as kind of a set of brakes for the whole system. And so when we're ready to slow down, when we're ready to rest and digest,

• 5:06Speaker 01

  the vagus nerve gets activated. Right? And the problem is, a lot of us are so often in like, go, go, go, get things done, do things for others, do things for work. And they never slow down. Their vagus, they're just, they're not hitting the brakes almost ever. And so the body, um, the body pays a price for that. And it pays it in stress and it pays it in poor digestion. Those are the two, kind of the, the most obvious ones, right? And we could go into a lot more detail about what happens when these things become chronic.

• 5:50Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, so what happens when these things become chronic?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Well, what they're often called is disorders of gut-brain interaction. And the most common of those is something called irritable bowel syndrome. And I think that's pretty well known. And what I think most people don't know is that it is in that category of disorders of gut-brain interaction. And, and what does that mean? That means the primary problem in irritable bowel syndrome is not the gut.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  I want to say it again, just to be clear, because I think there's a lot of confusion. The primary problem with IBS is not in the gut. It's in the way the gut and the central nervous system are talking to each other. And once you understand that, then it becomes more clear why a clinical psychologist like myself and the practice that we've built spends all our time treating things like irritable bowel syndrome.

• 6:58Abbey Sharp?

  That's super fascinating. I cannot wait to get into the nitty gritty of how you're doing that. And it all makes complete sense. Like, when you think about feeling stressed, like, we're going to see a boost of the stress hormones cortisol, adrenaline, it puts you in that fight or flight mode. So the blood flow, like you said, it diverts, you know, from the gut, stomach acid secretion is reduced, motility is either going to increase or decrease. You're going to get diarrhea, you're going to get constipation. And then on the flip side, basically, like, looking at the other direction of this relationship, you know, we know that 90% of serotonin, which is that kind of happy, feel-good neurotransmitter, is produced in the gut. So we're seeing these huge correlations between anxiety and depression

• 7:43Abbey Sharp?

  and IBS-like symptoms. So it's this bidirectional dynamic system, this give and take. And it can be really hard for folks to get out of it. And I know we're going to talk about that in a moment. So I want to zone in now on what you do in this space, because you have built this really cool practice around hypnotherapy as one of the founders of Northern Virginia Society of Clinical Hypnosis. And I think when people hear the word hypnotherapy or hypnosis, they're thinking of like snake oil magicians on a stage, making someone run around like a chicken and bop, bop, bop. You know, like, it's traumatic sounding, like,

• 8:23Abbey Sharp?

  not overcoming trauma. But can you first, like, just set the stage on what actually is hypnotherapy?

• 8:31Speaker 01

  That is a great question. And honestly, if I'm someone in the audience hearing this for the first time, it would be a little weird if they weren't skeptical, right? This is expected, this is understood. And why is it understood? Because what do people know about clinical hypnosis? Or, let me be more precise, what do people know about hypnosis? Right? What they know is entertainment hypnosis.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  They know mind control. They know weird magical stuff in movies and and stage shows where they're trying to make you think they're in control of people. So this is, this is where people are starting from. So it's understandable. What they don't know is clinical hypnosis. And clinical hypnosis, if we're just looking at treating things like IBS, has over 40 years of research behind it. And we're talking over 100 studies have been done, all consistently showing effectiveness. In Europe, it's an established treatment in, in the United Kingdom.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And also in our own American College of Gastroenterology, in their guidelines, clinical hypnosis is one of the frontline treatments for things like Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So let me step back for a moment. Hypnosis is what got me into this field because I just thought it was so interesting. And as I used it, I discovered it's, it's a wonderful tool for GI problems. The problem, the problem is very few people are actually trained to use hypnosis for GI problems and also to use something called GI-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. Those are the, those are the two evidence-based treatments.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And so about five years ago, I started a bigger practice and it's called GI Psychology. And the mission of that practice is to make these treatments more available to people. Because we have all the science, we have all the evidence. But what we don't have is people knowing that they can get that help and that it works.

• 11:04Abbey Sharp?

