Anxiety and Diarrhea | How Stress Effects Bowel Movements
March 08, 2022
Diarrhea is a digestive issue that everyone experiences from time to time. Diarrhea can have many different causes—a bacterial or viral infection, food intolerances, changes in dietary habits, etc. One cause of diarrhea that people are often less familiar with is stress and anxiety.
Stress, anxiety and diarrhea can be linked. If you are experiencing diarrhea and don’t find a connection between your diet and bowel movements, then it could be a result of your psychological state. In this article, we’ll explore the connection between diarrhea and anxiety.
What Is Diarrhea?
Diarrhea refers to loose and watery stools or bowel movements. It is a common digestive issue and is typically not serious. In fact, many people get diarrhea a few times a year. It usually lasts only a few days.
However, in some cases diarrhea can be chronic and can be associated with more serious digestive conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other conditions.
What Are the Symptoms of Diarrhea?
The symptoms of diarrhea commonly include:
- Loose stools
- Watery stools
- An urgent need to have a bowel movement
- Stomach cramps
- Bloating
- Nausea
In more severe cases, weight loss, fever, and bloody stools may happen. If you experience any of these more severe symptoms it is recommended to see a doctor for further examination and support.
What Causes Diarrhea?
Most often, diarrhea is the result of a virus—which is why people commonly refer to it as the stomach bug or stomach flu. However, it can have many other causes as well. Some of the common causes of diarrhea include:
- Food allergies
- Foods that upset the digestive system
- Laxative herbs or medications
- Bacterial infection/food poisoning
- Certain medications
- Alcohol
- Digestive diseases (Chron’s disease, IBS, IBD, ulcerative colitis)
- Malabsorption
- Hyperthyroidism
- Radiation therapy
- Stress & Anxiety
Can Stress and Anxiety Cause Diarrhea?
Our mental health and physical health are more connected than most of us realize. Changes in our mind can affect our body, and changes in our body can affect our mind.
When you are stressed, for example, your muscles tighten, your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes shallower, and your body releases a flood of hormones—namely adrenaline and cortisol, to give you an increase of energy to handle a stressful situation.
On the other hand, even if your state of mind is relatively at ease, you can consume something, like coffee for example, that can trigger biochemical reactions such as those experienced in the stress response, and can influence your energy levels, mood, and state of mind.
So, the mind can affect the body and the body can affect the mind. This is why we always emphasize a holistic approach to healing. The mind and body—our psychology and physiology—aren’t really separate, but rather are two sides of the same coin.
It is well known that stress and anxiety can influence our physical health, but does stress and anxiety cause diarrhea? In some cases, it can!
To understand this phenomenon more thoroughly, let’s take a look at an important system in the body known as the gut brain access.
The Gut-Brain Axis
The gut–brain axis is the two-way biochemical signaling that takes place between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system.
Our nervous system extends throughout our body, with many nerve centers located in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The nerves in the GI tract are referred to as the enteric nervous system (ENS) which is also often referred to as our “second brain.”
The brain has a direct effect on the enteric nervous system, and can send signals directly to the stomach and intestines. In the same way, the stomach and intestines can send signals directly to the brain. A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a person's stomach or intestinal distress can either be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, or depression.
The Stress Response
Understanding the gut-brain axis is important. It is equally important to understand the stress response and how your body is affected by stress.
Your body has built-in processes that have been evolutionarily hard-wired to protect you from danger. While many of us thankfully do not experience danger on a regular basis, a majority of us do experience stress in daily life. The demands of work, managing time, paying bills, taking care of family and other responsibilities can still trigger a stress response in the body.
Whenever you experience stress or a perceived threat, a small region of the brain known as the hypothalamus sends signals to your adrenal glands, located on top of your kidneys, to release a flood of hormones, mainly adrenaline and cortisol.
Adrenaline increases your heart rate, raises your blood pressure and boosts your energy supplies. While cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.
