Part 1: GI Disorders and Stress

Have you ever considered that your stiff neck or insomnia could actually be caused by a GI disorder

? It's true. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract communicates with the brain so well, that problems with digestion actually cause a stress response. Conversely, stress in your everyday life can lead to gastrointestinal pain and disorder. Stress can even make you perceive that intestinal pain is worse than it actually is. Small digestion problems can turn into chronic disorders if your body gets stuck in the endless "pain creates stress, stress creates pain" cycle.

GI disorders are controlled by your brain more than you may realize. Have you ever been nauseated because you were nervous? Has your stomach ever growled at the thought of good food? We have all kinds of gastrointestinal symptoms in response to stressors. Stress is a function of the body that tells our body how to react to our environment. If you think about how instinct works and why, it makes sense. There is a trigger and then stress is created as a motivator to satisfy whatever it is that is needed to survive.

Our bodies may not know how to respond appropriately to modern stressors. We are hard-wired with an instinct to survive by hunting food, eating it, avoiding danger, and reproducing. Stresses from other factors in our lives may be interpreted by our bodies as a need to have a digestive response. That digestive response then sends new signals to the brain to heighten the excited state so that the problem is solved more quickly. This is why stress can cause increased inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract and brain causing pain to be more severe, or at least be perceived as more severe. The physical properties of GI disorders rarely justify the level of pain experienced by patients.

According to the Harvard Medical School, "A review of 13 studies showed that patients who tried psychologically based approaches had greater improvement in their symptoms compared with patients who received conventional medical treatment."

Now that this link between GI disorders occurring in response to stress has been discovered, it has opened up many new options for treatment that have been very successful. Things like acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, and irritable bowel syndrome are very common complaints among people suffering from stress. In fact, studies show that these gastrointestinal problems are almost always accompanied by sleep problems like insomnia, weight loss or gain, muscle spasms, anxiety, depression, brain fog, short temper, and sexual dysfunction, among other bodily responses to stress.

Managing stress is a great way to improve your gastrointestinal problems. Eating healthy, getting regular exercise, and supplementing with vitamins and supplements that help reduce stress and the body's reaction to it, can be a big help.

In "Part 2" of the series "GI Disorders and Stress" we will discuss how you can use discount vitamins like the best vitamin C, vitamin E, and B vitamins to manage stress and improve your gastrointestinal symptoms.

Part 1: GI Disorders and Stress

By: Phil Le Breton

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