  How is this approach then different than other therapy modalities like CBT or talk therapy? Especially when it comes to that anxiety that manifests itself in, you know, gut symptoms?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you think of cognitive behavioral therapy.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  The lever that we're using is often our thoughts. How we're thinking, what we're thinking, the ways that we're thinking. And we're trying to shift negative habits of thought that aren't working for people in new directions. Great therapy, very effective. Hypnosis, clinical hypnosis is different. It's what is called an experiential therapy. Meaning people are gonna experience something different rather than intellectualize about it. And so what that means is that most, and so let's go back. We talked about the gut-brain connection.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Through hypnosis, we are able to influence that gut-brain connection at a more powerful level than you're able to do just in your normal conscious waking state. And that's one of the most important, important ways that we use clinical hypnosis. But actually, I apologize, I should probably back up one more step. What the heck is it? What is clinical hypnosis, right? If it's not all that mind control stuff, what is it? It is simply teaching somebody how to, on purpose, go into a state of consciousness called trance. All humans go in and out of trance throughout our day.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  When you work out, when you're driving in your car, when you're watching a really good movie, people are going in and out of trance. They're just doing it accidentally. And when we teach people how to use hypnosis, we're teaching them how to go into trance on purpose. And the reason trance is useful is because when we're in trance, we're in this very focused state where we're able to focus intensely on something. And so when they focus intensely on that brain-gut connection in a healthy, positive way, you can make healthy, positive changes in the patterns of interaction.

• 13:28Abbey Sharp?

  This is super, super. Interesting. So I need you to walk me through a session now. Okay, like what is happening in the brain during hypnotherapy that is going to specifically help with gut pain or IBS symptoms? Like someone comes in, they're saying, I am bloated every single day. I am constipated, even though I'm doing all the right things when it comes to, you know, diet and movement and water and all the things you're supposed to do from a nutrition therapy standpoint. What would that, what would your session look like?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  What are the changes that are happening? Right?

• 14:04Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  So I need to introduce three more things to our little model. So we've got our gut-brain connection, right? And now let's imagine a little brain up there in our model. And in that brain, there's something called hypervigilance. So what is that? If you go and you talk to pretty much almost every IBS patient I've ever spoken to, they're, they're eventually gonna admit that they are anxiously scanning their gut, pretty much from the point where they wake up until they go to bed at night, right?

• 14:41Abbey Sharp?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  We know it. And guess what happens when they notice something weird? When they notice a little pain, when they notice a little bloating, that's when they start catastrophizing.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Right? Like, let's, let's pretend, you know, I'm someone with IBS and I noticed something a little weird a half hour before I went to do this podcast. Oh, my gosh. Like, this is gonna be so, like, what if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the, this is gonna be so bad, right? And so that catastrophic thinking, it's sending anxiety down that gut-brain connection into my digestive system and actually causing more symptoms.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Right. But if that were all, that that would still be bad. But if that were all, but it's not. There's one more factor that I think kind of blows people away because they usually have never heard of it. And that's something called visceral hypersensitivity.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  If you've got some kind of GI issue and you don't know about visceral hypersensitivity, this is for you.

• 15:50Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Just knowing about this is a game changer. So what is it? It's the fact that what can develop over time is that the brain develops this habit of taking the signals from the gut and amplifying and distorting them.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  So you might, let's say, just be hungry.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And those sensations of hunger get amplified and distorted into pain or discomfort. Or very often after people eat, they feel pain or something like that. It's not because there's anything wrong with the digestion. It's because of that visceral hypersensitivity. It's taking those signals, amplifying and distorting them and turning them into pain. And that blows people away because they could never imagine that something like that is actually happening.

• 16:47Abbey Sharp?

