Do Gut Feelings Actually Exist?

Have you ever wondered why you get that feeling in your gut when faced with a risky decision? There's more behind it than you may think.


Read More:
Gut Feelings: The Emerging Biology of Gut-Brain Communication
"Recent neurobiological insights into this gut-brain crosstalk have revealed a complex, bidirectional communication system that not only ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and digestion but is likely to have multiple effects on affect, motivation and higher cognitive functions, including intuitive decision making."

Interoception and Sense of Body-Ownership
"A key question is how the brain integrates different sensory signals from the body to produce the experience of this body as mine, known as sense of body-ownership. Converging evidence suggests that the integration of exteroceptive signals related to the body, such as vision and touch, produces or even alters the sense of body-ownership."

Gut Feelings Help Make More Successful Financial Traders
"Financial traders are better at reading their 'gut feelings' than the general population -- and the better they are at this ability, the more successful they are as traders, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge."

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Special thanks to Amy Shira Teitel for hosting DNews!

[Master_Therion]

After I eat at Chipotle I get a gut feeling that it was a bad idea.

[caroljomartin]

I ALWAYS trust my gut. Every time I failed to, things worked out badly. I think it's part of what has been referred to as a "6th sense".

[sawace]

I always trust my gut, it's saved me in multiple situations. Thank you for being a great female role model and putting yourself in this career. Skip past the ridiculous trolls.

[corvd]

I love how everyone is making fun of her hair and makeup instead of listening to the topic. just more proof that society likes to weigh women for their looks instead of their thoughts. smh

[yetidodger]

I'd have bet my life on gut feelings over the years, many times it turns out my gut feeling was completely wrong.

[SPACAR-RESCUE]

I had to watch this twice.
Once looking at Amy, and the second time with just the volume so I could remember what she was telling me.

[Ashestoashesjc]

love this episode and your new hair! that upkeep must be tough.

[MegaCorson]

i regularly have gut feelings and believe it is important to listen to what your body is trying to tell you. i saw my uncle commit suicide in my mind to the exact same time frame as it happened. my mind was telling me what was happening and i must phone the police and get help. however i ignored the feelings and carried on working and also no one would believe me and let me use a phone in work time. when i got home from work he was dead and i knew all about it like how he did it where and why and the sequence of events as he killed himself. this may be spiritual as well i dont know but i dont wish for anybody to experience my pain here if you have a gut feeling that a friend is going to kill themselves get help for that person immediately

[DomyTheMad]

Did you also go with your gut when you decided that haircut?

[jamestbfraser]

Yeah.... my gut is usually wrong.... :(

[singleplayerhearts]

thanks for that script reading, mine as well just slap text on the screen. lol

[cygnusprime]

reminds me of the "mind's eye". ive never gone wrong trusting my gut or instincts.

[alexs]

Yes; I use my gut. So much so that I never learned how to spell properly and I allow myself to make spelling errors publicly quite often, even though I am 32 years old and consider myself to be an educated individual-mind you, not, "well educated" though I say this in a snide way, because my gut tells me that being, "well educated" is more of a social construct which was developed to make people like me question the degree of education they received. The truth is, I have a Bachelors degree in International Relations from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Already, I have exited the realm of answering the question in a quick and witty way that is entertaining and have entered into the realm of oversharing. I am alright with that, because I apparently have nothing better to do with my time and I am aware that other people using social media might very well be plagued by the same issue and would actually enjoy reading this. I am currently living in Chengdu city, Sichuan province,  China. I have a Chinese wife and half Chinese daughter. My gut got me here and I have no regrets. I am drinking Chinese grain alcohol while writing this. My gut tells me this is a bad decision. However, I am by myself tonight. My wife and baby are visiting a friend of theirs, and I am bored and alone. I could go out and try to make a friend, but I feel guilty spending my family's money, Chinese people are complicated with foreigners, and I look like the less muscular version of Stone Cold Steve Austin, if any of you remember who that even was. My point is, I intimidate them. I don't mean to, it is simply a byproduct of my appearance. I am actually very comfortable around them. I speak a decent amount of Chinese and know how to be polite and aware within their culture. All of that knowledge is literally from the gut. If you drink while you learn culture and language, it makes your receptors more open and gives you a learning advantage, because the sober people in large social settings are overwhelmed with anxiety and an overload of outside variables that we as humans are not naturally equipped to receive. Add a good healthy buzz and you begin to focus on one aspect of the culture at a time, giving you the ability to observe things from a more intimate and personal perspective. If you want to do a case study, that might be a good one to try.

[JanjayTrollface]

One of my poker mentors said not to trust your gut instincts unless you had documented it extensively and found it to be adequate, so I did and it was *8 )

[xprodgyx]

LOL I thought your necklace was a bullet but upon closer inspection its a telescope!

[StSebbe]

that moment when I'm trying to watch a video but I'm waiting for the ad to load

[donedennison]

I've often said that I listen to my gut but I don't do everything it urges me to. I have argued that "gut" feelings are those thousands of little bits of information that would confuse our conscious mind but provide a steady info stream running in the background. Those feelings and interpretations can be way off and trip fight flight and freeze responses. The right or wrongness of my gut feelings needs a higher reasoning component. Way cool to have this confirmed. I love and trust my body to keep me going. Hugs to my body. ;)

[hkatbamna]

"nifty"
I didn't know that was a word people still said

[zemorph]

I learned to be wary of my gut in my early 20s. I remembered the misses as much as the hits, and it seems I have more misses than hits when I go with my gut. My intuition isn't even 2nd rate; more like 3rd or 4th rate.

[BeardVsTheWorldUK]

Great stuff. Wish more peeps would pay attention.