For the final session of rest and restore, we were joined by Michael Finnegan from Pursuit
Training. This was Michael’s second presentation as a part of this program and he led things off with a bit of a recap from his prior talk to make sure that everyone was primed and ready for the discussion to come. Today’s topic was related primarily to gut health and, critically, the interconnected nature between gut and mental health. According to Michael, these two are intrinsically linked such that when one is impacted, the other shortly follows suit. Michale then spent the next little while elaborating on the different ways in which the gut and the brain communicate with one another via neural, hormonal, immune, and microbial and metabolic means. Once this base of understanding was established, Michael gave us three examples of how compromises in gut health can express themselves and extended these examples to everyday life situations. These “phenotypes” of compromised gut health included the anxious performer, the overtrained athlete, and the high stress executive.
Michael then took us on a deep dive on how some of the pathways of communication betweenthe gut and the brain operate. His first target was on hormones. What I really loved about thispart of the presentation was how Michael honoured and took care to explain how behavior andcircumstances can act to impact our hormones and how that would be felt in the brain and gutrespectively. While Michale did give us the nitty-gritty on the function of several differenthormones as they relate to gut health (e.g., adrenaline, cortisol, serotonin, etc.), what was reallyvaluable here was how he explained and elaborated on how our brain, gut, hormones, andimmune system make up a co-reliant and interconnected system to function effectively. It wasunfortunate to learn that this system was, in effect, a “house of cards” that requires allcomponent parts to function together but thankfully, Michael was able to talk about some of thefiner points of making sure that this system stays balanced. Topics that included but weren’tlimited to: the role of sleep in gut and mental health, timing of and meal regularity, and somecommon symptoms of when things might get dysregulated.
Finally, Michael ended off the session with a discussion of the role that the gut microbiome plays in overall gut health and elaborating on a hierarchical 5-level system by which we can use to help improve our gut health and by extension, our overall mental and physical health. One thing that I really loved about this part of the talk was how honest Michael was with us. He didn’t try to sell us on some magical supplement or “fix it quick” scheme. Instead, Michael emphasized the importance of gradual and progressive work that we can do over an extended period of time to institute significant change. Tying things all back together, Michael took some time to explain the nitty gritty of this system before wrapping things up. Altogether, another lovely presentation from Mike and a fantastic way to wrap up Rest and Restore!
About Spencer Jones
Spencer is currently completing his master’s of Counselling Psychology with Yorkville University, on practicum with Impart Therapy. He works with teens and adults who are struggling with anxiety, depression, and stress. Please visit here to learn more about Spencer Jones.