Can anxiety cause nausea? Learn to cope with it

Many people come across the feelings of stress in their life. This stress leads to anxiety which makes a person heavy minded temporarily. Infact, it is common to experience stress and anxiety in the life for a while. However, such emotions should not affect your capacity to carry on the life. People who have anxiety often have symptoms like increased heart rate, high breathing rate, more blood in the brain and tension in muscles. These symptoms are due to the natural fight or flight response that our brain takes as a solution against that stress stimulant. Such response may even cause a strange sensation in your stomach. This feeling of uneasiness in your stomach can often lead to more intense problems. Anxiety proves to be a major factor causing nausea. This article overviews the reality about anxiety nausea and how it can affect your body. A few ways are also discussed to help you cope with it :-

What is anxiety nausea?

The term nausea is used for a queasy feeling in the stomach that can make a person feel like vomiting. That urge to vomit doesn’t always cause vomiting. There are numerous factors like taking pills at empty stomach, drinking alcohol in excess or eating too little that cause nausea. You might not be ready to relate nausea with anxiety but, studies have shown that one significant reason for nausea is experiencing symptoms of anxiety. Feeling nauseous is a concerning side effect of anxiety. Anxiety in a person induce various symptoms that give other side effects. When there’s an increase in heart rate and breathing rate, blood increasing in the brain, it can cause a quirky sensation in the stomach that is similar to the butterflies in the stomach felt before attending a job interview. This feeling can last for a long time, make you to vomit and even cause other irritating issues related to the overall health.

Why does anxiety make you feel sick?

This question might be running in your mind after reading what is anxiety nausea. Anxiety can make you feel so ill. As, we have already said, anxiety in a person induce a fight or flight response. As a protection against the anxious feelings, our brain releases neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters make our body ready to fight against that threat that is causing such feelings of stress. But, while preparing your body, some neurotransmitters get into the digestive system as our stomach has the second largest number of nerves in the whole body. This can upset your stomach and you feel a queasy feel in it. This uneasiness can urge you to vomit which is the prime symptom of nausea. In such way, anxiety can make you feel sick to your stomach and cause various other gastronomic problems. And, if that’s not enough, it is observed that an excessive anxiety level can make a person physically ill.

Anxiety causes numerous symptoms like rapid breathing, shortness of breath, headache, increased blood pressure and heart rate along with nausea. When these feelings are frequent, it can make you get fever. Apart from nausea, the other gastronomic problems caused by nausea include indigestion, diarrhea, constipation and abdominal pain. Anxiety is also proven to be a reason behind Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Such side effects may continue for days when the anxiety levels reach their extreme. Chronic stress, a common problem makes people suffer low grade fever while some experiences a sudden spike in their body temperature.

The fight or flight response that anxiety introduces in a person and creates nausea can also cause dizziness. Sometimes, a sudden change in blood pressure due to this response gives a person a boost of wooziness or lightheadedness. This happens when hormones like histamines and cortisol are released during that fight or flight response. Along with hampering your digestive tract, they can affect the homeostatic balance of your inner ear that leads to vestibular disorder. That is the reason why many people feel lightheaded when urging to vomit. It can also cause chest pain, difficulty in breathing, weakness and nervousness.

This fight or flight response teamed with anxiety has another side effect. It is studied that there is a significant population of anxious people who suffered a loss in their appetite. People facing anxiety nausea are do consumed by the reason of their anxiety that they don’t find it worthy to do something. This can even make people avoid important activities like eating. You might have experienced the same. The stress about making a presentation before the deadline could make you skip a meal. You don’t feel like the appetite is calling you. This clears the fact why a major population skips at least one meal in a month.

Nausea in the morning

Did you know that anxiety is the major factor causing nausea in the morning apart from pregnancy. Anxiety can cause nausea in the morning in a variety of ways. The stress about an upcoming meeting will trigger the stress response in your brain that can cause nausea. As we have already showed you how stress hormones trigger nerves present in stomach that upsets your stomach causing other gastronomic issues which can also lead to nausea in the morning. Anxiety also increases blood pressure and heart rate making it difficult to sleep. Anxiety is linked with insomnia. An irregular sleep pattern caused by anxiety can also result into nausea sometimes.

How to cope with anxiety nausea?

While nausea is the response of a defensive act that your body do for it’s better, you can take following measures to tell your brain not to be hard to itself and keep it easy:-

Eat healthy

Eating a meal that is not too harsh for your stomach is recommended. For not feeling uneasy, eat food items that are not too spicy, salty or greasy. Keep your stomach some time to digest food by eating in small portions. Avoid big meals. Try to eat light meals that is easy to digest avoid nausea getting severe.

Drink plenty of water

It is important to stay hydrated. Dehydration is an other side effect of anxiety nausea and keeping yourself hydrated is a self care activity. Vomiting can make your body lacking with water. Keep it hydrated with enough water. But avoid consuming alcohol and limit the caffeine intake.

Exercise daily

Exercising is important for your mental and physical health. Doing exercise is responsible for increasing endorphins in your body, the feel good hormones that can help in preventing stress. Exercise also works to relax down your muscles. A daily exercise is best thing you can do to control anxiety nausea.

Try herbal remedies

To reduce the effect of nausea, you can try some herbal remedies like drinking a mint tea or ginger tea. A hot mint or ginger tea relaxes your muscles from inside and keep your digestive system active. With doctor’s advise, you can take herbal supplements like passionflower, kava and valerian.

Do relaxation exercises

As anxiety is a mental issue that can be coped with breathing exercises, you can try them to solve anxiety nausea. Relaxation exercises like yoga and meditation focuses on breathing. When you take some time concentrating on your inhalation and exhalation, you feel relaxed. Inhaling slowly through nose and exhaling slowly through mouth shifts all your attention from stress and you feel relieved.

Get a good sleep

Lack of sleep makes a person feel anxious. Also, an unpleasant sleep pattern causes nausea in the morning. You can yourself stay protected against anxiety nausea simply by getting a good sleep. You can follow simple rules like not eating heavy before bed, avoiding gadgets, going to sleep at the same time everyday, etc to improve your sleep pattern.

Conclusion

Anxiety is a natural response of your body against fear or danger. It can trigger the neurotransmitters in your body to fight against such danger. Anxiety nausea is a sign felt by a large population suffering from stress. Such nausea can even cause dizziness, other gastronomic problems and make you sick about your stomach. Anxiety can also be the reason behind that morning queasiness in your stomach. However there are normal tricks you can implement to cope with such anxiety. However, it is advised to consult a doctor if the anxiety nausea is ruining your quality of time and you are not being able to manage on your own.