Why is my stomach rumbling

Take a seat, grab a cuppa and a biscuit and rest and digest this for a moment...

It is funny how, in the United Kingdom especially, from a young age we are told that bodily noises are embarrassing and we should immediately apologise. Now I admit there are some that we should apologise for, however, a rumbling stomach is not one!

I won't go into a ridiculous amount of detail, but I will cover a very basic human system called the sympathetic nervous system and then the parasympathetic one.

It all began many moons ago when humans roamed the earth and got eaten, attacked or hunted by predators. Look I promise this will cover why your stomach rumbles in a second.

So when a human was getting attacked the sympathetic nervous system quite literally sympathised with the human

and decided that there was a threat, the body would need to engage in a fight, freeze or flight mode and either prepare to pick up a spear, hide in a tree or run and hope that they were not the slowest human in the group. Without the human deciding to do so, the body would increase heart rate, get blood to the right areas, release necessary hormones and prepare.

Whilst I am sure you have had a massage where an elbow is getting stuck in your glute and thought you may run, the best response that a massage therapist can get is to not have you in the fight, freeze or flight mode, and instead trigger your parasympathetic response.

The parasympathetic response is the opposite and instead of our body preparing for a battle, we instead prepare for a bit of rest and digest.

Bonus points if you remember that the first line of this blog mentioned a cuppa, biscuit and rest and digest. Yes I know, I am great.

So as you can imagine, when the human is not getting attacked, and perhaps has managed to win the battle, they may have a meal in front of them and can tuck in, queue those digestive juices and perhaps the very best word I will type today,

Borborygmus

Yep how cool is that word. It means intestinal rumbling caused by the movement of fluid or gas.

So when you are relaxing during your massage and you get all borborygmus it is actually a compliment to the massage and shows that you are resting, relaxed and chilled.

Win win!