How stress affects digestion

Does stress cause diarrhea?  Does stress cause constipation?

The answer is absolutely, yes it can.

If you feel like you get diarrhea or constipation when you’re feeling stressed, you may be right.  And if you have irritable bowel syndrome, this is 100% linked to stress and trauma.

How?  Keep reading!

Let’s start by talking about the nervous system.  There are two main branches that I want to talk about - the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

You’ve probably heard the term “fight or flight.”  When our body is under stress and poised for action, either to fight for our lives or to run away from a threat, the sympathetic nervous system is triggered.  This isn’t a bad thing, and stress isn’t a bad thing.  If you’re really under a threat, you need to able to protect yourself and to remove yourself from the dangerous situation.

We feel stressed because there is a threat in our environment. We don’t feel safe.

When the threat has ended, our body can move into the state of the parasympathetic nervous system - also called “rest and digest.”  This is a relaxed state where our body can focus on digesting our food, sleeping well and other things that are crucial to our wellbeing.

However, we live in a world of chronic stress:  work deadlines, fighting traffic, maybe arguing with a loved one, health issues (which put stress on your body), infections - you name it, you’ve probably dealt with it.

Stress can be physical - dealing with an illness, infection or injury creates inflammation in your body.  The inflammation helps your body cope with what’s going on.

Stress can be psychological - being in a toxic workplace, fighting with a loved one, dealing with illness or the passing of a family member.

Many of us have more than one thing going on at a time, where we may have multiple stressors happening at once.  If this feels like you, you’re not alone.

The connection between stress and our digestion

Why does stress affect our digestive system?

When our body is in rest-and-digest mode, triggering the parasympathetic nervous system, our food moves through our digestive system by what is called peristalsis - a series of contractions that the small and large intestines make to push food through.  Nutrients (vitamins and minerals) are extracted to be used by the body for building bones, forming red blood cells, and other vital tasks.

What happens with chronic stress

With chronic stress, the body is chronically in the fight-or-flight response triggering the sympathetic nervous system.  Peristalsis may not happen, and food may sit in the intestines instead of moving through, causing it to ferment.  This can lead to gas and bloating.

Chronic stress also drives an inflammatory response in body tissues, including in the intestines.  This inflammation leads to a condition called intestinal permeability, or leaky gut, where the junctions in the walls of the small intestine are compromised and foreign particles are able to leak through into the bloodstream.  This creates more and more inflammation, and compromises the immune system, potentially leading to health conditions such as autoimmune conditions.

You might not even know that this is happening under the surface.  The symptoms you may notice are the weight gain around the midsection while your body starts to store fat, digestive issues like diarrhea or constipation, bloating, gas, cramping - symptoms which feel like they’re our old friends. Your sleep is probably disrupted or non-existent, you’re exhausted and overwhelmed.

Your body doesn’t feel safe.

And when your body doesn’t feel safe, you will not digest food properly.  Remember how I mentioned above that the fight-or-flight response diverts energy to your arms and legs, in case you need to run away or fight off an attacker?  Digestion isn’t necessary when you need to run away from an attacker or fight for your life.  Digestion happens best when your body is at rest.

Chronic stress also throws our hormones out of whack. When cortisol is high, we tend to store fat.  Again, this is because the body doesn’t feel safe and it thinks that it needs to store food in case there’s a famine or other danger to your safety.  When we’re stressed, we tend to store fat in our midsection or belly - a sign that your cortisol is out of whack.

The stress hormone, cortisol, which is created when stress is high throws our blood sugar out of balance, which is another reason that stress can make us gain weight.

Trauma

If you have trauma in your past, like childhood abuse, you probably want to just put it behind you and forget that it ever happened.

I agree, that would be ideal.

Please know, however, that trauma stays in our body and if we don’t process it, through talk therapy, body work like massage or yoga, it can manifest as emotional eating, physical illness and digestive issues. This is because on a deep level your body is still in fight-or-flight mode, uncertain where the next trauma might be coming from.  It’s the same as what I described above - your body isn’t in a place of safety.

Studies are now showing the connection between unhealed trauma and digestive conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other digestive disorders.

Often with irritable bowel syndrome, doctors diagnose it after ruling out other conditions, in effect saying that they don’t know what’s wrong so they are going to call it IBS.  You’ll be given guidance on going to a low FODMAP diet (I can help with this!) but rarely will you be given advice on reducing your stress level or increasing your stress resilience (I can help with those things too!).

So what can I do?

The first step is to become aware of when you’re feeling stressed.  Pay attention to your body signs such as diarrhea or constipation, a tight feeling in your shoulders or neck, headaches and other signs that you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Get to know how your body feels when you’re feeling stressed. For me, when I was in a highly stressful job, I noticed that my right arm and hand would shake when I was in meetings. It was a sign that I had to pay attention to. I started to notice that my stress level was very high.

When you start noticing that you’re feeling stressed, you can support your nervous system by intentionally shifting into the parasympathetic mode.  To do this, do some deep breathing, go for a walk in nature, play some relaxing music, and cultivate gratitude - write down three things you’re grateful for.  Where you feel tightness in your muscles, stretch it out.  Shake your hands out. Take a breath.

Practice mindful eating.  Try not to eat on the run, in your car, or at your desk at work, or in front of the TV.  Sit down at the table and create a ritual.  Even if you live alone, try not to multi-task when you’re eating.  (I’m guilty of this myself.)  Pay attention to how your food smells and tastes.  Take time to enjoy each bite.

Use stress management techniques every day.  Move your body, whether that’s cardio exercise or dancing, yoga, or walking.  Find ways to connect with nature.

Support your digestion by reducing processed foods and eating real food.  I know it’s hard when we’re stressed and in a rush because the easiest thing is to get take-out or buy a frozen meal, but our gut loves real food. 

Eat gut-healing fermented foods like kimchi and kombucha to support your microbiome.

Get to sleep at a decent time every night, instead of staying up late working or staring at a screen.

Work with a practitioner to take a holistic approach to heal your digestion and practice stress resilience to manage your stress.  I help people with digestive issues calm their bodies and feel better - click here to place a free call with me to learn how I can help.

Give yourself time but don’t give up.  You’re not alone and there are solutions.