Is IBS a gut-brain disorder? Watch Dr Simone Peters explain
Scientifically Verified
Is IBS a gut-brain disorder? Watch Dr Simone Peters explain
Published
April 21, 2026
Written by
Christina Sexton
Medically reviewed by
Dr James Kenny
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Key takeaways:
IBS is a gut-brain disorder – symptoms come from how the gut and brain communicate, not from damage to the gut.¹
Over 40% of people globally live with a gut-brain disorder, and IBS is one of the most common.²
Gut-brain therapy is recommended by leading gastroenterology guidelines as a first-line approach for managing IBS.³
Most people manage IBS best by combining gut-brain therapy with diet and medication.
IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is classified as a gut-brain disorder¹ – a condition where altered communication between the gut and brain drives digestive symptoms without any visible damage to the digestive tract.
In this 3-part video series, psychophysiologist and Nerva co-founder Dr Simone Peters from Monash University explains what gut-brain disorders are, how gut-brain therapy works, and how IBS and other gut-brain disorders are managed.
What is a gut-brain disorder?
(2 minutes)
Here Dr. Peters explains what gut-brain disorders are, why standard tests come back "normal," and how gut-brain disorders including IBS, functional dyspepsia, and functional constipation are diagnosed using the Rome Foundation criteria
What is gut-brain therapy?
(1.15 min) Watch Dr. Peters explain what gut-brain therapy is, what it involves, and why it's recommended by NICE (UK) and the American College of Gastroenterology as a front-line non-pharmacological approach for gut-brain disorders including IBS.
How are gut-brain disorders managed?
(1.21 minutes) Here Dr. Peters breaks down the main management options for IBS and other gut-brain disorders: the low FODMAP diet, antispasmodics and neuromodulators, and gut-brain therapy via the Nerva program, which combines CBT-informed coaching, gut-directed hypnotherapy, and breathing techniques.
The brain and gut communicate constantly through the gut-brain axis, and in gut-brain disorders like IBS, that communication becomes oversensitive – so normal digestion gets misread as pain, bloating, or urgency. This is called visceral hypersensitivity, and it explains why people with IBS feel real physical symptoms without any visible damage to the gut.
Is IBS all in your head?
IBS is not imagined or psychological – it's a disorder of gut-brain interaction, meaning symptoms come from how the nerves in the gut and brain communicate. The pain, bloating, and bowel changes are physical and real, even though nothing shows up on scans or blood tests.
What is the difference between IBS and DGBI?
IBS is the most common type of disorder of gut-brain interaction (DGBI), but it's not the only one – DGBI is the umbrella category. Other DGBIs include functional dyspepsia, functional heartburn, and functional constipation, all driven by the same miscommunication between the gut and brain.
Can you fix the gut-brain connection?
The gut-brain connection can be retrained through gut-brain therapy, which uses techniques like gut-directed hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy to calm the oversensitive nerve signalling driving symptoms. Nerva is a 6-week gut-brain therapy program co-founded by Dr Simone Peters that delivers these techniques through daily 15-20 minute sessions.
How do I know if my IBS is caused by stress?
Stress doesn't cause IBS directly, but it's one of the most common triggers for flare-ups because the nervous system and digestive system are so closely linked. If your symptoms worsen during anxious or stressful periods – or improve when you're relaxed – the gut-brain connection is likely playing a big role in your symptoms.
References
Video Transcript
What is a gut-brain disorder?
When you have a gut-brain disorder, what's often happening is a communication problem. Your gut is structurally fine. There's no active inflammation. There's no ulceration. It's not damaged, but the nervous system that connects your gut and your brain has started misreading signals. And that's what can drive symptoms.
This is why you can have debilitating symptoms and still be told that the outcomes of your tests are normal. The tests are looking for structural or organic change and there isn't any. But that doesn't mean nothing is wrong. It just means that the problem may be how it is that your gut and your brain are signaling to one another.
There are over 30 recognized gut-brain disorders and irritable bowel syndrome is the most common. But there's also functional dyspepsia, functional constipation, functional heartburn, rumination syndrome, and many others. Similar conditions like GERD or inflammatory bowel disease aren't gut-brain disorders, but there's a real overlap, and many patients with those conditions can also have gut-brain symptoms sitting alongside them.
Gut-brain disorders are defined and classified by the Rome Foundation, and this is the leading international authority on these conditions. The diagnosis is based on recognizing specific symptom patterns, not just running test after test to rule other things out. Or in other words, irritable bowel syndrome or disorders of gut-brain interaction are not disorders of exclusion.
Around 40% of people globally are affected by a gut-brain disorder at some point in their lifetime. So if you're managing one now, you're far from alone. And I see people with gut-brain disorders all the time in my practice looking for support.
What is gut-brain therapy?
If you have a gut-brain disorder like irritable bowel syndrome, gut-brain therapy is a structured, evidence-based way to retrain how your gut and your brain communicate. So instead of just managing symptoms, this comprehensive approach targets their underlying mechanism.
Gut-brain therapy can include gut-directed hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, informed coaching, and breathing techniques – each addressing a different part of the disorder. This is what makes gut-brain therapy different from diet or medication. They can absolutely help with symptoms and may be a really important part of your management plan, but they don't get to the underlying signaling dysfunction between the gut and the brain.
Gut-brain therapy is recommended by the NICE guidelines in the UK and the American College of Gastroenterology as a frontline non-pharmacological approach. So this isn't alternative or experimental. It's in the clinical guidelines that healthcare providers like myself rely on when we're developing a management strategy for our patients.
How are gut-brain disorders managed?
There are a few different management options. Dietary changes like the low FODMAP diet, medications like antispasmodics or neuromodulators, and gut-brain therapy like Nerva. What makes gut-brain therapy different is that it works on the gut-brain communication that drives many symptoms rather than only managing symptoms.
There is no single magic fix for gut-brain disorders, and these approaches are not mutually exclusive. You don't have to choose just one. In fact, many patients see the best results from a combination of different management strategies, including diet, medication, and psychological gut-brain therapy.
Dietary approaches can genuinely help, and I use these all the time in my practice. I'd never dismiss that. But they don't address the underlying nervous system dysfunction, which is often why symptoms come back once you either stop the diet or you reintroduce those FODMAP-containing foods.
In my own research from Monash University, we found that gut-directed hypnotherapy was as effective as the low FODMAP diet, with around 72% of patients seeing meaningful improvements in terms of their gut symptoms.
