How to Reduce Bloating from Stress

Let’s face it - we’re all stressed, and as a result, many of us are dealing with ongoing digestive issues. Stress-related bloating is an extremely common issue in the modern day, and so many people are now using natural bloating remedies to keep their guts happy.

While you might not associate your digestive problems with stress, the two are closely correlated. This has been shown in scientific research, and you only need to speak to a highly stressed person to realise how much it’s impacting every aspect of their health, including their gut health.

Although stress is a part of life that we simply have to accept nowadays, bloating is not. You don’t need to suffer with your digestion because you’re stressed.

There are lots of effective ways to reduce bloating, and we’re going to cover some of the best things you can do if stress is causing your stomach issues in this article.

Why Do I Bloat When Stressed?

Even if your digestion is usually perfectly fine, you could find that you bloat excessively during periods of high stress. In fact, stress is so powerful in the body that it can cause foods that you usually love and have no problems eating to become problematic to your digestion.

But why is it that when you’re particularly anxious, you end up with excess gas, bloating, abdominal cramping, and constipation? This can all be explained by primitive mechanisms that reside in the human body due to evolution.

The stress response is an in-built mechanism that your body has in order to effectively identify and cope with stress. The body responds similarly to short-term or long-term stress, but the latter causes chronic health issues like constant bloating.

Modern-day life is stressful, and more people than ever are anxious about their everyday lives. This ongoing worry and stress cause the body to think it’s in constant danger, and one of the ways it responds to danger is by diverting blood and attention away from the digestive tract and to the muscles. 

Why, though?

Well, thousands of years ago, danger would have been when a wild animal or another tribe was chasing you. Therefore, to get away from your danger, you would have needed to run away. To help you out, your brain would cause more blood to flow to the muscles to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles and increase your chances of survival.

While we’re not being chased by wild animals of opposing tribes anymore (at least, most of the world’s population isn’t), we no longer need all our blood to go to our muscles when we’re stressed (or, as the brain sees it, ‘in danger’). However, even in the modern-day, our brains respond to stress in the exact same way because this response is an evolutionary response.

With less blood going to your digestive system when you’re constantly stressed, it takes a toll on your digestion. Food moves more slowly through the colon and remains stagnant. You’ll find that you get bloated more easily and feel sluggish and full more often than you do when you’re not stressed.

Tackling Stress and Bloating

If you’ve identified that you’re bloated because you’re stressed, you might need to take action. Tackling stress at its route can relieve all of your bloating if it’s the main cause of your digestive symptoms.

Below, we’ve got some top tips for managing stress and reducing bloating, including lifestyle changes, dietary changes, and supplementation. Let’s start with stress management.

Tips to Manage Stress Effectively

Reducing your stress won’t just relieve your bloating. It will reduce all of your other stress-related issues like fatigue, muscle aches, migraines, changes in appetite, mood changes, anxiety, and depression.

Chronic stress is associated with poor physical and mental health, and even a reduced lifespan, so stress management is so important! Here are some helpful things to try in order to minimise your stress and improve your overall health:

• Reduce your workload if possible. You might need to speak to your employer and ask for schedule adjustments if you're employed. If you're self-employed, consider outsourcing some of your tasks to somebody else whom you trust.
• Make sure you incorporate exercise into your daily routine, whether it's walking your dog, dancing, playing sports, going to the gym, or doing yoga at home.
• Always take at least one full day off work each week, where you don't do anything work-related and, instead, you spend time with friends and family, practice a hobby, or relax in front of the TV if you wish!
• Consider practising meditation, whether you want to do this in silence at home, outside in the park, or by following guided meditation audio clips or videos.
• Add a few minutes of deep breathing exercises into your daily routine to slow your heart rate and breathing rate down, and reduce the activation of your sympathetic nervous system (the branch of your nervous system responsible for the stress response).
• Stay in touch with your loved ones by seeing them in person, giving them a phone call or video call, or even chatting with them on social media.

How to Reduce Bloating from Stress

Now let’s have a look at the best things you can do to get rid of stress-related bloating directly:

• Consume lots of prebiotic foods to fuel the probiotic (beneficial) bacteria in your gut that help to break down food and produce vitamins. Prebiotic-rich foods include green leafy vegetables, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, beans, legumes, and wheat-based foods).
• Take a probiotic supplement before you eat large meals to enhance your existing gut microbiota and reduce bloating.
• Consider taking a digestive enzyme supplement to support your body’s endogenous (natural) digestive enzymes.
• Eat smaller, more frequent meals that are easier for your digestive system to handle than larger meals.
• Avoid foods that usually upset your stomach, whether it’s spicy foods or fatty foods. You might need to keep track of your diet and associated bloating to identify these foods.
• Stay hydrated to encourage the movement of food through your digestive tract and prevent bloating and constipation.

A Dose For Bloating

Our supplement, A Dose For Bloating, is the perfect addition to your daily routine when you’re dealing with constant bloating. It contains two billion probiotics, seven digestive enzymes, and seven plant extracts that combine to create a powerful bloat-busting supplement.