Lately we seem to be talking about stress in every area of our lives, but stress has a direct impact on our health so we need to take it seriously. It can cause gastrointestinal problems including bloating, cramping, inflammation and loss of appetite. It can also affect our digestive tract. Have you ever been so anxious about a situation that you had butterflies in your stomach? That is how stress affects the digestive tract. When you are under a threatening situation, the sympathetic nervous system, a part of the body’s nervous system which regulates bodily functions such as, breathing, the heartbeat and blood pressure, responds by triggering the “fight or flight response”, releasing cortisol, the stress hormone, to put the body into alert to face the threat. When stressed there are physiological changes in your body, your breathing becomes faster, your heart rates and you are in heightened state of awareness, your blood pressure gets elevated, your blood cholesterol rises and there is an increase in your muscle tension. When you are in that state of “flight or fight response” your digestive system can be affected by:
- Increasing the acid in your stomach, which
- will induce indigestion
- Will cause the oesophagus to go into spasms
- Will Make you feel nauseous Will give you diarrhoea or constipation.
Stress can also decrease the blood flow and oxygen to the stomach causing cramping, inflammation or imbalances of the gut bacteria. These symptoms can also develop into gastro intestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), irritable bowel disease (IBD) or peptic ulcers.
Practicing stress-management technics such as exercising regularly, socializing, getting at least seven hours sleep at night, and engaging on activities such as yoga or meditation, will help you reduce the stress levels and improve your gut health.
You can also support your digestive health by drinking less alcohol or consuming less refined sugar foods, as too much sugar can cause an imbalance in the ratio of good and bad bacteria in the stomach. You can also increase the intake of foods rich in probiotics such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh, kimchi, kombucha and pickles.
