Dr. Trisha Pasricha

And you're stressed in a lot of ways.

It's funny that when it comes to the gut and the brain, so many of the same things that are good for the brain in your head are the same things that are good for your gut.

And that's because the physiology in a way is very similar, right?

Like

Eating high fiber diet is excellent for your gut.

It's excellent for your brain and mood partially because of the microbiome that then produces these new compounds based on that fiber that can get absorbed in your bloodstream and make their way up to the brain.

Exercise is wonderful for your gut.

It's wonderful for your brain and for your mood.

And so these two things can be really closely linked.

If you're in a moment of high stress, if you activate your vagus nerve, that is going to calm you down.

It's

There's a couple of different ways you could activate the vagus nerve.

One of them is box breathing.

Box breathing is where you can imagine you're going to draw a box with your hand and you might inhale one, two, three, four up the side of a box.

And then as you draw the next side, you're going to hold it.

One, two, three, four.

Now you go down the other side.

One, two, three, four.

As you exhale, then you hold it.

One, two, three, four.