Advertisement
Behavioral medicine techniques can help ease symptoms
The abdominal pain, gas, diarrhea or constipation of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can irritate more than your gut. Ongoing symptoms can irritate your mind as well, making you feel anxious, depressed, annoyed or just plain angry.
Advertisement
Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Policy
Those negative emotions aren’t any good for IBS. Studies show that emotional stress can make gastrointestinal symptoms worse.
But the opposite also is true, says Judith Scheman, PhD, Director of Behavioral Medicine in Cleveland Clinic’s Digestive Disease & Surgery Institute. Good emotional health can help ease IBS symptoms. So we spoke with her to get the low-down on how behavioral medicine techniques can help your brain help your belly feel better.
Your brain and spinal cord form your body’s central nervous system. Nerve cells and neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that send signals from one nerve cell to another, run from your brain through your body. Those that run along your gastrointestinal tract — including through your stomach and intestines — are called the enteric nervous system.
“Your brain and belly talk to each other through this network of nerves,” Dr. Scheman says. “And they respond to the same neurotransmitters. That explains why emotional distress can cause digestive distress and vice versa.”
Some of the neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions, such as serotonin, are actually produced in the gut, Dr. Scheman adds. “Perhaps that’s why we describe our emotions in gut-related terms. Maybe it is why we say that things are ‘gut-wrenching’ or ‘nauseating.’”
In turn, stress releases pro-inflammatory agents, increasing inflammation in our gut and elsewhere. It can affect our immune system, as well as the ability of our gut to function properly.
It can also slow down or speed up gut motility, the movement of the muscles in your gastrointestinal tract. For example, stress can trigger a fight-or-flight reaction in your central nervous system. Your hormones and neurotransmitters start pumping and your enteric nervous system responds by slowing down or stopping digestion to reserve energy for warding off danger. And that slower digestion can lead to abdominal pain or other gastrointestinal problems.
On the flip-side, Dr. Scheman adds, faster gut motility can result in problems like diarrhea.
Because of this brain-gut connection, gastrointestinal and behavioral medicine together can treat IBS and other digestive disorders. Sometimes it takes both to help you cope with ongoing symptoms.
Behavioral medicine treatments for IBS include:
Advertisement
Behavioral medicine techniques like these can help improve your mood and your quality of life. And that can mean fewer IBS flare-ups.
If medication or other treatments aren’t helping your IBS, or if you notice that stress makes your symptoms worse, be sure to contact your health care provider to see what next steps you might consider.
Advertisement
Learn more about our editorial process.
Advertisement
Some ‘flare-ups’ are temporary and expected, others can signal a need to change therapies
Our collective misremembering of events comes from a surplus of false memories
Most routine vaccines are safe for people living with multiple sclerosis — but be sure to talk with your care team about your needs
This alternative brain-body therapy focuses on unlocking pent-up feelings, memories and tension that may be stuck in your brain and body
Current research suggests 1 out of every 36 children in the U.S. has ASD — and that’s probably an undercount
Strokes in the left side of the brain are more common and the effects are typically more noticeable
These trendy fungi may promote a healthy brain, heart and gut, but more research is needed to say for sure
This vital nutrient helps your brain and body in many ways — and most of us need more of it
Focus on your body’s metabolic set point by eating healthy foods, making exercise a part of your routine and reducing stress
PFAS chemicals may make life easier — but they aren’t always so easy on the human body
While there’s little risk in trying this hair care treatment, there isn’t much science to back up the claims