Just happens when I get emotional now. It used to be a precursor to tears but I have a really hard time crying so now I just get these achy stabs instead. What are they?
In: Biology
They may be psychosomatic symptoms. There is no established explanation what causes them (biologically). Basically, you are sad and that’s why your stomach hurts. You treat those symptoms psychologically as well, such as going to therapy for it (of they are bad). They are actually really fascinating because they show how much our mind and body are connected.
Two chakras that are positioned in your stomach and chest are thightly connected with emotions and processing them. Clogged up energy can phisicly hurt. I belive there is scientific explanation for that as well since emotions can be defined by chemical stuff or whatever.
We’re not quite sure, but it’s possible the body can’t differentiate between strong enough emotional distress and physical stress. So body goes ‘bad situation? Hit eject button? Maybe? ???’ This is kinda supported by the fact that severe enough distress will trigger flight or fight, but as others have pointed out, gut states and emotional states are interrelated, and vagus control signals can be disrupted (which would cause the same stress results) so it’s not nailed down for certain.
There’s a nerve that runs from your brain to your gut, called the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve has many functions, one of which is to control parasympathetic functions (mood, digestion, heart rate).
If you are stressed, your vagus nerve can’t send signals normally to your stomach. This may lead to digestive irritability and irregularity, which manifests as that feeling in your chest or stomach hurting.
Your emotional state has an external effect on your physiology (ie feeling nauseated when you’re anxious, warm in the experience of love, the entire act of crying etc). Your mind also likes to create shortcuts (do you think about every single letter when you read or do you chunk it into words and phrases?). Crying is very hard on your core muscles and diaphragm which leads to that area being sore, so it’s possible your mind made the shortcut from sad -> cry -> sore just to sad -> sore
There was a pic that went viral not too long ago showing emotional states with MRI that showed circulation change associated with it. Iirc sorrow pulled circulation from the extremities to the trunk, so do with that information what you will
Mine does this because I have functional dyspepsia. Basically, there is nothing physically wrong, but I had a week in the hospital after eating bad sushi that left my whole gi system out of whack, and therefore could not communicate with my brain correctly. So for me, when I get a higher stress level, my gi tract is effected directly.
Stress also plays a huge part in physical reactions, more and more they are finding every year.
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