  I'm blown away. I I'm I live this every day. I'm I'm my mind is like going like the wheels are turning here. Okay. Okay. Can you can you give us like, just like, just so people really can see this painted in real life? Like, can you give us like a success story or a case study where hypnotherapy made like a really big difference in somebody's IBS symptoms?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  So this is a guy who, when he got done with pay with treatment, he was like, you gotta use me. You know, take my, he wanted me to take his picture, use my name. I don't care. People need to know. Um, and so he was suffering from something named Alex. He was suffering from something called functional dyspepsia. Right? And if you think of IBS as like the lower GI, functional dyspepsia is like the same thing, but the upper GI. Right? So he was suffering from terrible bloating, discomfort. He's, he'd lost weight. He had no appetite.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Um, he had quit his job. He had, um, dropped out of school. He was living with his parents, depressed, suicidal. He was a wreck. He had been suffering for this for three years. He had been to all the different, you know, top notch medical systems. And they weren't able to help him. This guy shows up, um, and we did a combination of GI focused CBT and clinical hypnosis. But I'll just kind of focus on the clinical hypnosis part. So we were, I remember very clearly, we were doing a session and he is just terrible bloating. He had no appetite.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  And, um, in the session, using hypnosis, he was able, he could literally feel the bloating. Like kind of shifting and moving and, and dissolving to the point that right when we ended the session, he said, oh my God. I actually feel hungry.

• 18:51Abbey Sharp?

  Wow.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  And in functional dyspepsia, there's, and I always blank on the name of this condition, but there's something where the diaphragm actually is positioned incorrectly. So the, so there might be a little bit of bloating, but because the diaphragm is positioned incorrectly, it's actually creating intense bloating. Right? And so we actually, in that session, we did two things. We, we helped the, the brain body system reshift that diaphragm. But, and so that kind of dispersed the bloating. But we also, by the end of it, that discomfort was almost gone.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  And, and that's because clinical hypnosis is one of the only tools that I know that can directly reduce visceral hypersensitivity.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  And visceral hypersensitivity was what creating was what was creating that intense discomfort that basically had him sidelined. He spent all his day, you know, on the couch with a heating pad on his stomach, just trying to feel comfortable. And in that session, when we reduce that that amplification and distortion that comes from visceral hypersensitivity, he was like, oh, my gosh, like, I feel comfortable again. The bloating feels like it's gone. And that is not uncommon.

• 20:17Abbey Sharp?

  And so what are the cues that you are giving in a session that help people kind of subconsciously unconsciously or like what are what are the what are the the words they're using in the mantras or or, you know, what is happening?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Well, another thing to understand is really hypnosis is about getting into this very focused state and then engaging the imagination.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  And I don't think this is widely known, but our imagination is very powerful. Much more powerful, I think, than people realize. If you think about just what is anxiety, right? Anxiety is actually imagination misapplied.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Because in order to get anxious about anything, what do we have to do? We have to imagine what some future situation is going to be like. And by doing that, we scare the shit out of ourselves, right?

• 21:21Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  That's the power of imagination. But what hypnosis does is we use it, we teach people how to use their imagination in this trance state in a positive way.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  So I think for for Alex, what we used was a technique I like to use a lot, which is called the control room. And so they go into trance and they go into a place deep within their mind, where they kind of have this like control room setup and they find the little computer that controls their bloating and they just directly and slowly turn it down. And it and it works for a really, actually a higher percentage of people than you might think. They're just able to directly turn down their symptom, whether it's pain, whether it's bloating, whether it's nausea. In trance, if you ask someone to do this in a conscious waking state,

• 22:20Speaker 01

  they're gonna look at you like you're crazy and they won't be able to do it. But in trance, the power of imagination and focus, you're able to do things like that.

• 22:30Abbey Sharp?

  So fascinating. Okay. And I want to talk also about like learned food sensitivities. And I obviously want to preface this, but I'm not suggesting food sensitivities aren't real. They actually are real. And I actually talked about some, you know, this in an episode with Dr. David Clark, where we were discussing stress illness. Because even if there isn't like a physiological cause for a pain or symptom, again, because of that bidirectional brain gap access, the discomfort is real. It's not in your head. But one thing I, you know, I see a lot as a dietitian is that folks have been told by, you know, some snake oil pseudo quote unquote doctor, or even like an influencer online,

• 23:12Abbey Sharp?

  that some kind of specific food is going to cause a bad symptom. Like gluten, for example.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:18Abbey Sharp?

