- Home
- Health
- Diseases and Conditions
- Stress Can Be a Factor When Suffering from IBS
Stress Can Be a Factor When Suffering from IBS
- By Sharon James
- Published 09/9/2008
- Diseases and Conditions
- Unrated
Sharon James
Sharon James runs a successful alternative health website offering information on how aloe vera can relieve IBS symptoms and cure other digestive disorders
View all articles by Sharon James
One of the first things that you and your doctor will talk about in regards to your
IBS is that of stress. Stress if a factor that can do damage to many aspects of your health including irritable bowel syndrome.
First and foremost, do not make the mistake of thinking that stress in and of itself can cause IBS. This is not the case. Stress is generally brought into our lives by a troubled lifestyle. The more stresses that you put onto your body, the less healthy and capable of producing a healthy reaction it is.
Remember that we do not know what actually causes IBS. In effect, all we can do is to treat the symptoms that can come from it. But, we do know what makes it worse and stress is one of those factors.
Why Stress Hurts
The facts on why stress hurts your IBS are clear. For a healthy person in an ideal situation, stress is controlled by the body. Your body has a pain inhibition system that turns on when it is struggling with pain to help you to cope with it.
But, what has been found in patients with IBS is that this hypersensitivity does not go away. Your body doesn not turn on the right pain inhibition system and you feel the muscles of your gut hurting.
For example, it has been a long and stressful day; you are looking forward to a good meal and sleep. If you are experiencing prolonged or repeated episodes of stress, you will find it not so easy to relax. Instead, you go home and eat a meal. No matter if you eat during your stressful event or after, your will have that awful ache in your abdomen that comes with IBS.
This would be a normal feeling of being full for some, but for those with IBS it hurts. Your body does not turn off the pain function that a healthy body would which in turn allows you to feel more of the pain
associated with eating during or after stress.
It Does not Have To Be Food
Do not think that the only reason that the IBS pain is brought on is that of food either. That is not correctt. In fact, there have been studies done to provide this. For example, your body experiences a normal emotional response to a situation. In people, the experience of emotional reactions is not something that is strictly emotional.
Your body reacts in many ways. If you are afraid, nervous or sad, your body reacts physically as well as emotionally. Your heart starts to race. Your hands are sweaty. You feel the need to use the restroom. You may even get the stomach of nerves feeling.
In IBS patients, those symptoms intensify for the stomach pain. We know that the body reacts to emotional feelings and stressful situations bring out pronounced pain in the walls of the stomach.
Your gut may hurt to the point where it is quite troublesome.
In these examples, you can see that no matter what the stressful situation is to your body, it plays a role in making your symptoms far from ordinary. In effect, your IBS is made worse by these conditions. For that reason, the avoiding of stressful situations can be quite helpful at reducing the number of painful episodes that you go through.
The question is, then, how can you avoid all of the stressful events in your life?
What you need to remember here is that it is not just a matter of avoiding stressful events to stop IBS, but to lower the reactions of your body to them. To make it less severe of a reaction, you need to avoid stress and you need to do things that help to relieve stress that you are already facing.
Taking pure aloe vera supplements will help you managing the discomforts of IBS and will give you an overall sense of well being as well. When you do those two things, you can find relief from some of your worst IBS situations.
IBS is that of stress. Stress if a factor that can do damage to many aspects of your health including irritable bowel syndrome.
First and foremost, do not make the mistake of thinking that stress in and of itself can cause IBS. This is not the case. Stress is generally brought into our lives by a troubled lifestyle. The more stresses that you put onto your body, the less healthy and capable of producing a healthy reaction it is.
Remember that we do not know what actually causes IBS. In effect, all we can do is to treat the symptoms that can come from it. But, we do know what makes it worse and stress is one of those factors.
Why Stress Hurts
The facts on why stress hurts your IBS are clear. For a healthy person in an ideal situation, stress is controlled by the body. Your body has a pain inhibition system that turns on when it is struggling with pain to help you to cope with it.
But, what has been found in patients with IBS is that this hypersensitivity does not go away. Your body doesn not turn on the right pain inhibition system and you feel the muscles of your gut hurting.
For example, it has been a long and stressful day; you are looking forward to a good meal and sleep. If you are experiencing prolonged or repeated episodes of stress, you will find it not so easy to relax. Instead, you go home and eat a meal. No matter if you eat during your stressful event or after, your will have that awful ache in your abdomen that comes with IBS.
This would be a normal feeling of being full for some, but for those with IBS it hurts. Your body does not turn off the pain function that a healthy body would which in turn allows you to feel more of the pain
It Does not Have To Be Food
Do not think that the only reason that the IBS pain is brought on is that of food either. That is not correctt. In fact, there have been studies done to provide this. For example, your body experiences a normal emotional response to a situation. In people, the experience of emotional reactions is not something that is strictly emotional.
Your body reacts in many ways. If you are afraid, nervous or sad, your body reacts physically as well as emotionally. Your heart starts to race. Your hands are sweaty. You feel the need to use the restroom. You may even get the stomach of nerves feeling.
In IBS patients, those symptoms intensify for the stomach pain. We know that the body reacts to emotional feelings and stressful situations bring out pronounced pain in the walls of the stomach.
Your gut may hurt to the point where it is quite troublesome.
In these examples, you can see that no matter what the stressful situation is to your body, it plays a role in making your symptoms far from ordinary. In effect, your IBS is made worse by these conditions. For that reason, the avoiding of stressful situations can be quite helpful at reducing the number of painful episodes that you go through.
The question is, then, how can you avoid all of the stressful events in your life?
What you need to remember here is that it is not just a matter of avoiding stressful events to stop IBS, but to lower the reactions of your body to them. To make it less severe of a reaction, you need to avoid stress and you need to do things that help to relieve stress that you are already facing.
Taking pure aloe vera supplements will help you managing the discomforts of IBS and will give you an overall sense of well being as well. When you do those two things, you can find relief from some of your worst IBS situations.