Can Stress Impair Digestion/ Gut Health ?
Stress And Digestion Connection
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
Hippocrates
Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system of our body. It creates a fight and flight response, which can blood flow away from the digestive system and towards other parts of the body for adaptation. Long-term stress can cause many physiological changes in our body, such as decreased blood flow to the digestive organs, decreased enzyme production for digestion and absorption of nutrients, and increased inflammation in the digestive system ( impairs gut health )
Stress can lead to changes in diet and lifestyle:
Lack of exercise
Junk food diet
Increased sugary food intake
Maladaptive behavioural patterns like self-blame create a vicious cycle of negativity.
Poor sleep hygiene
More screen time
Lack of discipline
Stress and Diet & Lifestyle changes will cause:
Poor digestion
Acidity
Heartburn
Bloating
Other digestive issues
There is a bidirectional relationship between stress and digestive health, where stress can negatively impact our digestion, and poor digestion negatively impacts our stress levels. Stress can cause changes in the composition of gut bacteria; stress causes Hyperpermeable gut, or leaky gut, which can lead to digestive issues such as constipation, Acidity, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Poor gut health is related to poor digestion; inadequate digestion leads to nutritional deficiencies and increased inflammation in our system. The brain needs micronutrients and macronutrients to synthesise our neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which keeps us happy. If we have inflamed intestines and nutrient deficiencies, the gut-brain axis will get affected, leading to poor brain health. So we need to restore our gut health ( digestive wellness ) to restore our brain health.
We need to manage stress effectively to prevent these changes. If digestion is affected by long-term stress, we need to manage stress and digestion together to restore brain health.