  Everyone went through this like phase where they were convinced that they were gluten intolerant because the internet told them so. And then even though, you know, even though perhaps they've never had symptoms from gluten before, once they got it in their head that gluten makes you bloat or gluten gives you a headache or brain fog, that legit would happen. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy in a sense. And you kind of like alluded to to to this a little bit earlier. Like, can you just explain how these things just become self fulfilling prophecies? Is this just because we have this wild anxiety driven imagination?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Well, it it can, it's it's a bit of that and it's a bit of sometimes just bad luck. So I can give you an example. Let's say somebody with IBS, uh, they just happen to be having a bad day. They um, they go out with their friends. They have some, let's say they have some pizza. They eat their pizza and they feel bad. They feel terrible. And they're like, what the hell is going on? Why do I feel so bad? Then then maybe they get on the internet, like pizza, IBS. And there's somebody, some influencer, somebody on there saying, oh, yeah, you know, you gotta, you gotta get rid of the gluten. You know, dairy is going to be bad for you too. It's just a mess. And so now they they've they've even reinforced it.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  So they had the bad experience once and then they've got some expert telling them gluten bad, dairy bad. Okay. Now, what do you think is going to happen next time they go to eat pizza?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, tremendous anxiety, right? Hypervigilance, catastrophizing. They're scanning their gut. That's not the state of mind you want to be in when you're eating. So they have their pizza and of course they have that reaction. And then, but then add in, you know, that visceral hypersensitivity as well. So they have a second bad reaction. Now they're convinced pizza is, oh, that expert was right. Pizza, you know, no more gluten, no more dairy for me. Right? And the longer they avoid it, the more true it becomes. Yes. Right? And so we see this all the time. People coming in with, let's say, IBS

• 25:33Speaker 01

  with a list of either foods they can't eat or just a a list of foods they can eat, which is even worse. Right? Um, and so then, um, I've found the best order to do things is first, let's desensitize the system. Let's deal with that hypervigilance and catastrophizing. Let's reduce the visceral hypersensitivity. Then we can start reintroducing the foods.

• 26:15Abbey Sharp?

  This makes absolute sense. And we see this, you know, in my, in my profession, very common pattern in folks with eating disorders or disordered eating. Very hard to get out of the cycle because like you said, not only is this heightened sensitivity, but then when you restrict certain foods, like if you cut out all dairy, you are actually going to down regulate your digestive enzymes, you're going to eat your gut microbiome. Yes. There are physical changes happening as well. And then, you know, you do have that lick of ice cream and suddenly, whoa, a big, a big, big, you know, reaction. And then it just kind of reinforces this fear like you, like you've mentioned. So I love the system that you have in place of you desensitizing the nervous system before

• 26:58Abbey Sharp?

  you even, you know, consider reintroducing the foods. Because if you're doing the food first, you're, you're never going to get ahead.

• 27:07Abbey Sharp?

  And I have, okay, this is a personal question and possibly TMI, but I have IBS-C. And I have, I haven't, I don't have any conditioned food intolerances, so to speak, that I know of. But I've absolutely conditioned myself to be constipated on the weekends. And I feel like it probably started after just like, you know, one or two times on a Friday night, when I'd go to dinner and I'd have a few drinks or like a lower fiber meal. That's like not in my kind of usual eating pattern. And then I get backed up the next day. And now, even if I eat like really great, high fiber, super gut friendly meal at home, and I take all my regulating, you know, regularity supporting foods and supplements,

• 27:50Abbey Sharp?

  I am still constipated on the weekend. It's clockwork. It's the same thing. Yes. It's just my routine now. And it's, it's, it sucks. It's like, how do I get past this? So could I unlearn this association and actually like stay regular on a Saturday morning with hypnosis?

• 28:11Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And so I'll give you an example. Have you ever heard of traveler's constipation?

• 28:17Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, I've this is another problem I've got. Absolutely. Every single time I travel, I cannot go.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yes, it's the same damn thing as your weekend constipation.

