Part II: Observe
To begin the healing process, you must first become aware of yourself, your bodily sensations, and the various forces that keep you out of balance. Only then can you restore your balance. However, many gut sufferers tend to ignore their pain, mask it with medications and painkillers, or distract themselves from their physical sensations by worry and anxiety. Chapter 2, “Observe Your Gut,” teaches you how to pay attention to the unpleasant sensations in your gut with greater acceptance and how to interpret them as meaningful clues about your problem. The very act of shifting the focus of your attention helps you to become more centered and calm.
Chapter 3, “Observe Your Stresses,” looks at the five main sources of stress on your body/mind system: environmental, physical, emotional/spiritual, pharmaceutical, and dietary. Most gut sufferers carry a negative connotation of the word stress and take it to mean “your digestive problems are all in your head.” Stress is actually a normal part of life, but it can directly affect your gut distress. We will guide you through a self-assessment of the five forms of stress in your life. From this will come the awareness necessary for effective and lasting change.
Chapter 4, “Observe Your Diet,” presents ways to start tracking how the food you eat may be correlated to your symptoms. These results can help pinpoint foods that need to be removed from your diet.
Chapter 5, “Observe Your Sleep,” examines the very close relationship between chronic gut distress and sleep problems. Abdominal pain, cramping, and diarrhea during sleep hours keep you awake, and the lack of sleep makes you more vulnerable to gut distress the next day. This chapter features a self-assessment of the most important dimensions of sleep along with specific solutions to guide you out of this vicious cycle.
Chapter 6, “Observe Your Life: Your Health and Wellness Autobiography,” will teach you how to write your own medical biography. The better you know your own health backstory, the better prepared you are to write the next chapter—one featuring health. The key point of observation is that the more aware you are of your physical sensations, stresses, emotions and thoughts, and lifestyle, the more you can activate self-healing resources. Writing your medical biography is a vital tool for this healing awareness.
Part III: Restore
You need new rebalancing skills to restore harmony to the systemic dysfunctions that are causing your intestinal problems. These skills will bring lasting relief as opposed to the use of pills and pharmaceuticals that cover up the symptoms. Chapter 7, “Ecological Rebalancing for Inner Peace,” and Chapter 8, “Harmonizing Your External Environment,” show you ways to restore your interior and exterior ecological systems. These chapters include the newest scientific findings regarding the microbiome, the trillions of microbes that coexist in our gut and elsewhere in our body. Tools to manage your interior ecology include special diets, probiotics, and supplements. Balancing your exterior ecology examines such things as the need for rest and rejuvenation as well as your relationships with work and with other people.
Chapter 9, “Neurohormonal Retraining to Rewire the Gut-Brain Connection,” teaches you a powerful new technique to retrain the way your brain responds to sensations in your gut. For many gut sufferers, the very anxiety of dealing with their chronic problem conditions the brain to overreact to each little digestive gurgle and twinge. Neurohormonal Retraining short-circuits this misdirected feedback loop and helps restore the natural harmony between brain and gut. Over time, our body becomes conditioned to experiencing chronic pain, which alters and distorts the communication between the brain and the gut. You will learn how to take advantage of neuroplasticity, the amazing ability of the brain to create new nerve pathways.
Whatever the nature of your particular imbalance, certain skills are universally applicable. Chapter 10, “CORE Calming Techniques,” presents additional tools for calming and balancing your body, your nervous system, and your emotions so you can heal more quickly. These skills include meditation, breathing exercises, and self-hypnosis—a scientifically proven tool for easing digestive distress. This daily regimen will help your system run more smoothly and be more responsive to the powerful techniques of Ecological Rebalancing and Neurohormonal Retraining.
Chapter 11, “Resolve Difficult Emotions and Their Physical Effects,” covers the crucial but often misunderstood topic of how emotions negatively interact with gut symptoms. Stressful emotions don't cause IBS, but they certainly are a contributing factor and can worsen your symptoms. We will guide you through a self-assessment of stressful emotions and will provide specific solutions for gaining better control over them. It will also help you respond to stressful emotions as helpful signals to take better care of yourself.
Part IV: Ensure
Life never stops, and the world keeps changing. Once you have centered, observed, and restored your body/mind system, you will constantly need to adjust to unexpected obstacles and traumas in your life that may upset your balance. Chapter 12, “Maintain Your Gains and Achieve Sustainable Lifestyle Change,” provides ways to handle these bumps on life's road. Sometimes people feel so good after their gut distress goes away that they become overconfident or complacent and return to their old ways of life—only to see their symptoms return with a vengeance. The elements of the CORE system need to become habits, a sustainable and natural part of your life so you can bounce back from occasional flare-ups and setbacks. Finally, we provide you with specific solutions to help you push past the normal resistance to change and awareness, so you can move ahead with your progress.
We wish you well on your journey to reclaim control over your life. We are confident that the techniques and skills you learn from this book will significantly reduce your suffering. We would also like to gently remind you that in the CORE program, your most important healing partners are your own body, mind, and spirit.
—Greg Plotnikoff and Mark Weisberg Summer 2012
PART I
Center
Centering is the first step on your path to recovering a life of balance, harmony, and comfort.
Like the vertical balance of stacked stones, if we are in harmony with our environment, we are balanced. Like the horizontal balance of a teeter-totter, if we are centered, balance is nearly effortless.
Balance a pen on your finger. Notice the effort it takes to find its center and achieve balance. Notice also how effortless that balance is once you have found this center. The same is true in our life. Once we have discovered our own center, balance follows almost effortlessly.
Notice also that if the pen is not balanced on its center, it takes significant effort to make the pen appear balanced. It is possible to keep the pen horizontal, but does this feel natural, elegant, or easy?
This is where many people find themselves. Great effort goes into appearing balanced, rather than actually being balanced. This struggle takes its toll on health and well-being.
This
