Your Gut Might Be More Intelligent Than You Think
By: Andreas Köckeis
Tags: Vagus Nerve, Brain, Gut Feeling, Gut, Intuition

Ever felt butterflies in your stomach or went with your gut feeling? Or have you ever had an uncomfortable feeling with a person? Like you can’t trust them without knowing why?

Even though we often try to make decisions with our head, our feelings play an irreplaceable role in this process. Especially our gut feeling often gives us a quite concrete direction and usually even one of the best. But how is our gut actually related to our rational thinking? Can this feeling really have something like intelligence?

A few years ago, scientists found out that there are about 500 million nerve cells, so-called enteric neurons, in our abdominal area. (for comparison: the gooey mass inside your head has about 100 billion neurons)

At first, it was assumed that these neurons only help to regulate our digestion and nutrient uptake.

Over time, however, it turned out that our gut-brain not only communicates with our head-brain through various messenger substances. There is even a direct connection between the two through the vagus nerve, which allows for a rapid exchange of information in both directions.

In concrete terms, this means that your stomach not only tells you through pain that it wasn’t a good idea to eat a whole pack of ice cream but that it is also actively exchanging information with your brain.

Emotions and Your Gut

From the point of view of psychological diseases, this discovery also plays a major role.

A whole 95% of your serotonin (the “happiness hormone”) is located in your stomach.

Serotonin is jointly responsible for your personal well-being as well as for your psychological stability. An imbalance of this messenger substance is even associated with serious psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety disorder, or schizophrenia.

As you can see, your belly has quite an influence on your mood and condition. However, these effects are not completely arbitrary but can be influenced by certain factors such as diet and exercise. I will come back to this topic later in a separate article.

Not Every Part of Your Brain Expresses Itself Through Language

While most of your thinking happens in your mother tongue or a foreign language, some areas of your nervous system may use other methods of communication.

Region of Broca’s Area marked green. Illustration by Andreas Köckeis

Some of your brain functions, like seeing and hearing, are located on both sides of your brain. Whereas one of the main centers of your speech processing, the Broca’s Area, is located exclusively on the left side of your brain.

This center is most active just before you speak. Consequently, it plays a crucial role in translating your thoughts and ideas into spoken words.

Together with several other areas, it enables you to hear, recognize, and interpret language and, last but not least, to speak.

Yet, some parts of the nervous system, for example the gut-brain, may not have direct access to these speech centers. Thus, your gut feeling would not simply be a random fluctuation of your mood.

Rather, your gut feeling could be a thoughtful opinion based on experience and knowledge.

It just doesn’t have direct access to the language center and therefore must express itself through feelings.

Don’t get me wrong here. I highly doubt that this small number of neurons in the abdomen can actually execute complex thoughts on its own. Rather, I think we may outsource certain parts of thought processes there. After all, everything in our body plays together.

Science has not yet been able to prove it, but the experiences of many people suggest that there may be some truth in this theory.

When to Trust Your Gut and How

That dark, deserted alley in a risky neighborhood? That hopeless job where you are supposed to do any kind of work for minimum wage?

Both scenarios will probably cause a rather uneasy feeling in you, which you can easily follow. But it is not always so simple to interpret your gut feeling. Sometimes a situation seems to be flawless and yet something doesn’t feel quite right.

In these cases, it is better to take a step back and pause. Take your time to analyze the situation and find out what exactly is causing this spongy feeling.

Just like your gut supports the brain, your brain can support the gut feeling. Especially to make a well-reflected decision.

If you now assume that our gut feeling is based on experience and knowledge, then you should also question your own feelings from time to time. After all, none of us is omniscient.

Various experiences or attitudes can give rise to prejudices that influence your decision. To recognize these predefined ways of thinking requires a lot of reflection and practice. Question again and again why you like or dislike something and for what reason you acted as you did.

Final Thoughts

I have the impression that in the last decades we have focused more and more on the power of our head instead of considering the body as a unit.

Every part of our body fulfills important functions for your daily survival. Everything is in a constant, lively exchange. How could one assume that our mind is the only part that is separated from the rest?

So next time you are faced with a decision or consideration, don’t ignore the little voice in your stomach. It might be smarter than you think.