The Link Between Gut Health and Posture: Tips from an Osteopathic Manual Practitioner
Ever wondered why everyone loves talking about gut health and its impact on your health? Here’s why.
Gut health is more than just digestion, it’s important for our overall well-being. It gives us our foundations for building tissues, and for the health of our blood. How fast you heal from a torn muscle is directly related to how well you digest food, and how well you absorb nutrients.
Most people approach gut health in a band-aid type way. Have an issue with gluten? Stop eating it! But the problem is that gluten is really tasty, and when you start eating gluten again your symptoms will return. No healing has actually happened. Just avoidance.
The root cause of the problem has not been addressed.
In this blog post, we'll look at how posture affects gut health and the connection to whole body wellbeing. From understanding how our gut influences tissue repair to the crucial role it plays in nutrient absorption, I’ll share some actionable insights to help you get your gut health back on track.
The Importance of Gut Health
What do you think of when thinking about your gut? Probably your abdomen, where your stomach, small intestines, and large intestines call home. Maybe you also think about elimination (pooping). I would hazard a guess that not many people think about their mouths!
Gut health is a super vague term that refers to the health of your whole digestive system. So let’s have a quick look at your digestive system! The whole thing!
Mouth:
Chomp chomp chomp, probably most people’s favourite part of the digestive system. As we eat, our teeth break down the food, and our saliva starts the digestive process with enzymes that break down carbs.
Esophagus:
As you swallow, the food travels down your esophagus, a muscular tube that guides it into your stomach. Not much happens in your esophagus. Fun fact even if you are upside down your esophagus will still make sure your food gets to your stomach!
Stomach:
Your stomach is like the most expensive KitchenAid stand mixer. It mixes the food with stomach acid and enzymes to create a mushy substance called chyme.
Small Intestine:
Next the food passes into your small intestine. This is where you absorb nutrients, some water, and electrolytes. This is also where the liver and pancreas come into play. The liver creates bile which we use to digest carbs, fats, proteins, and vitamins. The pancreas creates pancreatic juices (sounds so appetizing) this helps us digest proteins, fats, starches, and sugars.
Large Intestine:
After the food has traveled through all 6.5m of the small intestine it reaches the large intestine. Here, more water is absorbed, and the waste material is compacted into stool, ready for elimination!
The vagus nerves, splanchnic nerves, and the diaphragm
The Role of Posture in Digestion
The big question is how does posture affect gut health? For this answer we will dive into some pretty cool anatomy. There are actually countless ways that our body influences digestion, but for the sake of this blog post I’m just 🙃 going to look at 4 ways that posture and digestion relate.
The Thorax:
The thorax, aka our chest (or “the area of the body between the neck and the abdomen” - here), is pretty darn important for our digestion. It houses the esophagus, but its real importance comes from the nerves.
The Vagus nerves run through the chest with the esophagus, right in front of the vertebral column. The other, lesser talked about nerves that are absolutely vital to our gut health are the splanchnics (/ˈsplæŋk.nɪk/). There are 3 pairs and they emerge from your spine between your 5th rib and your last rib (ribs 12).
The word "splanchnic" itself comes from Greek, meaning "viscera" or "internal organs". And that’s exactly what these nerves do. They regulate the action of your digestive organs. They coordinate all the actions of your digestive system, like your liver and pancreas with your small intestine, or your stomach with your rectum (👀 💩). The Splanchnic nerves are actually part of your sympathetic nervous system, to me this is proof that the sympathetic nervous system is not all bad!
From the osteopathic view point, our body, our nerves, our blood vessels, our muscles, and our organs are happiest when they are mobile through their full range of motion.
If we take this principle, the thorax (our chest) is SOOOOoooo important to gut health because of all the vital nerves that travel though it!
If you don’t have full range of motion in all 12 of your thoracic vertebral joints there is the potential for the splanchnic nerves to either get too excited and send too many “GO GO GO” messages. Or the opposite, they down regulate and slow down their “GO” messages. In either case your gut suffers.
Diaphragm:
At the bottom of the thorax is our diaphragm, constantly moving. We normally only think about the diaphragm in relation to our lungs but it is also attached to (and influences) our digestive organs. Our stomach, pancreas, liver, and the upper parts of the small and large intestine. This means that all these organs get moved, wiggled, and pumped multiple times a minute.
Every breath you take | And every move you make | Every bond you break | Every step you take | I'll be wigglin’ you.
The diaphragm is also super important because of what passes through it! All those nerves we just chatted about, the splanchnics and the vagus, they have to get from the thoracic cavity to the guts! Other things that pass through the diaphragm are the esophagus, our BIG blood vessels, and our major lymphatic vessels! SO all in, a lot of very important stuff. The diaphragm acts as a pump for most of these structures. Especially the ones resisting gravity.
