Anxiety is not just an issue that impacts a person’s mind. In fact, it is notorious for manifesting in physical forms as well. One of the most common physical manifestations a person can experience due to anxiety is stomach bloating. This leads to one experiencing the very uncomfortable side effects that follow it, including heaviness, gassiness, and general discomfort.
How to fix it, you wonder? Physical exercise is one of the most effective ways of treating anxiety-caused stomach bloating. Incorporating physical exercise can help you relieve anxiety and related stomach problems effectively. Let’s explore how it works.
Understanding The Relation Between Anxiety and Stomach Bloating
The onset of anxiety leads the body to activate its fight or flight response, which is a survival or coping mechanism. This, in turn, can have catastrophic effects on the stomach by impacting one’s digestive system. Some of the effects it has on the digestive system include slowing down the ability or pace of digesting food, changing the gut microbiome, which leads to an overproduction of gas, rapid and quick breaths, which increase bloating, and tightening of the abdominal muscles, which further increases the discomfort one experiences.
To combat all these issues, physical exercise helps tremendously, and here’s how it helps.
Beneficial Impact Of Physical Exercise
Physical activities have a lot of health benefits, which is no surprise, but they also play a vital role in minimizing the impact of anxiety on the stomach, thereby relieving one of the discomforting effects, like bloating. The best exercises for this are simple ones like walking, yoga, as well as more heavy exercises, including cardio workouts, strength training, and swimming. You can engage in any of these exercises and benefit from their advantages.
Exercise can help you overcome stomach issues related to anxiety in the following ways:
Endorphin Release
Endorphins are often called the ‘feel-good’ hormones which the body releases. These are chemicals that the body releases many times, after certain specific activities are performed (like exercise), or through certain experiences (as a response to pain or pleasure). The release of endorphins encourages the body to relax, helps overcome the effects of anxiety, and thereby helps in promoting healthy digestion.
The release of endorphins helps in reducing stress, which means your mind becomes happier, which leads to a happier gut.
Impact on Breathing Patterns
Exercising is known to have an impact on the breathing pattern, encouraging a person to breathe deeply and create a rhythmic breathing pattern. This acts as a powerful tool for combating the quick-paced and shallow breaths that are a side effect of anxiety. By preventing such breathing patterns, exercise helps prevent a person from taking in too much air, thereby minimizing bloating, which is caused by anxiety.
Enhancing Gut Functionality
One of the biggest challenges of anxiety is that it slows down the functionality of the digestive tract. This means that the food as well as gas moves forward slowly through the digestive tract, thereby causing issues like bloating easily.
However, when you engage in physical exercise, the entire body gets a much needed push, including the gastrointestinal tract. This helps in increasing the pace at which food and gas moves through the digestive tract, thereby reducing the onset of issues like stomach bloating.
Balancing Gut Microbiome
Since anxiety has the potential to disturb the gut microbiome, which in turn causes stomach-related issues, including bloating, it is a symptom that needs to be addressed effectively.
Exercise helps in dealing with this issue by improving the gut flora, and boosting its diversity. This helps in improving the digestive capabilities of the stomach, thereby boosting the digestive process and minimizing the production of gas. Including daily exercises, even very simple ones like walking for 30 minutes can have a massive benefit for improving the gut microbiome.
Minimizing Tension In The Muscles
To tackle the issue of abdominal muscle tightening as well, exercising can be a very powerful tool, which in turn helps in minimizing stomach bloating caused by anxiety. Exercise helps in relaxing the muscles and loosening them, which helps in relieving the tension which is built up, thereby alleviating one of the physical discomfort that they are experiencing.
Beyond these activities and practices for overcoming stomach bloating caused by anxiety, sometimes you may also need professional help, especially if anxiety is a regular occurrence. If you have been experiencing anxiety, it is essential to address the root cause of it and address that in order to find a more long-term solution.
Get Professional Help To Reduce Anxiety-Related Stomach Bloating
While incorporating exercise into your routine is a must for a myriad of reasons, addressing the foundational cause of anxiety and being equipped with the right tools for dealing with it is equally important.
This is where we at Mindspa Psychiatry step in to help you. We offer a complete range of compassionate care solutions for mental health. Bringing experience and expertise garnered over many years, we have a wonderful team of professionals and a dedicated care team that takes care of you from diagnosis to treatment of the patient.
The best part? Our services are available as telemedicine, which means that to avail of our help, you do not need to carve time out of your schedule to visit a clinic or take an appointment weeks ahead. Catering to the needs of patients across Florida, we offer tailored services and solutions that best align in a manner to address your unique needs.
When you consult with us and talk to our experts, you get personalized care from the first interaction to the last, ensuring that your needs are perfectly met and any and all issues you are facing are accurately handled.
Conclusion
Anxiety is a relatively common issue that people experience at various times in their lives. However, some individuals experience a more severe challenge with anxiety, which also manifests in physical forms such as causing stomach-related issues such as bloating. Exercising is one of the best ways of alleviating such discomfort. However, it is essential to address the cause of anxiety from expert professionals.
