Many people go through the embarrassing and uncomfortable feeling associated with a bloated stomach. Bloating is a health condition when an excess gas is produced during the body’s digestive process.
You might have had constipation, overeating, swallowing air, lactose intolerance, and irritable bowel syndrome, causing bloating. But have you ever heard of anxiety causing bloating? Yes, you read it right!
Talking about the mind-gut relationship, your brain and gut communicate more than any other body system. Therefore, your emotional well-being can majorly impact your gut health, and vice versa. While anxiety does not always cause bloating, there are many cases when bloating might be a symptom of anxiety. Moreover, bloating can also lead to further anxiety.
Let’s further explore the relationship between anxiety and bloating and ways to stop bloating.
What Does Anxiety Stomach Feel Like?
You can feel anxiety in the stomach in many different ways. For many, it can be different from the feeling they get when having irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), but for others, the feeling can be very similar.
Most commonly, anxiety stomach can feel like:
- The feeling of butterflies in the stomach
- Nausea or feeling of being sick
- Cramping in the abdomen
- Alteration in bowel patterns
Can Anxiety Cause Bloating?
A very less common cause for those with bloating symptoms is feeling anxiety or stress in the gut. Not many know that daily stresses can impact their digestive function in many ways, and bloating is the first warning sign of your stress level. If you live a stressful life and it causes bloating, it would be helpful to keep some of the best anti-bloat pills to keep handy.
Bloating through anxiety happens mainly through the mind-gut relationship – a communication pathway running between the brain and the digestive system. This mind-gut pathway monitors and integrates gut functions and the parts of the brain responsible for cognitive and emotional well-being.
When your feelings of anxiety begin to rise, your limbic system (the brain’s part that’s responsible for memory and emotional responses) is activated. Once activated, your limbic system signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol.
Within the gut, increased levels of cortisol can have negative impacts, potentially leading to bloating.
Many Other Ways Anxiety Can Cause Bloating
Here are some other ways anxiety can cause bloating, but not limited to:
- Hyperventilation: The primary reason anxiety causes bloating is because of hyperventilation. Hyperventilation is when you inhale more air than needed, causing additional anxiety symptoms. However, before and after hyperventilation, it’s not uncommon for you to feel pressure in your stomach, and you can experience burping.
- General air-breathing: Similarly, even without hyperventilation, you might soon realize that you have started over-breathing during anxiety attacks, swallowing more oxygen than necessary. Swallowing oxygen is another cause of bloating and might lead to significant blenching and stomach tension. In such a case, having pills for bloated stomach can help you feel better.
- Affected digestion: Regular stresses can impact your digestive system. Anxiety can shut down a part of the brain that regulates how you digest your food. Stress can put a great deal of pressure on your abdomen and stomach and upset your hormonal and neurotransmitter balance. It might create an environment where the foods you were able to digest properly before end up being digested poorly, leading to the creation of excess gas and, thus, bloating.
Can Bloating Cause Anxiety and How?
Not only does anxiety cause bloating, but also bloating can cause further anxiety. It’s especially true for individuals with panic disorders. Bloating can possibly cause many symptoms, such as chest pains, nausea, stomach pressure or pain, etc., that can create fear in the individual struggling with gas problems.
These symptoms can indicate more serious diseases, and stomach pain can make a person anxious. Moreover, they can trigger pain attacks, as people might be worried about their bodies due to these symptoms and also might fear serious health problems. In some cases, people experiencing panic attacks caused by bloating can also experience hyperventilation, leading to further bloating.
How Long Bloating Caused by Anxiety Can Last?
If bloating happens when your anxiety level rises, these gum symptoms tend to calm down fairly soon after anxiety or stress relief. However, some can still feel the level of sensitivity in their gut even after their anxious thoughts are gone.
In other situations, people experiencing a stressful event or time in their lives experience bloating for long. It might be because of the changes in their brain-gut connection, leading to changes in their gut function. Such people can seek 15 day cleanse gut support to overcome bloating and other digestive issues.
Common Ways to Stop Bloating Caused by Anxiety
Once you swallow excess air in your system, you should try to get it out by blenching or releasing flatulence. Holding the excess air for long will simply lead to further stomach pain, which is more likely to contribute to further anxiety and discomfort.
If you think your stomach is bloating because of hyperventilation, you should see to it that you are not promoting further hyperventilation. While hyperventilating, your body is tempted to breathe in more air and faster. You should fight this feeling – try to slow down your breathing and resist the urge to yawn more or breathe quickly.
Also, anxiety and stress can lead to constipation and ultimately cause bloating. If your stress and anxiety symptoms include bloating as well as constipation, you can incorporate a 15 day cleanse gut support formula in your routine to find relief.
Regularly having the anti-bloat pills as prescribed by your doctor and making positive lifestyle and diet changes can help stop bloating permanently.
Some other ways to relieve bloating from anxiety include:
- Practicing diaphragmatic breathing
- Having probiotics and prebiotics to support the gut
- Consuming mind and stomach-calming herbs like lemon balm, Valerian, Siberian ginseng, or skullcap
- Seek emotional support
Final Words
Stress and anxiety have become the most common aspects of modern life. However, these are the major causes of many health problems, including mental and digestive health issues. If you feel a bloated stomach because of daily stressors or anxiety, it’s high time for you to manage your anxiety to overcome bloating. Understanding your stress and anxiety triggers and when and where you are exposed to them can help support your emotional and digestive health. In addition, you can consider consuming bloating tablets for a specific period based on your doctor’s recommendation to relieve bloating.
