A few months ago, a new scientific paper discussing a link between mental stress and digestive trouble crossed my desk. I was immediately intrigued—partly because at the time I was stressed (it was during the holiday season, work was busy and my husband was traveling a lot on business), but also because at one time or another everyone feels taxed. This was information I knew you, our reader, could use!And sure enough, once word got out among our staff, the whole office was buzzing: How does stress affect my gastrointestinal tract? And because I’m the nutrition editor, I was also asked, are there any soothing foods that I can eat?
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Stressed and Tired? How Cocoa Could HelpI now can answer those questions—thanks to Karen Ansel, who researched and wrote about the topic in the March/April issue of EatingWell Magazine. Here’s what she found:
There’s a reason why when you’re upset, you feel a knot in the pit of your stomach. “The brain and the digestive tract share many of the same nerve connections,” says Douglas A. Drossman, M.D., a gastroenterologist and psychiatrist and co-director of the University of North Carolina Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders in Chapel Hill. It’s because, in the womb, the nerves that eventually separate into the brain, spinal cord and nerves of the intestine all have the same beginnings and remain interconnected.
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