IBS is classified as a disorder of gut-brain interaction, and once I stopped thinking of it as purely a gut problem, things moved. There's a pilot trial that looked at a Bifidobacterium longum strain alongside mood scores and brain-activity measures — that two-way idea reframed everything for me. I combined a consistent eating rhythm, a targeted probiotic, and actual stress work (I'd always skipped that part). I tracked bloating and mood together, and the interesting thing was watching them move as a pair — bad stress days still showed up in my gut, but the baseline for both climbed. Responses are very individual, so this is just my n-of-1 — but tracking both halves is what finally showed me the pattern.