Is stress making you bloated?

It’s a strange idea when you put it like that. Stress isn’t the first thing you would think about if you're suffering from uncomfortable bloating. You are more likely to wonder what it was you ate that disagreed with you. Often the first two food groups that people focus on to improve gastrointestinal symptoms are wheat/gluten and dairy. But what if your bloating has nothing to do with what you're putting in your body and is actually all about how you're feeling and what’s going on in your mind. 

‘How on earth can my thoughts make my belly bloated?’ I hear you cry. It’s a new way of looking at things and to understand how this could happen I need to explain the gut-brain axis. The gut-brain axis is the biochemical signaling that takes place between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system. The brain, the gut and the microbes within the gut communicate with each other. Emeran Mayer in his book ‘The Mind-Gut connection’ illuminates the process and explains how these three elements talk to each other in a shared biological language. 

The microbes listen in as the brain signals to the gut how stressed you are and then they send signals back to the brain reinforcing or sometimes prolonging the emotional state. Although the gut functions automatically your emotional brain can wreak havoc with these automatic functions.

Anxiety, stress and anger can stop your stomach from digesting properly and create contractions that prevent it from emptying fully. As a response to stress the brain can release a chemical called CRF which acts as a stress master switch, this then triggers the release of other stress hormones. The combination of stress hormones, changes in microbiome and gut function can trigger bloating as well as the more typical responses of gut stress such as pain from intestinal cramping and an urge to go to the loo. 

Hypnotherapy and more specifically gut directed hypnotherapy a special type of hypnotherapy aimed at changing gut function and the reduction of IBS symptoms helps by improving control over the emotional and stress generating circuits in our brains. A course of gut directed hypnotherapy has been shown in clinical trials to be an effective way to reduce IBS symptoms long term.

If you're struggling with bloating and difficult symptoms of IBS and would like to know how I can help contact me