Is It My Gut, My Hormones or My Nervous System?

"Is it your gut, your hormones, or your nervous system? It's likely all of them. And that's good news because it means you have more than one doorway into healing."

When you’re experiencing symptoms such as fatigue that won't shift, brain fog, mysterious bloating, skin breakouts, or anxiety, we naturally want to find the one culprit to fix it all. 

Is it hormones? Is it the gut? Could it be stress? In this eye-opening episode, Anthia reveals why these systems aren't separate silos but part of an intricate web constantly communicating with each other. 

We look at:

• The science behind these connections

• How to start assessing yourself

• And offers a practical roadmap for taking a whole-body approach to healing.

The Web of Connection: Three Key Communication Highways

The Gut-Brain Axis 

This communication superhighway between your gut and brain uses the vagus nerve, immune signaling molecules called cytokines, and metabolites produced by your gut microbes. When your microbiome is imbalanced, it directly affects mood, stress reactivity, and even how your hormones function.

The HPA Axis (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) 

This is your central stress response system. When chronically activated, it suppresses digestion, increases gut permeability (leaky gut), and disrupts sex hormone production. This is why stress doesn't just affect your mood, it cascades through every system in your body.

The Estrobolome 

This collection of gut bacteria is specifically involved in metabolising estrogens. When imbalanced, certain bacterial enzymes cause estrogens to recirculate instead of being properly cleared, leading to estrogen dominance that can worsen PMS, create heavy bleeding, and trigger acne breakouts.

Why We Get So Fragmented

Our healthcare system is set up in silos. Digestive symptoms send you to a gastroenterologist, hormonal issues to an endocrinologist, anxiety to a psychologist. In the process there’s the potential to overlook the bigger picture of how your systems interconnect.

Even in wellness spaces, there's a trap of oversimplifying everything as "just stress”. While chronic stress is significant, telling someone "it's all in your head" can be dismissive and harmful. The reality is that chronic stress changes gut bacteria composition, which disrupts hormone metabolism, which feeds back into the stress response - creating a self-perpetuating loop.

Mapping Your Own Web: Simple Assessment Questions

For Gut Health: Do you regularly experience bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or reflux? Do symptoms flare with stress or travel?

For Hormones: Do you notice cycle-linked patterns like PMS, migraines, acne, or mood swings? Any unexplained changes in weight, hair, or temperature tolerance?

For Nervous System: Do you feel tired but wired? Have trouble winding down? Wake frequently through the night?

If you answered yes to at least one question in each category, multiple systems are likely involved in your symptoms.

The Science Behind the Connections

Gut-Hormone Interactions 

A healthy gut microbiome produces short-chain fatty acids from dietary fiber, which reduce inflammation and make hormone receptors more responsive. 

When dysbiosis occurs, the enzyme beta-glucuronidase can rise, reactivating estrogens meant for elimination and creating estrogen dominance with relative progesterone deficiency.

Hormones also affect gut function. Estrogen helps maintain healthy gut motility, which is why post-menopausal women often experience slower bowel movements and decreased microbial diversity. 

Thyroid hormones regulate metabolic rate including bowel transit time - hypothyroidism can slow peristalsis, allowing harmful bacteria to overgrow.

Nervous System Impact 

During chronic fight-or-flight states, blood flow diverts from digestion toward muscles and heart for survival. 

This reduces digestive secretions (stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes, and bile) leading to poor nutrient breakdown and eventual deficiencies that affect both gut health and hormone production.

Persistent stress and elevated cortisol prioritise survival over reproduction, suppressing the glands that produce sex hormones and disrupting ovulation and fertility. 

The counterbalance is "rest, digest, and nest" - the state needed for optimal digestion and reproductive health.

Moving from Fragmentation to Integration

Instead of asking "What's wrong with this part?" ask "How are my systems communicating with each other?" This shift in perspective opens up multiple pathways for healing rather than searching for a single culprit.

Practical Integration Steps: Start by mapping patterns through symptom journaling, tracking mood, cycle, digestion, and stress levels. 

Work in layers, beginning with the most stressed system while supporting the others. Microbiome mapping, hormone patterns, and cortisol tests can help connect the dots between systems.

The Ecosystem Approach

Treating your body as a connected ecosystem rather than a collection of disconnected problems means you have multiple doorways into healing. 

Sometimes addressing the gut improves hormones, and sometimes calming the nervous system resolves digestive issues. The key is understanding that improvement in one system creates positive ripple effects throughout the entire web.

Practical Action Steps

• Keep a symptom journal tracking patterns across gut, hormones, and nervous system

• Ask "How are my systems talking to each other?" instead of isolating symptoms

• Start with your most stressed system while supporting the others

• Consider comprehensive testing to map connections between systems

• Practice nervous system regulation through breathing and boundaries

• Support gut diversity through varied plant foods

Connect

• Visit my naturopathic clinic at apothecabyanthia.com 

• Join the Staying Healthy Together Club for deeper exploration of these practices 

Highlights

• 00:15 Introduction to Holistic Healing

• 01:21 Understanding the Interconnected Systems

• 04:58 Real-Life Patient Stories

• 07:33 Mapping Your Own Health Web

• 08:37 The Science Behind the Connections

• 13:25 Practical Steps for Holistic Health

• 14:42 Conclusion and Next Steps