• 28:27Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  There is no difference between the two. It's the same mechanism happening for both.

• 28:35Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  So I'll give you another case example, and I'll try to change things around to protect the innocent. So there's a guy who came in, he had, his problems had started with traveler's constipation. So, you know, when he would travel, he'd have a few days of constipation. You know, if he was there for a while, eventually you'd get over it, he'd be good. Then it proceeded, right? Then it became, you know, a solid week of constipation. Then it became constipation, even when he got home, for like a week or two. Then it just became constipation pretty

• 29:17Speaker 01

  much all the time. And all it is, is just a deeply unconscious conditioned response.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, it can start for any number of ways, you know, maybe, you know, the, the most common reason for traveler's constipation is, you know, you're anticipating the trip, and you're like, I don't want to use those fricking bathrooms. That is disgusting. And at some level, that's being communicated to your gut, and your gut's like, okay, boss, I'm shutting it down, right? And it just shuts it down. But then it starts to become a problem. And then once you start getting anxious about it, you start almost inadvertently reinforcing it. Have you ever heard of the pink elephant problem?

• 30:10Abbey Sharp?

  I don't think so, no.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Pink elephant problem is try not to think of a pink elephant.

• 30:17Abbey Sharp?

  Right, of course.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Right? And you can't do it, right? You're like, don't think of its pink trunk, definitely don't think of its pink feet, right? All you're thinking about is a pink elephant. And, and the unconscious mind doesn't understand negation.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  And that's why if you tell someone, don't look down, they're like, what? The first thing they do is look down. And if you, and if you're worried like, oh, I don't want to have constipation. You're, you're actually inadvertently delivering that message of constipation. Cause the unconscious mind doesn't understand negation. It just understood that, oh, this brain is thinking a lot about constipation. Maybe that's what we should do.

• 31:06Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, yes. I have the same problem with my sleep. When I need a good night's sleep and I feel like, okay, like I'm going to do all the sleep things to get a really good sleep. Cause I've got a big day tomorrow. That is the night that I get no sleep every single time. It's like self sabotage always. And so, yes, I, well, sign me up. Let's, I, I gotta try this. Absolutely. It, that sounds amazing. No, a hundred percent. This is fascinating. And I want to quickly talk about some daily habits, like things that might complement therapy that we can just, you know, do every day. That can support our gut health and our mental health at the same time. Any, anything come to mind?

• 31:48Speaker 01

  One word, one word, safety.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Okay. And I'm not talking about the intellectual idea of safety. I'm talking the, the felt experience of feeling safe. A lot of this visceral hypersensitivity that I talked about. It comes from the brain's idea that whatever that area is, isn't safe.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  And if you can learn to provide the experience of safety in relation to that part of the body. You're going to go a long way to helping yourself. So what can people do at home? Meditation, breathing exercises, you know, like anything that, that can be an affect regulation tool. You know, to down regulate, right? Activate that vagus nerve.

• 32:43Abbey Sharp?

  Being laughing.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, enjoying yourself. And, and when you notice whatever your area is, if it's your, you know, if you get constipated and there's a certain feeling when you get constipated, or when you have diarrhea, or if you're nauseous, instead of reacting in the same way you usually do, which is kind of maybe for most people anxious preoccupation.

• 33:07Abbey Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Right? If you can slowly over time, systematically over time, shift your emotional reaction to those sensations, to one of safety, to one of peace and calm,

• 33:23Speaker 01

  you're doing a lot of good. And, and I mean, very specifically. So this is a technique that we often use with people called interoceptive exposure. That means exposing people to internal sensations that make them anxious, and then giving them a counter experience. So instead of being anxious when you feel bloated, right? Feeling calm, feeling at peace, feeling curious, feeling humorous, whatever you can do that's a positive emotional experience, that's going to be really good for your brain gut.

• 33:57Abbey Sharp?

