Have you ever found that on days you feel a heightened sense of stress you also feel bloated? You’re not the only one curious about does stress cause bloating! There are links between stress and bloating that can often go unnoticed or unknown to most people.
Your digestive tract and gut health are strongly linked to your stress through your cortisol levels (stress hormones). So let’s dive into the connection between abdominal bloating and your stress levels.
What is bloating?
First off, let’s chat about what bloating is. Bloating is often thought of as the enlarging of your abdomen that makes it feel full and tight and is usually due to an excess of gas. Feeling bloated is an uncomfortable sensation, and often most folks look to gas pills or digestive aids to help with finding relief from the discomfort and stomach pains.
Often folks attribute this pain to digestive problems, which honestly can be the cause behind the stomach pain. However, there could also be a connection between your abdominal pain and stress levels that could be causing the bloat.
So what are some common causes of bloating? Some common causes behind bloating can be constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, food intolerance, gas, menstruation, pregnancy, high-fiber foods, soda, and indigestion. One that is not as commonly spoken about how bloating our body’s stress response.
Now how do mental stress and mental health link to creating physical symptoms in the body such as bloating?
Well, there are several factors that can contribute to this such as stress slowing down your digestive tract which can cause digestive symptoms such as bloating. For other stress can speed up digestion in the GI tract and cause bloating due to increased gas and diarrhea.
Stress can also provide medical conditions such as irritable bowel disease cause a flare in digestive issues, and can also increase the risk of stomach ulcers.
How does this connect to stress?
Stress is something we all experience, it can be in short spurts or long-term or chronic stress. Some stress can be small and simple to manage, while other times it can be intense stress that takes over. So what is stress?
Stress is feeling worried, anxious, or feeling a mental weight caused by a certain situation or a build-up of several situations and events. We can feel stressed when feeling an increase in pressure due to external or internal factors.
Stress can get a bad rep quickly, but some low stress in our lives is good. It keeps us challenged, and feeling motivated, encourages problem-solving, and often drives us to live happy and healthy lives.
So how does stress affect the body? Stress can often harm the body, it can increase your heart rate, slow or speed up your digestive process, promote acid reflux, increase irritability, nausea, fatigue, high blood pressure, sickness, memory problems, depression, chest pains, tightened muscles, weight gain and much more!
Our body’s system often goes into a fight or flight response to handle the effects of stress. This reaction prepares the body to flee or fight the current situation, or stressor in daily life.
While stress in small doses can be positive, long term and prolonged high levels of stress can cause and promote a more serious condition in the body. These can include heart disease, heart attack, stroke, gut problems, obesity, and increased blood pressure.
So how does this connect to the gut? Let’s dive into that!
The Gut-Brain Connection
Did you know that most people think of your gut as the second brain? Similar to the brain it’s a busy system with lots of chemicals and cells being moved around to help the body digest.
Additionally, it sends signals to the brain when there are concerns. These can be common symptoms such as stomach discomfort to inflammatory bowel disease symptoms. Signals get passed both ways between the brain and the gut and one’s health can impact the other.
How does this connect to stress? When we encounter a stress trigger our body’s response to the stress is to send signals to the gut through the autonomic nervous system. This means that psychological stress can have impacts on your digestive tract when the brain recognizes stress.
If you have concerns about your gut-brain axis connection it is a good idea to speak to your healthcare provider for treatment options for dealing with stress. When possible reducing interaction with stressful situations will help with your gut.
Other factors that can cause bloating
Now is stress the only factor that can affect your digestive system? Certainly not. Stomach bloating can be caused by other factors such as diet, nutrition, lifestyle, and medical conditions – for example, IBS symptoms.
These factors can all contribute to your central nervous system responding to stress and handling the pressures of everyday life. Some things are in our control such as diet, exercise, and using relaxation techniques.
However, things such as your menstrual cycle, family history, ongoing and chronic stomach issues, and other medical condition(s) can play a role in how you handle stress and in turn the impact on your gastrointestinal tract which causes bloating.
Coping Strategies
There are some simple and easy ways at home to help reduce stress and combat excess bloating. Here are a couple you can try to help with relaxation, and some simple lifestyle changes.
– taking a bubble bath
– working out, stretching, walking
– reducing dairy, processed foods, and fast food
– yoga, meditation, journaling, affirmations
– increasing daily water intake
– reducing caffeine and sugar intake
– deep breathing
– art, music, drawing, crafts, reading
– dance, at-home workouts, playing with children/ pets
These are just some examples of ways to help reduce stress. You cannot do one of these one time and expect your stress to go *poof*.
Reducing stress, and bloating, is something that requires time and attention to your stress levels and addressing stress as you can. For example, diaphragmatic breathing takes time to learn how to do properly, and applying it at times of stress is another skill that takes time.
It’s important to speak to a healthcare provider if you have concerns about your stress levels and bloating. I hope this helped you learn more about stress cause bloating.
Leave a Reply