Hello again and welcome back to the savvy psychologist. I'm Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and every

week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Okay, everyone, this week I am getting over a cold, but the show must go on.

So just pretend I don't sound like I've been smoking for 40 years.

Okay today we have a really fascinating topic.

If you had to guess the organ that has undue influence on your emotions,

your mood, even your choices,

what would you guess? The brain? Sure, but what else? The heart, that mythological

seat of the soul? Not quite. The stomach? You're getting warmer. Would you believe it's the large and small intestine,

collectively known as the gut? More specifically, it's the trillions of bacteria,

the microbiota, that live in your gut.

Each of us carries around up to four and a half pounds of bacteria in our guts at any given time.

More than 100 trillion microbes live down there and that's as many cells as make up the rest of your body

Now this crowd is mostly good guys and they do important work to the extent that some scientists advocate

classifying these collective microbiota as their own organ. Now aside

from helping to digest our food, they protect us from disease,

neutralize some of the toxic byproducts of the digestive process,

and make it harder for bad bacteria to set up shop.

In short, your gut does way more than just digest everything

from Cheetos to Camembert. But it turns out, gut bacteria may also affect how we feel.

So who knew the next frontier in mental well-being would lead right to the toilet?

With that lovely image in mind, here are three big ways our microbiota are connected to our mental health.

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