When Stress Kicks You In The Gut

Have you ever had your gut betray you when you’re nervous, on the verge of panic, or simply feeling out of your depth? Stress can really play footsies with your digestion and often won’t spare you from a good kick or two.

Hippocrates: “All diseases begin in the gut.” It’s been over two thousand years; still, Hippocrates is right. The stomach holds the key to good health. Our gut flora is a finely honed balance of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes which helps our digestive system absorb nutrients and keeps harmful invaders of their kind out.  An imbalance in this system in which bad bacteria overwhelm the good ones throws the body out of whack; and thus, starts the individual on the sick road to nutritional deficiency, immune system breakdown, toxic build-ups, and the like, all gateways to numerous illnesses or diseases. When Stress Hits The Fan When stress attacks, our digestive system usually takes a huge wallop. Stress triggers that “fight or flight” response which immediately raises your blood pressure and shunts blood over to your limbs and brain. The body goes into a survival tactic, largely forgetting your abdominal area by leaving it without much blood allocation. Your digestive system goes into a shut-down because the prime directive now is to fight or flee, not digest. While this response is highly crucial in the short-term for human survival, it takes its toll when stress becomes chronic. The digestive system is not designed to take prolonged shut-downs. Stress interferes with digestive functions.  It can cause an imbalance in gut flora by which good microbes are flushed out of the intestinal tract. This is a red flag because as mentioned, balance to our digestive flora is key to good health. It isn’t uncommon to feel nauseous or have a stomach upset when you are feeling very anxious. Our parasympathetic system closely allies our nervous system to our digestive one. When prolonged stress hinders our digestive system, our body pays with:

• Imbalanced gut flora – This paves the way for infections and diseases to set up shop.
• Increased levels of bad cholesterol
• Increased levels of triglycerides
• Lowered levels of oxygen in the digestive tract
• Decreased capacity for nutrient absorption
• Decreased metabolism
• Increased allergic reactions and food sensitivities
• Huge decrease in productions of enzymes

With these consequences comes a host of a lot more:

• Excretion of important vitamins and nutrients.  For instance, a stressed person’s body can excrete 60-75.  mg. of calcium within the hour of the onset of anxiety.
• Development of Metabolic Syndrome – a group of conditions that can give rise to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  These include high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and a huge waistline.
• Diarrhoea, constipation, bloating, and flatulence
• Nausea

The Mind-Gut Connection

A stressed mind affects your digestive system; but, your digestive system affects your mind as well. How is that? About 80% of serotonin, a neurotransmitter largely responsible for mood balancing, libido, appetite, and sleep is, believe it or not, produced by the intestinal tract. Only a small percentage is manufactured by our brain.

Persistent stress lowers serotonin levels in your gut.  Low serotonin levels, in turn, leaves a stressed person exhausted, unable to sleep well, with a much lowered appetite for food and sex, and ultimately depressed.

This is why it is very important to take care of our digestive system.  A healthy digestive system can give you an enormous advantage when faced with stress.

Combat Stress By Keeping A Healthy Gut

Your gut will thank you for eating smart. Give it at least 30 grams of fibre-rich food daily. Fibre can be sourced from vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes. Reduce processed foods to a once-in-a-blue- moon treat. Take lots of water but limit alcohol, caffeine, and other diuretics. In addition, watch those killer fats and sugar. Developing an eating discipline will pay loads, health-wise.

Exercise as well. A well-planned program will strengthen abdominal muscles and reduce intestinal sluggishness.

Kick those ciggies out of your habits. Smoking promotes acid reflux, heartburn, peptic ulcers, and other gastrointestinal issues. Cancer may pop up as one of those serious consequences. The short-term pleasure just isn’t worth the bad payback.

It is noteworthy to mention that women should take special care of their digestive health. Because women are generally more emotional than men, women feel the burdens of angst more and are therefore more vulnerable to stress’ side effects.

Stress is inevitable because life never was made to be a bed of roses. What we need to do is learn how to blunt the thorns life sometimes takes such perverted delight in needling us with.

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What to Avoid before Going to Bed

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of sleep to our health, particularly on how it helps the immune system. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a good night's sleep every night. At times, it even seems so difficult trying to fall asleep despite lying in bed for more than 20 minutes. Or, on other occasions, you might find yourself waking up several times in the middle of the night that it would feel as though you never slept at all.

While this usually happens when you're sick, other times it could also be caused by your activities just before you went to bed. So if you want to make sure you're going to be able to sleep immediately and enjoy a restful night, here are some things to avoid before hitting the sack.

Going to Bed Hungry

If you're heading to bed hungry, chances are you can't really fall asleep right away since your hunger will keep you up. On the other hand, if you do fall asleep immediately (perhaps because you're too burnt out?), your hunger will begin to wake you up during the night. You're most likely going to end up with a disturbed sleep because your brain is going to keep reminding you that you need to eat.

The trick to avoid this is to not skip on food in the evening. Even snacking on a bowl of oatmeal an hour before bedtime will avoid that hunger signal in the middle of the night – and oatmeal can also help you sleep better! It's also a good idea to have a healthy snack on your bedside table that you can readily grab if you get hungry at 2 am. A good example would be a banana or a few pieces of whole grain, sugar-free crackers.

Too Much Fluid Intake

Excessive fluid intake before bedtime will send you to the toilet several times during the night – which means you'll keep getting up. In addition, alcoholic beverages and caffeine should be avoided as it won't just wake you up to visit the loo, but also keep your mind busy and your body restless. Not really something you want if you're planning on getting a deep sleep all throughout the night.

Eating Sugary Foods

Consuming foods high in sugar will stimulate your brain and keep you energised, which is a no-no during bedtime. So instead of grabbing that last slice of blueberry cheesecake and can of soda, have a cup of chamomile tea an hour before sleeping for that relaxed mood.

Thoughts about Work

Work is another way to stimulate your brain and can even bring you stress. So if you want to have a good night's sleep without having to spend some thirty minutes in bed thinking about what else you need to do for tomorrow, it's best to leave work for the next day.

Intense Physical Activities

It has been said several times that exercise can help you relax and prepare your body for bedtime. But this is only true if you're training 4 hours before bedtime and not an hour before. This is because your temperature will rise and your body will feel energised which, again, isn't what you need when going to bed.

However, if your timing is right, your body will be prepared for bedtime once the energy levels have begun to go down.

Looking for Missing Stuff

Have you ever had that experience when you start looking for something and you can't find it, then it seems like it's haunting you even in your sleep? Well, that's how a stimulus works on your brain. 

Trying to look for missing stuff right before heading to bed is similar to challenging your brain to solve something – and if it can't solve it, it will continue to try figuring things out. It's no surprise that you can't fall asleep immediately without thinking about it or that you end up being awoken in the middle of the night thinking about that lost stuff, with you losing sleep in return.

Confronting People

Intense emotions, especially negative ones, will not help in getting a peaceful sleep. Instead of confronting people, take it off your mind and sleep it off. Not only will you save yourself from the troubles of restlessness in the middle of the night and unnecessary analysis of the situation, it will also give you some time to relax, feel better and be more ready to talk to people the next day.

Did I miss anything or do you have an idea you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments section.