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Have you ever noticed how your emotion affects your gastrointestinal tract? Stress can have mild to serious effects according to counselorsinbuffalony.com/
You might have experienced the feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you are anxious about an upcoming exam or interview. The sensation of wanting to vomit when you smell something nasty or something you don’t like or how the sight of blood makes you feel like throwing up or want to faint.
The stress you feel as you see, smell, and think about things is what’s causing you to feel all these nausea and vomiting sensations. Stress dramatically affects our digestive system because our gastrointestinal tract is very much like our brain wherein it relies on the same neurotransmitters and neurons to be able to do its functions wholly and correctly. What is fed in our mind has a direct effect on our GI system.
No Big Or Small Stress
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Feeling stressed, whether chronic or just simple tension, affects our gastrointestinal tract health. Psychological stress can impede GI tract contraction and may cause inflammation, and when this occurs, we become more susceptible to infections.
Symptoms Caused By Stress
Upset stomach, reflux, irritable bowel, cramps, pain, and other distressing symptoms of the gastrointestinal tract are most often our guts’ natural reaction to stress. Try reducing your emotional pressure to minimize the damage it may cause to your body.
Strategies To Reduce Stress
Stress can sometimes be manageable, but often they are uncontrollable which results in you suffering from moodiness, feeling anxious, and lack energy, thus, resulting in GI distress and other related symptoms. Protect your body by getting rid of stress doing the following strategies:
- Meditation. Try doing quiet meditation exercises at least once a week. When practicing deep breathing, blood oxygen level and circulation are multiplied thus helping your digestive system function more normally, preventing cramps, bloating, and gas. Meditation also helps change our mindset to avoid overeating and in making good food choices.
- Diary. Putting your thoughts and feelings into writing is an excellent method of letting out everything that makes you stressed. Keeping a journal allows you to clear the clutters on your mind and renew your thinking. Throwing out your negative thoughts will make you feel lighter and happier.
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- Make To-Do List. Organizing tasks help you manage stress by knowing what to prioritize in your never-ending to-do list. Identifying what is doable at the moment can also help you be more productive and feel accomplished. No matter how heavy the load is, things will seem manageable when there is order in it.
Stress is a threat to our whole being. It can make us immobile, unproductive, and unaccomplished. From these feelings will root many diseases of the digestive system which will make life a burden to you and the people around you.
Stress is manageable by exercising, meditating, keeping a diary, and keeping your things and your schedule organized.
If you think that your stress has reached that point where it’s unmanageable, it’s time that you speak to a therapist. Talking to a trusted person or a professional counselor can help you ease and lessen your stress.