  The next time I'm feeling super bloated, I am just gonna watch a really silly movie and laugh my ass off, or sing, you know, songs as loud as I possibly can in the shower. I love this. I love this. I love this. Okay, last quick question. For, for folks who maybe can't access hypnotherapy session from someone with experience in GI disorders, are there any like apps or tools that you recommend to help people get started?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So obviously, the best, you know, the gold standard would be, you know, go to gi psychology.com. You know, we've got very highly trained people. But another good option for people who, you know, maybe they can't afford that, or it's not convenient, or whatever, there's an app called Nerva.

• 34:50Abbey Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we hang out with, we hang out with these folks at conferences. They're, they're great people. They've, they've done research. It's not at this, you know, it's not the gold standard, but it helps a lot of people. And so, you know, if you, if you don't have the option to do, to do the best gold, you know, like Nerva is a good, solid app. They're always working on making it better. So I'd, I'd also recommend that.

• 35:18Abbey Sharp?

  I love that. Thank you so much, Dr. Naveed. This was incredibly fascinating. Like, I am just like, oh, I gotta get started on this. I'm definitely gonna be leaving links to your website and where people can learn more about your work in the show notes and the description. So thank you again so much for joining me.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Abbey, I had a lot of fun. Thank you.

• 35:40Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, as an IBS girlie myself, who has also struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember, I loved this conversation. And I really just feel like I know firsthand how deep the brain gut connection goes. You know, when I feel stressed or anxious or overwhelmed, I will, without fail, have an IBS flare. And then the flare itself just kind of exacerbates the stress and I become even more bloated and backed up. And while I can't always so easily just like not be stressed, I have found that how I engage with food at mealtimes, that is more mindfully rather than chaotically or rushed, can make a massive difference in

• 36:25Abbey Sharp?

  how my gut reacts. So mindful eating is the practice of bringing full, nonjudgmental attention to the experience of eating, tuning into your body's hunger and fullness cues, the taste and texture of food, and how it makes you feel physically and emotionally. Research suggests that mindfulness training can improve interceptive awareness, helping people tune into true hunger and fullness cues instead of reacting to anxiety or fear. It's also associated with reduced IBS symptom severity and improved quality of life. This is in contrast to mindless, rushed, and distracted eating, which can result in more

• 37:05Abbey Sharp?

  swallowed air, inadequate chewing, larger bowl sizes, and an activated sympathetic nervous system that actually slows motility, reduces

• 37:15Abbey Sharp?

  reduces digestive secretions and can exacerbate abdominal pain and urgency. So I wanted to share some very quick strategies for practicing mindful eating every day. Tip number one, minimize all distractions. So that means you've got to put the phone away, get away from the TV or computer. Don't wolf down food while like walking or driving or doing any other critical task and focus solely on your meal. Tip two, pause before a meal. Take two or three deep breaths before you even take your first bite of food. And this helps to calm the nervous system and start your meal in a positive space.

• 37:58Abbey Sharp?

  Tip three, chew more than you think you need to. Chewing thoroughly helps to stimulate digestive enzymes, slows down your eating, and reduces bolus sizes to help support good digestion. Tip four, check in with yourself halfway through your meal. Ask yourself, am I still hungry? Am I enjoying this? What does this meal need to make it more enjoyable? Maybe it's a sauce or seasoning or just a glass of water. Tip five, eat with curiosity, not judgment. Notice the different textures, flavors, and aromas in your food

• 38:36Abbey Sharp?

  and how they make you feel both physically and emotionally without moralizing the foods or yourself. The world of nutrition science and wellness often focuses so intently on how to change the what of your diet to improve your symptoms. But as the research on mindfulness suggests, the experience or how of eating matters just as much for symptom management and overall health. Pairing strategies like this with the psychological approaches that Dr. Navidi shared today can help create a much calmer, more supportive environment for your gut and mind to thrive. And on that note, that is all that I have for you guys today.

• 39:20Abbey Sharp?

  A big thank you again to Dr. Navidi for his incredible insight and edging. And reminder, I would love if you would leave me a comment and hit that subscribe button. And don't forget to check out the links in the show notes to order my brand new book, The Hunger Crushing Combo. I would so appreciate all of the support. So signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Day. Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from Star.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Film for IMAX.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  Make them remember you.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.