Have you ever felt a particular orchestra playing in your stomach?
A tiny sound, a rattle, or tightness?
It is your body telling you something, reacting to something, and that something could be stress. Stress for a short time makes you not want to eat anything, while long term stress can cause a disturbance in your digestion.
The stomach and brain are strongly linked.
If you see your favorite food, your stomach will instantly start to churn and contract to signal and forcing you to eat it.
Do this exercise, think of your favorite ice cream or food, and you’ll instantly start to salivate, preparing yourself to eat it. If such an impact happens on thinking of something, imagine what happens in your stomach when you are under stress.
When a person is in stress, his body tries to cope up with it. Stress burns your calories, making you feel tired. The brain, in return, signals the liver to produce more and more glucose to give energy to the body to overcome the tiredness.
This excess amount of glucose increases the risk of diabetes.
Stress is responsible for the irregular movement of the food in your digestive tract, being the cause for constipation and diarrhea.
Watch these videos to know How stress wekanes your immune system and 10 ways to deal with stress.
Cortisol is a stress hormone which for the time being, diverts the brain towards the stress overlooking the rest of the routine functions of digestion.
Now you know why you feel sick, nauseous, or get stomach problems, it is because of the irregular movement in the intestines.
Stress causes an increase in the level of acid production inside the stomach. This not only causes acid reflux or indigestion, but the rise in acid may burn the protective lining of your stomach; the problem called ulcer.
There is a nerve called the vagus nerve.
One of its responsibility is to control the process of digestion, that is secretion of fluids to help in digestion and absorption of the broken down food to provide energy.
Stress affects the entire system and cycle of the vagus nerves, which results in unabsorbed strength, not properly digested food and stomach pain.
The tightness you feel in your throat while swallowing the saliva or food is due to stress. Stress causes the esophagus to contract involuntarily, making you feel sick and nauseous.
Stress affecting your digestion can be seen on your face, due to lack of nutrients your skin becomes dull, you appear weaker than usual and tired. When stress is prolonged, it causes many severe effects in the gut.
Lower supply of blood and oxygen results in the imbalance of the bacteria in the stomach, which then causes critical health problems; Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), peptic ulcer, and Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Try to stay stress-free or do exercise and meditation to cope up with the stress. Your face is a reflection of your stomach; if the stomach is healthy, the look is bright and happy.
Tell us in the comments how your stomach reacts to stress and how you manage to cope up with it.
Until Next time,
Team Doctor ASKY!