What strategies can be used to ease stress on the stomach?
Put simply, the effect of stress and anxiety can be digestive shut-down! There is a strong connection between the gut and the brain. In fact, the gut contains the largest density of nerves outside the brain, with the digestive tract and the brain sharing many of the same nerve connections.
When you feel anxious, worried, or stressed, some of the hormones and chemicals this process releases in your body can interfere with your digestion, and negatively affect your stomach acid and the friendly gut bacteria that aids digestion. When this happens, it can lead to numerous digestive symptoms and conditions such as indigestion, stomach cramps, diarrhoea, constipation, loss of appetite and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
In addition to this, when we are stressed, blood is diverted away from the digestive tract, slowing the process of digestion. One impact of decreased digestion is reduced absorption of nutrients from food. This is particularly detrimental, as nutrients such as B vitamins, magnesium and calcium are needed for stress resilience!
On top of this, when we are anxious or stressed, a section of our brain called the amygdala is activated. This area is responsible for the memory of emotions, especially fear, and our response to them. When it's in charge, you are more likely to opt for sugary and fatty foods, which can worsen nutrient deficiencies and exacerbate digestive complaints.
However, fortunately there are certain techniques and methods you can use to lessen the impact of stress and anxiety on the digestive system, such as:
- Taking a look at your diet
- Assessing your meal-time situation
- Good eating mechanisms
- Guided relaxation exercises.
In today's blog, I'll take a look at these techniques and give advice on how to incorporate these into your daily routine.
1. Taking a look at your diet
When we are stressed and digestion is weaker, certain foods become harder for our bodies to deal with. Fried foods, refined sugar, dairy and chunks of meat are among a few which can cause issues; and many people often get some relief from their digestive symptoms when avoiding them.
This can also be the case for foods such as bread, pasta and biscuits, which many people default to when they are stressed. These foods may worsen symptoms of an anxious stomach, especially if they're eaten in large quantities.
To kick start better digestion, try including more bitter foods in your diet. Bitter foods include vegetables in the cruciferous family, such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, radicchio and arugula; fruits such as grapefruit and cranberries; and herbs like fresh young dandelion leaves. If you struggle to get in enough bitter wholefoods, herbal bitter drops can also be a helpful option.
If you are feeling anxious, bitter foods may help by stimulating the digestive system and improving the absorption of food. This is because bitters can trigger the production of stomach acid, which facilitates a variety of digestive processes. Bitters may also increase the production of digestive enzymes, which further helps the breakdown and absorption of foods.
In addition, it is thought that bitter foods may stimulate the growth of healthy gut bacteria, which could reduce the risk of digestive upsets. Finally, bitters may help stop the craving for sugary and salty foods, which can make a stress-y stomach worse!
When we hammer our tastes buds with refined sugar and salt, the receptor sites are overwhelmed and require more triggering – meaning that we crave these foods more! Switching to bitter tastes can be really productive in activating other receptor sites and breaking this cycle.
Including lots of nutritious bitter foods in the diet will not only improve digestion, it will also provide you with lots of essential nutrients. However, it is important to address the psychological reasons behind your anxiety or stress first, as if you are still struggling with these emotions, the body may be unable to absorb these nutrients as efficiently!
2. Assessing your meal-time situation
The atmosphere and setting in which you eat your meals has a huge impact on your stress levels, and therefore on the symptoms of an anxious tummy.
If, for example, you have a big family of youngsters, meal times may be a very tense time. It can often be difficult to get young children to sit still and eat calmly, so you may find that the situation becomes very chaotic and you never get to sit down, relax and enjoy your meals.
Likewise, if you eat whilst dealing with mentally or emotionally demanding situations, you will be in a similar boat. If you are working from home, there is a risk that you will eat your lunch quickly whilst trying to solve a work problem. Alternatively, you may find yourself running around trying to solve issues whilst eating. Neither of these situations are good for digestion or an anxious stomach.
Both physical (running around) and emotional (boss shouting at you/kids screaming) stresses will dial down digestive power, and one reason for this may be that you're not chewing properly!
When you chew food properly, your body produces gastrin, a digestive enzyme, and hydrochloric acid – both of which aid the digestion of proteins and also help to kill off bugs, making for a happy stomach! So, it really pays to set aside some to actively relax and set some time aside to eat (and chew) your meal in peace!
If you feel you need a helping hand to relax around meal time, Passiflora complex spray could be one to help.
3. Good eating mechanisms
When eating food, try and follow these helpful techniques. They will not only aid digestion, but should also allow you to feel more relaxed during mealtimes, and hopefully minimise symptoms of an anxious stomach!
- Chew each mouthful at least 20 times
- Always sit down to eat
- Sit up with your shoulders back to allow your stomach walls room to move
- Sit quietly for at least 5 minutes after eating, if possible
- Eat warm, cooked food in preference to cold, raw food – warm foods are a lot less harsh on the stomach, and easier to digest!
- Don't drink more than half a glass of any liquid within 30 minutes of food – drinking whilst eating dilutes your digestive enzymes. This will make it harder for you to tackle any food, especially those that require more digestion. This is even more the case if you're anxious and your digestive system has been weakened!
4. Guided relaxation exercises
As I previously touched on, it is important to address and work on the reasons behind your stress and anxiety when trying to resolve gut-related problems.
If you find that you've been worrying a lot recently and this is causing your stomach to feel anxious, a daily guided relaxation exercise may help.
Listening to a relaxation exercise can not only help you feel relaxed whilst doing it, but most people also experience a sense of calm that lasts throughout the rest of the day.
There is a lot of information and plenty of videos online, as well as applications which you can download onto your phone or tablet. The 'Headspace app', for example, gives excellent relaxation tips. From meditation techniques tailored to anxiety and stress, to tips on how to sleep better, there are so many strategies available on this app to help ease stress.
Breathing exercises can also be a beneficial way to physically force your body to reduce stress. Many people unknowlingly take short, shallow breaths, especially when stressed, and this can turn into a vicious cycle, increasing feelings of anxiety. Practicing deep breathing can help you learn how to take deeper breaths and, in doing so, help you feel more relaxed:
- Find a comfortable, quiet place. You could lie on your back in bed, on the floor with a pillow under your head, or sit on a comfortable chair
- Breathe in through your nose and let your belly fill with air
- Breathe out through your nose
- Place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly
- As you breathe in and out, feel your belly rising and lowering. The hand on your belly should move more than the hand on your chest
- Continue for a few minutes. Or, if you have extra time, try doing this for 10 minutes or more to get even greater benefits.
What you said!
We recently ran a poll to find out what you do to ease an anxious stomach. We've crunched the numbers and here are the results.
Results: What do you find eases an anxious stomach?
When we are stressed and digestion is weaker, certain unhealthy foods, such as fried foods and refined sugars, become harder for our bodies to deal with and can worsen symptoms of an anxious stomach. So, it is no surprise to see that 26.3% of you benefit from eating healthily when feeling anxious.
