Bacterial Overlords

This may be one of those moments where something just *clicked. I remember driving home from a day out and I wanted to stop for a boba tea. And, if you aren’t familiar with boba tea, it’s basically dessert in a cup. But I needed it. I was depressed, and it always made me feel just a bit better. Better enough, anyway, to feel like I could keep on with my day… at least for a few more hours before another wave of depression hit me.

In that moment I realized something: most of the time when I got depressed, or when depression was soon to come, I’d crave the sugary sweet goodness called boba. So what did I do? I did a little science experiment with myself as the lab rat. I said no to the boba. (Gasp!)

I learned that my cravings were an indication of symptoms present and/or to come, and satisfying that craving wasn’t always the best idea. Experientially, I began to better understand the connection between my stomach and my brain, my dietary cravings and my symptom expression. It wouldn’t be for another several years before I learned about the gut-brain axis, and how microbiota in your gastrointestinal microbiome strongly impact the types and levels of neurotransmitters that make it to your brain via the enteric nervous system.

Cravings. Sometimes they’re just the voices of trillions of microbes singing in unison, craving what keeps them alive in our guts. As my gut-health specialist friend coined, your bacterial overlords.