Anxiety & Stomach Pain
Everyone has likely been too nervous to eat, or felt some connection between brain and stomach. Although it is not well understood, that connection is very real and can be found in the way certain areas of the brain function, and their connections to the stomach as well as other parts of our digestive tract. If your stomach hurts when you feel anxious, that pain is quite real and quite common even if there is no clear, identifiable cause.
Significance
Anxiety disorders and gastrointestinal disorders are common. Yet, while an estimated 70 to 85 percent of patients with panic disorder initially visit their primary care physician with a bodily complaint, general practitioners often miss the potential connection between these symptoms and anxiety disorder. This means both higher health care costs and unnecessary suffering for the patient.
Identification
Anxiety is an experience of bodily and psychological symptoms brought on by a specific stressor, from a sudden noise to a job interview. Bodily symptoms may include racing heart, sweating and muscle tension. Psychological symptoms can include thinking about a stressor over and over, and dwelling on potential, catastrophic outcomes.
Anxiety disorders: These are a class of mental illness marked by excessive worry and fear.
Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID): These disorders diagnosed by symptoms since no medical explanation (e.g., structural or biochemical cause) can explain the disorder. These disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia, tend to be chronic and can significantly lower our quality of life and our ability to function.
Ordinary Anxiety
The brain and stomach are connected in several ways. First, there is the primitive "fight or flight" response mechanisms in the brain which ready the body for action (e.g., releasing adrenaline and reducing blood flow to our digestive system), whether faced with a wild animal or our boss. This may explain why we get a stomach ache if we eat before a date or a job interview.
More than the "fight or flight" response is at work, however, since some of the same parts of the brain (e.g., amygdala and hippocampus) that regulate fear and anxiety, also help regulate our gastrointestinal system. So, although the exact mechanisms are unclear, a change in these areas from anxiety can mean a change in our stomach functions, possibly causing pain from gas for example. Also, when anxious we can be much more sensitive to the many nerves lining our gastrointestinal tract; the brain may interpret otherwise benign sensations as stomach pain.
Anxiety Disorders
Our stomachs can be affected by anxiety disorders in much the same way they are affected by ordinary feelings of anxiety; the same areas of the brain that regulate normal fear and anxiety also play a key role in anxiety disorders. A large survey by researchers from Haukeland Hospital, University of Bergen, found that 15.3 percent of those with FGID also have an anxiety disorder; and a Brown University study found that 80 percent of children with recurrent abdominal pain also had an anxiety disorder.
Considerations
Many things may cause abdominal pain, some quite serious, so see a doctor if symptoms persist.
