Eli5: Why does anxiety take appetite away and causes stomach to hurt ?
In: Biology
You have two major parts of your nervous system. One of them is the sympathetic system — nicknamed “fight or flight” — which gets all different parts of your body ready for action. It gets activated when your body senses that there could be a danger present, which is often what’s happening when you feel anxious. This activates things like dilating your pupils (to make your vision better!), or making your breathing and heartbeat quicker (getting ready for physical activity!).
The other half of your central nervous system is the parasympathetic — nicknamed the “rest and digest” system. It takes care of all the other stuff your body needs when it’s NOT super active. As the name suggests, it’s for resting your body and digesting your meals! When you’re getting ready to respond to danger — i.e. in fight or flight mode — your body moves its resources AWAY from the rest and digest system. Which is why you lose your appetite. Can’t have you sluggish and digesting a big meal when you need to run away from a tiger! (or a speech in front of 100 people, maybe the modern equivalent of a tiger).
Your digestive system actually also has its OWN nervous system, which is pretty cool but also makes our digestive systems kinda wacky when it comes to stress. Your body releases a special hormone called cortisol when it’s in “fight or flight” mode than can affect your stomach and intestines, which can also sometimes cause them to hurt. It’s probably different for everyone too, because our bodies all react differently to stress and the hormones that we produce!
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