We're talking about the part of confidence that shows up in the most ordinary moments of your day.
You cancel the dinner because your stomach is off. Again. You stay quiet in the meeting because the bloating is bad and you just don't have the energy to hold your own. You leave the party early, not because you wanted to, but because your gut made the decision for you.
These are everyday moments. Small ones, maybe, but they add up. And the research is starting to suggest that the gap between the gut you have and the confidence you want might not be as separate as anyone has told you.
Your gut and your brain appear to be in constant conversation. What that conversation sounds like, on an ordinary Tuesday, may have more to do with your mood, your social ease, and your sense of self than you have ever been given reason to suspect.
The Gut-Brain Axis: What's Actually Happening Every Day
Most people know anxiety can upset the stomach. What's less well-known is that the relationship appears to run in the other direction too, continuously, in real time, as part of your ordinary daily experience.
Research by Cryan and Dinan, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2012, described the gut microbiota as potential "mind-altering microorganisms." Their work found that gut bacteria may influence brain function and behaviour through multiple pathways, including the vagus nerve, the immune system, and the production of neurotransmitter precursors. [1]
The vagus nerve, which runs between the gut and the brain, appears to carry more signals upward (gut to brain) than downward (brain to gut). This means the gut may not simply react to your emotional state. It may also be actively shaping it, every day, in the background, without you noticing.
For women who have spent years managing both gut symptoms and anxiety, that finding might land in a very specific way.
Your Everyday Confidence Might Have a Gut Story
This is the part nobody tells you about the everyday.
A landmark study by Valles-Colomer et al., published in Nature Microbiology in 2019, examined the relationship between gut microbiome composition and quality of life across a large population. The researchers found that lower levels of certain bacterial groups, specifically Coprococcus and Dialister, were consistently associated with lower quality of life and depression scores. These bacteria appear to be involved in the production of compounds connected to dopamine signalling. [2]
Dopamine is the thing connected to motivation, pleasure, and social confidence. The everyday version of it is not a dramatic neurological event. It's the small readiness to speak up in a meeting, the ease of walking into a room without scanning for exits, the willingness to make plans and keep them.
If gut bacteria appear to influence the compounds connected to those pathways, then what's happening in your gut on an ordinary morning may quietly set the tone for how you move through your ordinary day.
Research by Foster and McVey Neufeld, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2013, found that the gut-brain axis may be an important factor in the development and maintenance of anxiety, with microbiome composition appearing to shape stress responses across multiple body systems. [3]
The everyday anxiety you have accepted as just how you are may have a gut dimension nobody has thought to investigate.
What This Looks Like for Women in Midlife
The gut-confidence connection appears to be particularly pronounced for women, especially during perimenopause and menopause, because the gut shifts significantly during this time.
Falling oestrogen levels appear to alter gut microbiome composition, connected to the estrobolome, the subset of gut bacteria involved in metabolising oestrogen. As oestrogen shifts, so does the bacterial landscape of the gut. And as that landscape shifts, emerging evidence suggests mood regulation, stress response, and everyday social ease may shift alongside it.
This is not abstract. It shows up as cancelling plans you actually wanted to keep. It shows up as losing your thread in conversations. It shows up as a low-level unease that you have attributed to getting older, to hormones, to just being a bit anxious by nature.
It may also, at least in part, be a gut story playing out in the background of your everyday life.
A Different Way to Think About Your Mental Health
This is not a call to replace therapy, medication, or any other form of mental health support. Those things matter and they work for many people.
This is an invitation to add the gut to the conversation. If your gut has been unsettled for years, and your confidence has quietly dipped alongside it, those two things may not be coincidental. And if your mental health support has never once asked about your gut, you may not be getting the full picture.
The everyday version of better mental health might start somewhere more ordinary than you think.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you have concerns about your digestive health or your mental health, please speak to a healthcare professional.
References
[1] Cryan, J.F. & Dinan, T.G. (2012). Mind-altering microorganisms: the impact of the gut microbiota on brain and behaviour. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13, 701–712. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3346
[2] Valles-Colomer, M. et al. (2019). The neuroactive potential of the human gut microbiota in quality of life and depression. Nature Microbiology, 4, 623–632. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0337-x
[3] Foster, J.A. & McVey Neufeld, K.A. (2013). Gut-brain axis: how the microbiome influences anxiety and depression. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, 69–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3399
