How exactly does stress affect your gut?
No conversation about gut health is complete without talking about stress.
Your nervous system is absolutely critical to the digestion and absorption of your food. The human gut is lined with more than 100 million nerve cells, so it makes sense that stress causes digestive problems right?
Does anyone know what the opposite of the “fight or flight” state of stress that we are all familiar with is called? “rest and digest”.
Your body does not easily manage stress and digesting food at the same time. Here are some ways that stress affects your ability to digest your food:
- SHUT DOWN: Stress can have varying effects on digestion. For the majority, it either fully or partially shuts the process down, leaving food sitting in your gut undigested for longer periods of time, often resulting in bloating and constipation. For some others, it can be a more acute response, whereby the body chooses to purge food while stressed, and cause bowel looseness or vomiting.
- REFLUX: The stress response can cause the trapdoor that closes off the esophagus from the stomach to spasm, causing stomach acid to make it’s way back up into the esophagus, causing it to burn the esophageal lining -reflux. This can be a silent condition, that can cause great harm.
- GUT BACTERIA: When your body is experiencing a stress response, the chemical reaction that is produced by a part of the nervous system (the sympathetic nervous system) wipes out a large proportion of your good gut bacteria. Over time, this can lead to a weakened immune system and systemic inflammation.
- REDUCED BLOOD FLOW: Another way the stress response can affect your digestive system is by decreasing overall blood flow to the body. When you are stressed, your blood flow is redirected to the brain and to the limbs, as the body perceives you are under attack. You need the blood directed to those parts of your body for quick thinking and fighting or fleeing. If your body is stressed while you are eating, due to eating too fast, eating in a negative emotional state, or eating too much, then it can cause your metabolism to slow down.
CORTISOL AND INSULIN: Stress chemistry produces two hormones that are part of this whole process – cortisol and insulin. These hormones that are released when you are stressed tell the body to store weight, store fat, and not build muscle.
So with what’s been happening all around us lately, do you think our guts are in the best state for digestion? Probably not. And are the solutions complex? They might feel it, when you’re spiralling and frenetic and don’t have any time for yourself, but a session with us can really help you to settle your nervous system and digest your food better -who wants that?