I hope you are getting the idea, the health and functionality of the diaphragm is critical.
Even though the gut is responsible for bringing in nutrition, we also need to make sure that it gets lots of nutritious love. After a meal the stomach and intestines gets 25% of our blood. During times of lower activity it only gets 10% of our circulation.
This picture clearly shows the action of the abs, bringing the chest and the pelvis closer together, rounding the lumbars, and compressing the abdominal cavity.
The Abs:
Next I want to talk about the abs. Pop culture portrays this view of health as a low fat sculpted person with a 2000 pack of abs. This is not what health looks like (here).
All muscles should have the ability to increase and decrease their tone as needed.
Someone who has a constant 8 pack of abs has lost the ability to appropriately decrease their muscle tone when the muscle is not actively needed. Most of us are not that extreme, but the concept still applies to a lot of active people. Their abs have difficulty returning to a neutral state. This impacts our guts in 3 ways
Our structure; the abdominal muscles attach from your pelvis to your ribs. When engaged they bring your ribs (and chest) towards your pelvis. If there is a consistent high tone in your abs it means they are constantly pulling your thorax down. Paired with gravity this significantly decreases our range of motion in our thorax. (see the section about the thorax!). It also means that mechanically there is increased pressure on our digestive organs.
With limited range of motion in your chest, your diaphragm is not going to have the ability to fully expand and contract (see the previous section!)
Hard abs are also not going to allow for the expansion and contraction of our digestive organs. Our abs are important for protecting and supporting our guts, but our organs need to move!
Visceral movement is associated with a healthy digestive process.
(Imagine trying to move or breathe under the weight of a fridge. You might be able to do it, but it's not going to be fun)
The Sexy Vagus Nerve
Let’s start with a little intro to the Vagus nerve. It is a cranial nerve (number X to be eXact), and exits the cranium (head) at the top of the neck. It then travels through the neck, into the chest, down the esophagus, through the diaphragm to the stomach and the digestive organs. It’s important that everything is moving well at each of these major landmarks so that this long nerve doesn’t encounter any restrictions.
A lot of the anatomy we’ve already touched impacts the Vagus nerve. The mechanics of the thorax, the functionality of the diaphragm, and the pressure exerted by the abs can all influence the diaphragm in various ways.
Bonus: How your job is affecting your digestion
Thinking about your job, and thinking about what we have just chatted about, desk ergonomics are super important. How you spend your day can impact your posture. Over time, too much slouching can limit thoracic mobility, and can impact neck posture and mobility.
The other main work related influence on gut health is stress.
Stress will slow the vagus nerve, and ramp up action from the splanchnics.
As much as I love the splanchnics, too much of anything is bad. Stress also impacts our hormones, but that’s a story for a different day.
Osteopathy and Digestion
An Osteopathic Manual Practitioner will approach gut health by looking at you as a whole person. It's not just about poking around in your abdomen. It really is so much more than that.
An OMP is going to make sure that your joints are moving well by releasing tension in your muscles and fascia.
Some of the techniques OMPs use will also ensure that blood flow is optimized. Improved circulation is important for nutrient transportation, oxygen delivery to the digestive organs, and metabolic waste removal.
And finally where appropriate an OMP might use visceral manipulation to assess and treat organ mobility.
The goal of Osteopathic Manual Therapy is to help you self-heal and self-regulate. We do this by making sure everything is moving optimally. Sometimes that will look like a gentle adjustment to your neck, and sometimes it will look like visceral manipulation.
Each person is different, each person has their own body history. So no two treatments for gut health will look the same.
What you can do at home for gut health
There is a lot you can do to support gut health at home between appointments. Focus on keeping your upper back mobile by incorporating exercises like cat-cow movements and deep belly breathing. You can also explore yoga practices that emphasize rotational movements. Rotational movements support the mobility of your diaphragm and can be beneficial for both posture and gut health.
Here are 4 dynamic stretches you can do to improve the mobility of your upper back:
Cat cow in sphinx
Shoulder retractions/ arm rotations in sphinx
Deep belly breathing in sphinx
Neck stretches in sphinx
Try some yoga that focuses on rotational movements
Taking a brisk walk after meals can aid digestion by stimulating movement in the digestive tract (here and here). Its also a great way to manage stress levels.
And finally take a moment to reflect on your stress levels and responses to stress. Consider what resources you are currently using to address stress.
By integrating these practices into your daily routine, you can actively support your gut health and overall well-being.
If you're experiencing any digestive symptoms or seeking to improve your gut health, consider consulting an OMP. With a holistic approach and personalized treatments, OMPs can help address underlying issues related to posture and digestion, guiding you on a path toward improved well-being and vitality.
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