Can stress affect digestion?

Stress can impact every part of the body, including the digestive tract. When your brain senses stress, whether it’s the stress of an upcoming exam, a job interview, a full work inbox, or an attack by a huge tiger, it sends a distress signal. This signal reaches the adrenal glands, which secrete cortisol and adrenaline in response to this stress.

Cortisol diverts blood away from the digestive tract to the skeletal muscles to provide oxygen and nutrients to them in case you need to fight danger or run away from it.

While this is an advantage if you live in the middle of the woods (as humans did thousands of years ago), it’s an evolutionary process that we don’t necessarily need nowadays. In the modern day, a great deal of stress comes in the form of a heavy workload, relationship issues, or other life problems. We don’t generally need to use our skeletal muscles to run away from these things, but we still have that stress response that humans have developed over thousands of years in response to perceived danger.

Because of this ingrained stress response, your digestion receives less blood when you’re stressed. As a result, your digestion can slow down, and you can experience more abdominal bloating, discomfort or pain.

Everybody responds differently to stress, so some of you might not experience many digestive problems when you feel particularly stressed. However, some of you may be extra prone to bloating, constipation, or diarrhea when you’re anxious and stressed about things. This is particularly true if you already suffer from a chronic gastrointestinal disorder, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI).

Consider adding stress management techniques to help reduce negative digestive symptoms.