Yoga, Meditation, Mindfulness, or Hypnotherapy for GI Disorders: Similar Mechanisms of Action?

Mind-body approaches aim to improve gut symptoms and quality of life by targeting the interaction between the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system. These include treatments such as hypnotherapy, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. Although evidence is building on efficacy of mind-body approaches, we generally lack a thorough understanding of how they work. Despite being presented as separate treatment modalities, mind-body approaches often use overlapping treatment aspects with the same mechanism of action. There is evidence that yoga, meditation, and hypnotherapy may partly draw their benefit from creating an absorbed state of attention combined with suggestions for change. This has implications for clinical application of these treatments in patients with GI disease. We propose studies on mechanisms of mind-body approaches to develop more efficacious and more precise treatments for GI diseases.