How Stress Affects Digestion
Health ConditionsDigestive Health

How Stress Affects Digestion

Stress can cause a range of gastrointestinal problems including cramping, bloating, and a loss of appetite. Find out how to keep stress levels down to protect your gut.
How Stress Affects Digestion
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Updated on September 7, 2023
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Have you ever had to make a “gut-wrenching" decision under pressure? Or were you ever so anxious that you had butterflies in your stomach? If so, then you know how stress can affect your digestive system.

The brain and the gut are connected and constantly in communication. In fact, more neurons reside in the gut than in the entire spinal cord.

"Stress can affect every part of the digestive system," says Kenneth Koch, MD, professor of medicine in gastroenterology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The gut is controlled in part by the central nervous system in the brain and spinal cord. In addition, it has its own network of neurons in the lining of the gastrointestinal system, known as the enteric or intrinsic nervous system.

The enteric nervous system, along with its 100 million nerve cells that line your gastrointestinal tract from your esophagus to your rectum, regulates digestive processes like:

  • Swallowing
  • The release of enzymes to break down food
  • The categorization of food as nutrients or waste products

Stress can significantly impact the way your body carries out these processes.

What Happens When Your Body Is Stressed?

When presented with a potentially threatening situation, the sympathetic nervous system — a part of the body’s autonomic nervous system, which regulates bodily functions like the heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure — responds by triggering a “fight-or-flight response,” releasing the stress hormone cortisol to make the body alert and prepared to face the threat.

Stress causes physiological changes, like a heightened state of awareness, faster breathing and heart rates, elevated blood pressure, a rise in blood cholesterol, and an increase in muscle tension.

When stress activates the fight-or-flight response in your central nervous system, Dr. Koch says that it can affect your digestive system by:

  • Causing your esophagus to go into spasms
  • Increasing the acid in your stomach, which results in indigestion
  • Making you feel nauseous
  • Giving you diarrhea or constipation

In more serious cases, stress may cause a decrease in blood flow and oxygen to the stomach, which could lead to cramping, inflammation, or an imbalance of gut bacteria. It can also exacerbate gastrointestinal disorders, including:

"Although stress may not cause stomach ulcers or inflammatory bowel disease, it can make these and other diseases of digestion worse," Koch says. So it’s important to take measures to be in control during stressful situations and find ways to keep yourself calm.

5 Ways to Manage Stress

There are both psychological and physical ways to manage stress. But the same stress relieving technique might not work for everyone. Here are five options you can try:

1. Get Regular Exercise

Physical activity relieves tension and stimulates the release of chemicals in your brain called endorphins, which act as natural painkillers. Endorphins improve sleep, which can help relieve stress.

"It’s one of the best ways to manage stress and maintain healthy digestion," Koch says. In one study examining the relationship between exercise and anxiety symptoms, researchers randomly assigned 286 people with anxiety into three groups: one of which participated in a three month exercise program of moderate-to-high intensity training sessions three times per week, another who participated in the same number of sessions over the same period of time but at a lower intensity, and a non-exercise control group.

 At the end of the study period, both exercise groups experienced greater improvements in anxiety symptoms compared with the control group, leading researchers to conclude that even low-intensity physical activity has greater benefits for anxiety than being sedentary.

2. Consider Psychotherapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a technique that has been proven to help reduce anxiety and stress by helping you learn to replace negative, distorted thoughts with positive ones. One study looked at the effectiveness of CBT on quality of life, anxiety, and depression in those with IBD.

 Patients with IBD who reported low quality of life were randomly assigned a CBT intervention along with standard medical care for three and a half months. When compared with a control group, people with IBD who received CBT reported higher quality of life and lower levels of depression and anxiety.
Other research has looked at the effects of CBT on IBS, including GI symptoms, psychological distress, and quality of life. A study of 558 adults with the GI disorder found that CBT led to a sustained improvement in IBS symptoms for up to 24 months, suggesting the therapy has both short and long-term benefits.

3. Yoga

This mind-body practice combines physical poses with breathing techniques and meditation. Women who engaged in hour-long hatha yoga classes three times a week for 12 sessions achieved significant reductions in stress, anxiety, and depression.

 Research also shows that yoga can lower blood pressure and heart rate.
Yoga can also be beneficial for people with digestive disorders. One review determined that yoga is a helpful intervention for relieving stress, anxiety, and depression and improving quality of life in people with IBD.

4. Meditation

There are many meditation techniques that can help you focus your mind on an object, activity, or thought to help you achieve calmness. Although the goal of meditation is not stress reduction, that is a side effect of this ancient practice.

One review looked at the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on resilience to stress in college students.

 Eight weekly Mindfulness Skills for Students (MSS) interventions were randomly administered to students for 75 to 90 minutes, focusing on mindfulness exercises and periods of self-reflection. At the end of the intervention, students in the MSS group reported lower levels of stress.

5. Develop Time-Management Skills

An important part of stress reduction is self-care. For many, this involves managing your time as effectively as possible. A study looked at the relationships between time management, anxiety, and academic motivation in 441 nursing school students using self-reported questionnaires and scales.

 Students who did a poor job managing their time had higher levels of anxiety and less academic motivation than individuals who were better time managers.

You can improve your time-management skills by:

  • Knowing your deadlines
  • Planning ahead
  • Setting goals
  • Avoiding procrastination

The Takeaway

  • Your brain and gut are closely connected. Chronic stress can take a toll on your health, specifically your digestive system.
  • Stress can affect your digestion, leading to nausea and indigestion, or triggering conditions such as IBS and GERD.
  • Lifestyle changes and mind-body practices, like exercise, yoga, and meditation, can help you manage stress.
  • For those with chronic stress and digestive issues, consider asking a healthcare provider to recommend strategies to help you maintain a healthy digestive system.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. The Enteric Nervous System. Neuroscience.
  2. Galante J et all. A mindfulness-based intervention to increase resilience to stress in university students (the Mindful Student Study): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Public Health. February 2018.
  3. Henriksson M et all. Effects of exercise on symptoms of anxiety in primary care patients: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Affective Disorders. January 15, 2022.
  4. Everitt H et all. Cognitive behavioural therapy for irritable bowel syndrome: 24-month follow-up of participants in the ACTIB randomised trial. Lancet Gastroenterol Hepatology. November 2019.
  5. Shohani M et all. The Effect of Yoga on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Women. International Journal of Prevention Medicine . February 21, 2018.
  6. Kaur S et all. Yoga in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Narrative Review. Crohn's & Colitis 360. April 14, 2022.
  7. Ghiasvand A et all. Relationship between time management skills and anxiety and academic motivation of nursing students in Tehran. Electron Physician. January 2017.