While anxiety is often associated with mental and emotional-based symptoms, there are numerous physical ways in which it can manifest which can be just as life-altering. You may be familiar with many ways anxiety can rear its ugly head, but an emerging symptom is stomach pain from anxiety. This sort of pain can be disconcerting and dense, leaving many to wonder how an emotional experience like that could manifest as real physical agony. We discuss all of this in more detail, but let us review some seldom-discussed facts and explore the sensation of anxiety stomach pain, how it works, and what to do about it from a broad perspective.
The Gut-Brain Connection: The Missing Puzzle Piece
The brain-gut connection is a great deal more powerful than most people suspect. Labelled as the gut-brain axis, this intricate communication pathway explains why stress or anxiety can affect the digestive system. Here, your ‘second brain – the gut’ contains millions of neurons and produces 90% of the body’s serotonin, a ‘happy neurotransmitter,’ more than the rest of our body organs! However, when anxiety is triggered, this connection can get disrupted possibly leading to symptoms like gastritis, nausea, bloating etc.
What’s fascinating and less commonly discussed is how anxiety alters the gut microbiome, the diverse community of bacteria living in the intestines. Anxiety can disturb the balance of this microbiome, leading to digestive issues. This imbalance causes discomfort and it would also intensify feelings of anxiety, creating a vicious cycle.
What Does Anxiety Stomach Pain Actually Feel Like?
Anxiety induced stomach pain differs for all people, but falls into broad categories including:
- Knots or Tightness: “A stomach tied in knots” is a way that many of us experience this emotion. It is actually caused by stomach muscles involuntarily contracting in response to the stress hormones released during anxiety. Arguably the most prevalent symptom of period pain, cramping — often described as dull but intense — continues for minutes to hours.
- Burning Sensation: Stomach pain accompanied by a burning sensation, not unlike acid reflux. This is because the body pumps out more stomach acid when it’s stressed, which results in irritation of the stomach lining and causes a gnawing, burning, or uncomfortable sensation in your gut.
- Sharp Pains: Sometimes anxiety can give your abdomen sharp, stabbing pains. The pain with this type is usually sporadic, coming on suddenly and then disappearing just as quickly. While alarming, usually these sharp pains are simply due to spasms in the muscles of your digestive tract.
- Nausea: Experiencing bouts of nausea is common for those with anxiety. Additionally, the stomach pain that accompanies it often feels like a sense of disgust or a strong desire to vomit. The gag response is connected to the fifth cranial nerve (the trigeminal nerve) but even more so with the tenth, the vagus nerve, which partly controls digestion and is heavily impacted during perceived stress.
- Bloating and Gas: Anxiety can either slow or speed up digestion, causing you to have little to no bowel movements and major gas accumulation, resulting in bloating. And this is particularly true for individuals who live with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), an ailment that has been concretely connected to anxiety.
Why Does Anxiety Cause Stomach Pain?
One of the main factors in which anxiety causes stomach pain is through the fight or flight response, a physiological reaction meant to support the body during stress. When the brain notices a threat, it sends messages to release stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) to prepare the body. The released hormones shut down non-essential processes in the body, such as digestion, and redirect blood flow to the muscles and cardiovascular system for action. Eventually, digestion crashes to a halt or slows down and the result is cramping, bloating and pain that many people feel.
The vagus nerve is the longest in the body and runs from the brain to abdomen, a very interesting aspect of anxiety with a lot more research needed to work out. The vagus nerve becomes hyperactive as stress levels increase, leading to a digestive domino effect with symptoms such as nausea, stomach pain, and vomiting. A low vagal tone — which is an indicator of how well the vagus nerve is functioning — has been linked to anxiety-related digestive problems.
Rare Insights: How Anxiety Can Disrupt Digestive Enzymes
A very rare and intriguing thing to know is that stress can affect the creation of gut enzymes and gastric acids. We tend to secrete fewer digestive enzymes (vital for the breakdown of food) when we are anxious. This disrupts digestion, which complicates the absorption of nutrients by the body and can too often deepen stomach ache.
Yet another unappreciated contributor is leaky gut syndrome, otherwise known as increased intestinal permeability. Stress has been known to open up the gut lining, causing bacteria and toxins to enter the bloodstream. This not only adds to digestive discomfort but also increases systemic inflammation, which is involved in the etiology of more severe long-term health issues.
How to Manage Anxiety-Induced Stomach Pain
Stress causes changes in our physiology that can affect stomach processes, but alleviating anxiety-related stomach pain is possible.
Breathe: Controlled breathing opens your parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for calming the gut and relieving pain.
Probiotics: If I could offer one word of advice to retain on your journey back to health, it is this: probiotics, this is the pro-bacteria that help create a more balanced gut ecosystem and digestive system.
Peppermint Tea: It relaxes the stomach muscles which in turn can ease bloating and cramping.
Exercise: Gentle exercise like walking can help to stimulate digestion and loosen gas.
Mindfulness Meditation: Practice mindfulness as it will help you reduce the overall impact of anxiety on the gut.
Conclusion
Stress manifests in a lot of ugly ways, and one of the first things to go is my stomach. This type of cramp ranges from mild discomfort to intense cramping, burning, or nausea, driven by the complex gut-brain axis and how the body responds to stress. Learning how anxiety can cause stomach symptoms and increase emotional symptoms can help you control both the mental and physical aspects of anxiety. Fortunately, you can both lessen the discomfort and bring balance back between your brain and gut with some strategizing.
Thank you for reading my article on the “What Does Anxiety Stomach Pain Feel Like?“. I’d love to hear your thoughts or comments below.