In Gut We Trust

We've all heard the phrase “Trust your gut.” No? You haven't??! Well then trust me, it's a phrase ok?
Maybe it's that sense of excitement you get when thinking of a new venture or the inexplicable dread you might feel about a particular journey.

Perhaps you just know not to order the mussels. Many of us have passed someone on the street and experienced that tightening in our body and sinking sensation in our stomach which tells us they're potentially dangerous. Some of us will quicken our pace or cross the street, our behaviour validating our intuition that we've just outed a wrongun. It's a primal instinct, hardwired into us way back when numerous dangers prowled around the mouth of the cave and gathered in the gloom.
Of course in today's new paradigm of on-demand entertainment and deliveroo'd food, our short-term survival is arguably less under threat than the long-term continuation of our species and our primal intuitions frequently go awry. Today, some of us will spot a clear and obvious wrongun and mistake those butterflies for admiration or even simple amusement we're prepared to indulge beyond our better judgement. We'll ignore a hundred red flags and elevate said wrongun to the highest of authorities, devouring every bit of mop-haired nonsense they spout in front of a great big lie-bus which might as well have been driven by Thelma and Louise since it takes the whole fucking country off a cliff edge we haven't began to pick ourselves up from seven years of sleaze, corruption and general incompetence later.... for example. Anyway, that's all clearly by the by and a wholly unprofessional and bitter digression, so i'll move on swiftly....
...I mean this article may be about listening to your gut, but just because he looked like the Pilsbury fucking doughboy, you didn't have to swallow everything that leaked out of him did you???! Your ancestor knew not to wave his willy at the sabre-toothed tiger. You knew not to eat the mussels. Why did you trust the idiot???! And don't get me started on Jimmy Saville....
Anyway, anomalous lunacy notwithstanding, there's science underpinning the notion that we should or even could listen to our gut. Bi directional communication exists between the gut and the brain which goes a bit beyond simply telling us when we've had enough Doritos..... (NEVER! Never enough Doritos!!...) Stretching from the anus to the lower oesophagus, embedded in the wall of the gastrointestinal system, the enteric nervous system (ENS) is a complex web of sensory neurons, motor neurons and interneurons. There are some 100 million of these “brain” cells, more than in our spinal chords and and roughly the same as can be found in the head of a cat. (Our  cat certainly didn't trust Bojo...)

Whilst the ENS's primary task is controlling digestion, from swallowing to enzyme release and blood flow control, research has revealed its crosstalk with the brain is capable of augmenting our moods and emotions. In fact, scientists often refer to the gut as the “second brain”. Where it was once thought gastrointestinal conditions such as IBS, constipation or diarrhoea were sometime symptoms of anxiety or depression, more recent research suggests the reverse may be true, with irritation in the GI system transmitting signals to the central nervous system which subsequently trigger these mood changes. The gut, replete with its millions of neurons and neurotransmitters and ability to influence hormone release throughout the body, is key to not just our immunity and disease resistance but potentially our thinking skills, memory and emotions. For many in the scientific, wellbeing and healthcare fields, “it all starts in the gut”.

When we talk about trusting our gut instincts, we're usually referring to intuition : “The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning” (Oxford)
Far from being an ineffable sixth sense, intuition, though seemingly automatic, is understood to originate from experience and learning. Whilst this makes them potentially liable to unconscious bias, our intuitions, revealed to us through pattern recognition of stored “data” - our myriad observations of the world - are a credible tool for navigating decision-making, especially when under time constraints.
Evolutionarily speaking, intuition has helped us survive by offering quick responses, which generally offer an appropriate, immediate reaction to a stimuli, allowing us to circumvent potentially damaging paralysis. Think ticking bomb or sinking ship. By responding in the moment, intuition offers a reduction in overall cognitive load, freeing valuable mental resources for navigating novel situations and subsequently increasing learning. Whilst our gut reactions may represent a preliminary survival mechanism, our intuitions can actually be honed - A bomb disposal expert will usually have a better intuition on which wire to cut, even in the absence of a definite answer. From business leaders to detectives, doctors to toddlers, our gut instincts are a powerful, generally successful tool for decisive action, though they remain fallible and do not represent a wholesale substitute for rational analysis and reasoning. If you don't know what those last things are, you probably believed the bus.
A well known experiment in the field of study, the Iowa Gambling Task pitted participants against four decks of cards, which when overturned revealed wins or penalties of varying degrees. Over time, many of the research subjects intuitively began, through pattern recognition, to recognise which stacks were riskiest, responding physiologically with subtle changes to their heart rate or sweat production. Those able to correctly interpret these flutters, even unconsciously, as stress responses to a negative outcome, not titillation at a potential windfall, chose more accurately, successfully demonstrating the power of intuition to guide our best interests.

Whilst today's sabre-toothed tigers might be SPAM, the poisoned berries misinformation, listening to your gut could still save you a load of bellyache.