Digestive Discomfort Due To Anxiety

People who suffer from anxiety often lose their appetite completely, or conversely, cannot control the food they eat and binge.

Anxiety has become one of the problems with the greatest impact and prevalence in our environment in recent years. Psychologists try to explain that, in reality, it is a natural survival mechanism that, for certain reasons, is disturbed.

Although it is true that anxiety is within the category of psychological pathologies, its symptoms go far beyond all that. It can affect many aspects of the body. In fact, some of the common symptoms are those related to the digestive system.

It is estimated that around 260 million people in the world suffer from anxiety. A part of the population has digestive symptoms that originate from this problem, such as nausea or a heavy stomach.

Therefore, in this article we explain what are the digestive discomforts that can occur frequently in relation to anxiety. It is important to be able to detect these symptoms and control the pathology to gain quality of life.

What are the digestive discomforts caused by anxiety?

The truth is that anxiety affects each person differently. Still, most of the symptoms are related to a state of nervousness and tension. The expression ‘having butterflies in the stomach’, although it has a romantic connotation, can become a symptom of this pathology.

There are many digestive discomforts that can appear due to anxiety and stress. For example, it is very common to feel pain or pressure in the stomach area. But they not only affect that part of the body, but the symptoms appear in any region of the digestive system. Some of them are:

• Dry mouth
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Nausea and the urge to vomit
• Heavy digestions: accompanied by heartburn or heartburn
• Changes in eating habits: the person may feel the need to eat compulsively, in the form of bingeing, or they may lose their appetite completely
• Irritable bowel syndrome: it is a pathology that affects the large intestine and can cause abdominal cramps, changes in bowel habits and bloating

A possible problem with digestive upset anxiety is changes in eating habits. People who experience them and lose their appetite can become malnourished.

On the other hand, those who cannot control binge eating  have a higher risk of being obese or overweight. They can even end up leading to diabetes mellitus or dyslipidemia.

What to do to control these digestive discomforts?

Faced with this pathology, the first thing is to know that it is a disease like any other. We must strive to destigmatize mental problems and understand that there is nothing wrong with asking for help to try to solve it.

There are many types of therapies, and even medications, that help alleviate anxiety. In addition, there are also certain simple measures that would improve digestive discomfort.

First, it may be necessary to monitor your diet. The diet must be balanced and more or less constant, trying to create a fixed routine. It may also be advisable to choose light foods that do not create a very heavy digestion. For example, avoid saturated fat and processed products.

Specifically, studies in mice such as the one published in 2011 in the journal Neurogastroenterology & Motility indicate that probiotics could help relieve anxiety with intestinal symptoms through action on the vagus nerve.

But the truth is that all these measures that improve digestive discomfort will only be temporary. Digestive problems can become chronic if we do not reduce anxiety. Therefore, the most important thing will be to act at the root of the problem.

Anxiety as a digestive upset

Anxiety is a health problem that not only affects us psychologically, but can cause us numerous physical symptoms. Some of them are digestive discomfort, such as a tight stomach, nausea, and changes in appetite, while others are behavior changes, such as bingeing.

We should not be ashamed of feeling anxious. On the contrary, it is essential to seek help, since finding a suitable psychologist and a therapy that fits your personality can be of great help to significantly improve your quality of life.