Anxiety causes a significant amount of physical stress, and physical stress can have a profound effect on your body. You may not realize how often your anxiety affects you in ways that are otherwise not linked to anxiety, but you have probably realized that when you have anxiety, it's not uncommon to have serious digestion issues.
Indigestion is an irritating and sometimes painful anxiety symptom. It's one that researchers struggle to understand, but many have ideas for why anxiety leads to such problems with digestion.
Causes of Anxiety Indigestion
While only a doctor can diagnose the cause of your indigestion, there is no denying that anxiety has an effect on the stomach. The question is what causes that effect. This has been studied since the early 1900's, and yet there is very limited data as to what causes some of these digestion issues. Some theorize that indigestion is caused by:
- Changes in the Autonomic Nervous System: The best way to understand your body is to think of it like a perfectly run machine, where anything that disrupts the way it works causes the machine to work less efficiently. Anxiety activates the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system moves resources away from digestion in order to activate other processes in your brain, thus slowing digestion and making it less efficient.
- Neurotransmitters: While most people think of neurotransmitters as brain chemicals, the truth is that they - along with similar hormones - play a role in several areas of the body, including the gut. Serotonin levels, for example, are often related to anxiety, and changes in serotonin levels can also cause digestion issues like nausea.
- Adrenaline/Epinephrine: Adrenaline is constantly released during anxiety, because adrenaline is caused by your fight-or-flight system. Adrenaline also releases glucose from glycogen stores in your body.
- Stomach Acid: Anxiety and stress also appear to affect stomach acid. For most people this may not have much of an effect, but those who have a tendency to experience acid reflux may feel that their stomach acid symptoms get worse, and indigestion is one of those symptoms.
- Anxiety and Poor Diet: One also cannot rule out the idea that a poor diet can lead to both indigestion and anxiety. Those who aren't eating well may be more prone to anxiety symptoms, and it is often that you tend to eat unhealthy when you’re anxious. Speaking to a doctor or nutritionist about your diet may be valuable.
- General Anxiety Symptoms: Finally, anxiety itself may cause issues that seem like they're related to indigestion, but are actually other types of anxiety symptoms. Also, those with indigestion may be more prone to experience anxiety over their symptoms - especially if they have health anxiety, causing them to worry that their indigestion is "something more."
Strategies to Reduce Indigestion From Anxiety
Fighting indigestion is difficult, because your body is controlling the way that you are processing foods. Your anxiety can be reduced, but as long as you experience anxiety you're going to find that your indigestion continues.
The best place to start is by simply changing your diet to be healthier. This is important for your anxiety anyway, and a good tool for making sure that you're combatting your indigestion the best way you can. Make sure that you have ruled out any food-related causes by switching to a diet that is good for digestion - one with lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
You can also make sure that you're not sitting too much immediately after dinner. How you sit or lay down can affect digestion. Since those with anxiety are more prone to laying down and doing nothing (because stress drains their energy) it may be in your best interests to address that issue by walking around after eating or making sure to stand and let the food settle.
The Only True Cure
Of course, the most important factor is going to be how you deal with your anxiety. Only by curing your anxiety can you expect to stop the indigestion caused by these issues.
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