Medical Questions » Emotions Questions » Question No. 307
| Question: | When I am nervous or worried about even little things, I get terrible pains and cramps in my gut. How can I prevent this? |
| Answer: | Anyone who gets nervous will notice that the muscles in their arms, neck, back etc. will tense up. These are muscles that the brain can voluntarily control, and if we consciously relax, the muscle spasms will go away.
The gut is a hollow tube made of bands of muscle that are not directly controlled by the brain. We cannot consciously direct our gut muscles to contract faster or slower. These muscles may also react to stress by going into spasm. When this occurs, you develop gut pains, much the same as those when the gut is sent into spasm by the infections or toxins of gastroenteritis.
If you relax yourself, the pains may slowly ease, but some people need to take medications that will relax the gut spasms The expression that you feel your ' stomach is tied in knots' is derived from these gut muscle spasms. The irritable bowel syndrome is a more severe manifestation of this condition, where the spasms occur for little or no reason.
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