Stress and our Gastrointestinal Health

I decided to talk about a topic that is, er, close to home for me and many people in the world. There is a condition called IBS, which is a disorder that affects gastrointestinal functioning. This makes it difficult to eat certain things, perform certain activities, and affects many different aspects of a person's life. Now, what may or may not surprise many people is that one very interesting and seemingly unexpected factor of this condition is stress. Stressors can trigger flare ups with IBS, and to try to manage these, you have to try to figure out and try to prevent stressful occurrences. IBS and stress have a very interesting relationship: because of IBS, a person can have an increased gastrointestinal reaction to stress.

However, this isn't necessarily just things like getting assignments done on time, although those definitely count. Stress in this situation can be classified as diet, physical activity, psychological stress, and even hormonal changes. This type of stress can even occur without consciously feeling stressed, angry, or nervous. Depending if a person has short lasting or long term stress, this can change how it affects their body. Some worst case scenarios of stress caused problems correlated with IBS include asthma, high blood pressure, and obesity.

Doctors aren't really sure what exactly IBS is, how it works, or how to completely treat it, but they know that it has something to do with a connection with the brain, the gut, and the central nervous system. This just goes to show how everything in our bodies has a direct link with everything else, and our systems rest on such a delicate balance ( be careful not to throw yours out of whack!).