The brain.
Every time you think, feel, or perform a multitude of unconscious processes, the 100 billion neurons in your skull conduct electrical signals to communicate and carry messages between them, ultimately creating, well, you, and everything you do.
It's the most complex, essential and identifiable organ in the body, acting as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrates.
But what if how you think and feel isn't just controlled by the brain and central nervous system, but in fact, a second brain that you didn't know about?
The brain uses the vagus nerve to connect and communicate with many parts of the body, including the vocal cords, heart, lungs and most of the digestive tract.
It also uses this nerve to convey "fight or flight" messages to the body, which explains why you might experience a cracking voice, racing heart, shortness of breath and a knot in your stomach when you're really stressed or nervous.
But while this extensive network is constantly sending signals from the brain to your body, scientists have noted that 80-90% of the nerve fibers in the enteric nervous system are actually going from the gut to the brain.
In fact, the enteric nervous system, which is an extensive mesh-like network of neurons that controls your entire digestive tract from the esophagus to the anus, doesn't even require the brain at all.
When the vagus nerve is severed, the enteric nervous system is capable of organizing and initiating its own reflexes for digestion because it has such a complex collection of neurons.
It is your second brain, and it controls you far more than you realize.
