An Ancestral View of the Relation between the Brain and the Stomach
Have you ever had a "gut-wrenching" experience? Do certain situations make you "feel nauseous"? Have you ever felt "butterflies" in your stomach? We use these expressions for a reason. The gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotion. Anger, anxiety, sadness, elation — all of these feelings (and others) can trigger symptoms in the gut.
The brain has a direct effect on the stomach. For example, the very thought of eating can release the stomach's juices before food gets there. This connection goes both ways. A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a person's stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, or depression. That's because the brain and the gastrointestinal (GI) system are intimately connected.
This is especially true in cases where a person experiences gastrointestinal upset with no obvious physical cause. For such functional GI disorders, it is difficult to try to heal a distressed gut without considering the role of stress and emotion (troubled or tried spirit).
Stress and the functional GI disorders
Psychology combines with physical factors to cause pain and other bowel symptoms. Psychosocial factors influence the actual physiology of the gut, as well as symptoms. In other words, stress (or depression or other psychological factors) can affect movement and contractions of the GI tract, make inflammation worse, or perhaps make you more susceptible to infection.
In addition, research suggests that some people with functional GI disorders perceive pain more acutely than other people do because their brains do not properly regulate pain signals from the GI tract. Stress can make the existing pain seem even worse.
Based on these observations, you might expect that at least some people with functional GI conditions might improve with spiritual therapy to reduce stress or treat anxiety or depression. And sure enough, a review of 13 studies showed that patients who tried psychologically based approaches had greater improvement in their digestive symptoms compared with patients who received only conventional medical treatment. From the Afrikan worldview, "psychological" is automatically included in our spiritual worldview.
Having grown up in the abrahamic religions, I recall the confusion and conflict I experienced between science and religion. Key word - religion. Religion produces conflict and confusion of untold scales. However, when your spiritual way of life is a spiritual science all conflict sheds away.
Truthfully, it has only been in recent years that the Western world has spoken more on the relation to the Mind-Gut-Mood connection. However, the following ancient terminology from the Ajã people of Southern Benin Republic (the place that the Clotilda "slave" ship was sent to by the evil Meaher family of Mobile, Al and where many of our ancestors came from) shows that our ancestors have had this overstanding on a mundane and cosmological level thousands of years ago. The word 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 "xomɛ" means "within the stomach". The word 𞤿𞤮 "xo" also is used to refer to a house.
Check here for the pronunciation guide of the Ajã alphabet.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 𞤲𞤺𞤭𞤺𞤲𞤮𞤲 Xomɛ ngignon - "goodness of the stomach". Generousness.
𞤫 𞤸𞤵𞤲 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 E hun xomɛ - to have an open stomach. Contentness.
𞤬𞤢𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 Faxomɛ - cool stomach. Peaceful.
𞤬𞤭𞤬𞤢𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 Fifa xomɛ - coolness of the stomach. Friendliness.
𞤉 𞤣𞤮 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 E do xomɛ - he/she spoke from the stomach. Frankness.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹𞤣𞤮 Xomɛvo - stomach is empty. Innocence.
𞤿𞤮𞤨𞤤𞤫 Xople - the stomach is assembled. Togetherness. Also a way to say being on the same page.
𞤲𞤵 𞤣𞤮 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 𞤣𞤭𞤣𞤮 Nu do xomɛ dido - speaking from the stomach. Has obvious connotations of speaking the real deal but also refers to a formal oath taking process
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹𞤱𞤮 Xomɛnyo - goodness within the stomach. Feeling good.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹𞤬𞤢𞤬𞤢 Xomɛfafa - coolness within the stomach. Likeability.
Negatives
𞤉 𞤧𞤭𞤲 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 E sin xomɛ - he/she has an attached stomach. Anger.
𞤿𞤮 𞤾𞤮 𞤧𞤭𞤲 Xo ve sin - the bitter stomach is attached. Hunger.
𞤳𞤵𞥊𞥅 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 Kú xomɛ - to have a dead stomach. Mean spirited.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹𞤳𞤵𞥊𞥅𞤳𞤵𞥊𞥅 xomɛkúkú − dead stomach. inhumanity, Apathy.
𞤫 𞤺𞤲𞤤𞤢𞤲 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 E gnlan xomɛ - she/he has a bad stomach. Evil.
𞤫 𞤩𞤤𞤫 𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 E gble xomɛ - the stomach is spoiled. To be in a bad way.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 𞤩𞤭 𞤩𞤤𞤫 Xomɛ gbi gble - stomach is corrupt. Viciousness.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 𞤲𞤺𞤢𞤲𞤢 Xomɛ ngana - stomach is banished. Perversity.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹 𞤾𞤭𞤾𞤫 Xomɛ vive - stomach is bitter. Sadness.
𞤝𞤮𞥂𞤮𞤲 Xokpon - examine the stomach. To doubt.
𞤿𞤮𞤥𞤹𞤧𞤭𞤲𞤺𞤢𞤲 Xomesingan - something or someone whose sole purpose is to incite anger. Also referred to as 𞤸𞤮𞤲𞤣𞤢𞤲 hondan - agitator of the navel.
𞤝𞤮𞤥𞤹𞥁𞤵𞤭 xomɛzui - fire of the intestines. Anger.
In Fá divination of West Afrikan Vodún, we say that it is in the stomach of Fá that one consults Fá - receives the divine messages; the ancient ancestral wisdom of the oracle. As we go into the stomach of Fá, Fá speaks what is in the stomach.
Thus, we see in the linguistic brilliance and the worldview of our ancestral way of life a proper approach to overstanding and providing solutions for this thing called life.