Video Transcript
Stress can affect The bowel’s ability to move material through the intestines smoothly, leading to problems with food moving too quickly or two slowly and the muscles that move food in the gut not working together properly, creating spasms.
Although initially it may be hard to believe that stress can actually make such big changes happen in the gut, it is not at all surprising when you look at all of the evidence we have now from modern science that The brain and the gut are closely connected. For more information on this, check out my video on the brain-gut connection.
The gut has been called the ‘little brain’ because of it’s interaction with the brain and emotions. Many IBS sufferers notice that when they are under more pressure at work or home, or going through a stressful experience, they get an IBS flare and ths.
In the most recent IBS research, such as a recent review published in the medical journal of Physiology and pharmacology strongly supports the brain-gut interaction as being very important in IBS, and also acknowledges the important role of stress in IBS and other gut functional illnesses, including peptic ulcers, because stress affects gut motility and the special immune system that lives inside our gut. One of the ways that this immune system in our gut is affected by stress, is that the gut can become hypersensitive to things irritating it–leading to food intolerances.
So, now you have a general idea of how stress can affect the gut and cause IBS symptoms and why managing stress is so important in treating IBS. There are many effective ways of doing this using specific relaxation strategies and techniques, breathing exercises, and yoga-based relaxation programs.