Cortisol also temporarily interferes with functions of the body that would be nonessential in a fight-or-flight situation—including the immune system and the digestive system.
Typically, once we are out of danger and our perceived threat has passed, our hormone levels return back to normal and our other systems resume their normal function. But, when we are under constant stress, feel like we are under constant attack, or under too much pressure, this stress response continues.
Rather than going back to normal, our body stays in a fight-or-flight state, and our immune systems and digestive systems are compromised. Chronic stress can be very detrimental to our health. In fact, research links stress to many major health conditions and diseases.
Long term, stress can cause the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones and can disrupt nearly all of your body's processes. This leads to conditions like:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Digestive issues
- Weight gain
- Headaches
- Migraines
- Muscle tension and pain
- Heart disease
- Heart attack
- Stroke
- High blood pressure
- Sleep issues
- Memory issues
- Impaired cognitive function
As you can see, chronic stress is detrimental to our health. It can certainly lead to digestive issues and can explain why diarrhea and stress are commonly occurred together, especially long-term or chronic stress.
Stress and Diarrhea
When we experience stress—physical or psychological—it can have an impact on our bowel movements and may lead to constipation or diarrhea.
For example, traveling can be a very enjoyable experience, but it can be physically stressful as well. Long hours sitting in a car or plane, adjusting to different environments and time zones, these can cause minor stress on our bodies and can alter our bowel movements. It is fairly common for people to experience mild constipation while traveling, but they can just as easily experience diarrhea depending on how their body responds.
Stress and anxiety in the mind can also have a very physical effect, possibly causing diarrhea or other changes in bowel movements. This may be more pronounced in people with a mood disorder.
Generalized anxiety is something many people experience from time to time, anxiety as a mood disorder, however is more pronounced, causes people to fearfully avoid certain situations that trigger anxiety, and can interfere with regular daily functioning.
Someone that experiences anxiety as a mood disorder, or someone that is under chronic stress, has a much higher chance of also suffering from a bowel disease like IBD. This is because, as explained via the gut-brain axis, stress can have a very negative effect on your health—including digestive health.
So, if you are always under stress, your gut is also under stress, and this can kill of beneficial bacteria in the gut and can lead to digestive issues—which may result in a change of bowel movements such as bowel frequency and consistency.
Understanding the gut-brain axis, and the physiological response the body has to stress, helps us understand the connection between anxiety, stress and diarrhea. Diarrhea and stress can certainly be connected—though of course diarrhea could be the result of many other causes as well.
If you experience diarrhea for a few days and it passes, it is likely the result of a stomach bug or food that you ate. However, if it is a more frequent occurrence and one that persists over time it could be related to a digestive condition. In this case it is recommended to see your doctor for medical advice.
Summary
Diarrhea is a digestive issue that everyone experiences from time to time. Diarrhea can have many different causes, but one of the cause of diarrhea that people are often less familiar with is stress and anxiety.
Diarrhea refers to loose and watery stools or bowel movements. It is a common digestive issue and is typically not serious. In fact, many people get diarrhea a few times a year. It usually lasts only a few days.
However, in some cases diarrhea can be chronic and can be associated with more serious digestive conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other conditions. These chronic digestive conditions are often linked to chronic stress.
Chronic stress is detrimental to our health. And as a result of the gut-brain axis, we can see how chronic stress can easily impair digestive function and lead to diarrhea or other changes in bowel movements.
Understanding the gut-brain axis, and the physiological response the body has to stress, helps us understand the connection between anxiety, stress and diarrhea. Diarrhea and stress can certainly be connected—though of course diarrhea could be the result of many other causes as well.
If you experience diarrhea for a few days and it passes, it is likely the result of a stomach bug or food that you ate. However, if it is a more frequent occurrence and one that persists over time it could be related to a digestive condition. In this case it is recommended to see your doctor for medical advice.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK448082/
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579396/
True Health Starts with Feeding the Body
