Why do I get more digestive symptoms when I am stressed?

How Does Stress Affect Digestion?

Stress plays a major role in digestive symptoms and is one of the main reasons for IBS and reflux. It all comes down to how the body is designed to protect us when we are in danger. Our nervous system is split into two parts - we have our fight or flight side or our rest and digest side. When we are in danger the fight or flight side kicks in giving us the ability to run away from danger or fight if appropriate. Our heart rate increases and our body generates the energy we need to move. It also recognises that we don’t need to waste our energy on digesting our food and will stop the digestive process to conserve energy. In some severe cases it can also make us vomit or have an urgent poo, something you may have experienced during a shocking event. When we are not in danger our body should be in rest and digest mode helping us to breakdown our food and for the body to repair itself. Think of the two systems as a see saw when one is high the other is low. So if we are stressed we cannot digest our food as result.

What Is Stress?

In cavemen times the only danger was running away from things that might want to eat you and when this wasn’t needed the digestive process could work easily. These days we live such hectic lives that the body considers lots of things to be a cause of danger. Think of it as being constantly being hunted. As a result we spend so little time in rest and digest our poor stomach just cannot work properly. Busy work lives, financial stress, social media, news, disaster all combine to keep us from rest and digest. Eating food when stressed can mean that the digestion struggles to function and we often end up with those symptoms already mentioned.

 How Can We Help Our Digestion?

It can be difficult to get on top of this stress as some of it is not in our control - whilst changing jobs might be needed it is not always that simple. However, we can do things about some of the sources of stress to give our stomach a chance. We can disconnect from our phones/computers whilst we eat our food, we can not watch the news and so on. Just these little steps can have a big impact on how we digest our food. Additionally taking time to do some relaxing breathing exercises just before eating can help to support the process too.

Next time you are eating and feeling stressed give it a try and see how different it feels.