Digestion & Emotions: What I Notice When I Am Holding On

The part that is not about food

Constipated, gassy, bloated, and fairly sure the answer is another protocol?

The part most people skip is not a food or a protocol. What I eventually noticed was that my digestion was at its worst in the weeks I was holding something unsaid, and that the things which helped most cost nothing: eating slowly, going when I needed to rather than waiting, moving, and letting myself feel the thing I had been putting off.

I cannot give you a mechanism for that, and I would be sceptical of anyone offering you a tidy one. But I have watched it in myself for years now, and I have heard it from enough women to think it is worth naming.

Going to the loo is a ritual in my house

This may be more than you wanted to know.

I do not rush it. I sit down properly, I take the time it actually takes rather than the time I have, and I do not take my phone. If I do not have the time, I would rather wait for a moment when I do than sit there negotiating with the clock. When I flush I have a small private moment of letting something go, which sounds ridiculous written down and has completely changed how the whole thing works for me.

There are notes stuck above my toilet. I am not going to tell you what they say.

The practical version, if the woo is not for you: your body does not let go while you are braced. Rushing, tensing, and holding your breath are all working against the thing you are trying to do. Slowing down is most of it.

So I breathe. A few slow ones before anything else, down low, and I let my belly go soft and round instead of holding it in, which is the opposite of what I spent twenty years doing. Then I let the out breath do the work rather than pushing. If I am straining I have stopped paying attention, and I start again.

The room matters more than I expected it to. Mine is warm, it is tidy, there is something in there that smells good, and the door locks. Not because it needs to be beautiful. Because I am not going to soften anywhere I am half listening for someone to need me.

Where else I hold on

Some of what I notice in myself, offered as observation rather than diagnosis. The older traditions got here long before I did: Chinese medicine files the large intestine with grief and with autumn, the season of letting go.

I hold on hardest when I need to know what is happening. When plans change at short notice. When something has been said that I have not replied to properly. When I am angry with someone and being pleasant about it.

When I am carrying a lot of it, I feel it in my stomach before I feel it anywhere else. Those are the stretches when my digestion is at its worst, and no amount of chewing has ever fixed a week like that.

What has helped is not analysing it. It is surrender, which is a word I resisted for years because it sounded like giving up, and in practice it means naming the thing and then putting it down. I journal when I cannot work out what I am holding. Writing it gets it out of my head, and I can usually see it once it is sitting on the page in front of me.

That is my experience. Yours may work completely differently, and your body is a better source on that than I am.

What actually helps, none of which costs anything

Slow down at the table. Sit, chew, put the phone somewhere else. Eating intuitively is most of what I mean by this.

Move, gently and daily. Walking counts and is probably enough.

Sleep, which is boring and is more than half of it.

Write it down. Ten minutes and a page is usually enough to find what you are carrying.

Let yourself feel the thing you are avoiding, on your own or with someone, whichever you can actually do. This is the hardest one and the one that has done the most for me, and I have written the longer version of it here.

And give it time. One good day does count, it is just cumulative. Digestion answers to a run of weeks rather than to a single day of doing it well.

The bit I would rather you did not skip

If your digestion has been difficult for a long time, or something has changed, please have it looked at properly.

Emotional work is not a substitute for that. I have watched women, myself included, reach for the gentler explanation because it was the one that did not involve a waiting room, and that is exactly the moment you want somebody qualified looking instead.

Both things can be true. Get checked, and also look at what you are carrying.

A few more questions worth asking

How long should you sit on the toilet?

Not long. A few minutes is what most gastroenterologists suggest, and then getting up rather than staying to finish something on a screen. A 2025 study of 125 adults found that people who took a smartphone in with them were 46 percent more likely to have haemorrhoids, and around five times more likely to sit for longer than five minutes. Go when you need to, leave the phone in the other room, and soften rather than strain: the breath out does more than the pushing does.

What is the fastest way to detox your digestive system?

There is not a fast one, and speed is the wrong thing to want here. A cleanse can be the right call for one woman and the wrong one for another, or the wrong one right now, and going at it without knowing what you are doing can leave you feeling worse than when you started. So it is a decision rather than a purchase. If you are weighing one up, the questions to ask yourself before any cleanse is where I would start. Either way your liver, kidneys and bowel are doing this work today, and what shifts how you feel is slower and duller than anything in a box: water, fibre from food, moving daily, sleeping, and not eating in a hurry.

Can your emotions affect your digestion?

I can only tell you what I have watched in myself, over years, and what enough women have told me for me to think it is worth saying out loud. I would not offer you a mechanism for it, and I would be wary of anyone who does. The older traditions have long put the large intestine and the work of letting go together. What helps me is not working it out but putting it down, and journalling is how I find what I am holding. Anything that persists belongs with your doctor rather than with a theory.

When should you see a doctor about your digestion?

Blood, pain that stops you doing your ordinary day, weight change you cannot explain, or a change in your bowels lasting more than a couple of weeks. Also anything that has simply changed and you do not know why. Some of it turns out to be nothing much, which is a good outcome too. What matters is that somebody qualified looks.

Where to go next

• •What to ask yourself before any cleanse, if you are considering one
• •Emotions you do not process, which is the longer version of the middle section here
• •Why you are gassier before and during your period, for the practical end of things
• •My ZenCleanz review, if cleansing is the question you actually came with
• •My female intuition is my superpower, for the listening this all rests on

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