ANXIETY DIGESTIVE DISCOMFORT

AUTHORS: Muhammad Mubashir Iqbal, BS Biochemistry GC University Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

People who suffer from anxiety often lose appetite completely or on the contrary. They cannot control the dite they eat and binge.

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Anxiety has become one of the problems with the greatest impact and prevalence in our environment in recent years. Psychologists try to explain that, in reality, it is a natural survival mechanism that, for certain reasons, is altered.

While it is true that anxiety is within the category of psychological pathologies, its symptoms go well beyond all that. It can affect many aspects of our body. In fact, the most frequent symptoms are those related to the digestive system.

It is estimated that around 260 million people in the world suffer anxiety. About 25% of the population has digestive symptoms that have their origin in this problem, such as nausea or heaviness of the stomach.

Therefore, in this article we explain what are the digestive discomforts that frequently occur in relation to anxiety. It is important to be able to detect these symptoms and control the pathology to gain quality of life.

What are the digestive discomforts that occur due to anxiety?

The truth is that anxiety affects each person differently. Even so, most of the symptoms are related to a state of nervousness and tension. The expression `butterflies in the stomach’, even if it has a romantic connotation, can become a symptom of this pathology.

There are many digestive discomforts that may appear due to anxiety and stress. For example, it is very common to feel pain or pressure in the stomach area. But not only do they affect that part of the body, but the symptoms arise in any region of the digestive system.

Some of them are:

Very dry mouth

Nausea and desire to vomit

Heavy digestions:accompanied by heartburn or heartburn

Changes in eating habits: the person may feel the need to eat compulsively, in the form of binge eating, or he may lose his appetite completely.

Having an irritable bowel: it is a pathology in which abdominal pain and changes in intestinal transit are felt, without any organic or analytical alteration that justifies these changes.

Constipation or diarrhea

The biggest problem of digestive discomfort due to anxiety is changes in eating habits. People who experience them and lose their appetite may suffer from malnutrition.

On the other hand, those who cannot control binge eating have a higher risk of being obese or overweight. They may even lead to diabetes mellitus or dyslipidemia.

Binge eating is a derivative of anxiety. If the behavior is repeated, the risk of obesity increases

What to do to control digestive discomfort due to anxiety?

Given this pathology, the first thing is to know that it is a disease like any other. We must strive to de-stigmatize mental problems and understand that there is nothing wrong with asking for help in trying to solve it.

There are many types of therapies, and even medications, that help alleviate anxiety. In addition, there are also certain simple measures that would improve digestive discomfort.

First, the ideal is to control the diet. The diet should be balanced and more or less constant, making meals always at the same time. You also have to choose light foods that do not create a very heavy digestion. For example, avoid saturated fats and processed products. But the truth is that all these measures that improve digestive discomfort will only be temporary. Digestive problems may become chronic if we do not reduce anxiety. Therefore, the most important thing will be to act at the root of the problem.

conclusion

Anxiety is a health problem that not only affects us psychologically, but can cause us many physical symptoms. Some of them are digestive discomforts, such as stomach tightness, nausea and appetite changes, while others are behavioral changes, such as binge eating.

We should not be ashamed of feeling anxiety. On the contrary, it is essential to seek help, since finding a suitable psychologist and a therapy that fits your personality will help you improve your quality of life significantly.