Can Anxiety Cause Nausea? What Is It, Causes & How To Cope 2024
Imagine you’re sitting in a waiting room and are about to have the most important interview of your career. Or, maybe you’ve just watched your partner walk out the door after a huge fight. Your stomach goes in knots, everything inside churns, and you’re so worried all you want to do is throw up. Is anxiety to blame for your nausea at this moment?
This is just one way that acute stress is different from chronic stress. It can cause extreme reactions since the overwhelming event triggers your fight, flight or freeze stress response.
Nausea is just one reaction that’s common to many. Unfortunately, it can also happen when stress builds up over time, and you’re not living the healthiest lifestyle.
Luckily, with a bit of effort and patience, you can reduce anxiety symptoms. Read on if you want to find out how exactly can anxiety cause nausea and what you can do to stop it from happening again?
What Is Anxiety Nausea?
Anxiety and nausea happen when your body responds to stressful triggers with gastrointestinal symptoms. You might not feel nauseous every time you get anxious, either. It’s a symptom that can come and go depending on the severity of the perceived threat.
Your health status also matters. This includes physical and mental health, such as also struggling with depression or a generalized anxiety disorder.
Experiencing nausea when anxious is quite common, with nausea or diarrhea being some of the most commonly reported[1] symptoms. In one study, about 15%[2] of people with major complaints of nausea had an anxiety disorder, while 10% were clinically depressed.
Overall, having an anxiety disorder creates the highest risk of nausea. It’s also three times as likely to happen to women when compared to men. This follows in line with women being more affected[3] by anxiety than men.
How To Tell If Nausea Is From Anxiety
If you want to know how to tell if nausea is from anxiety, track what happens in your day so you can look for patterns. Maybe a certain person, event, or place unknowingly triggers anxiety, or maybe you just have stress build-up, and this is your body’s way of responding.
If you’re still not sure why it’s happening, it’s best to call your doctor and schedule a check-up. There may be an underlying medical condition that needs addressing.
Can Anxiety Cause Nausea In The Morning?
Feeling anxious can make you nauseous any time of the day, including the morning. Many people with anxiety often wake up feeling overly tense and alert. This is because anxiety symptoms can be magnified in the morning since that’s when cortisol is naturally at its highest.[4]
Why Does Anxiety Cause Nausea?
The digestive system is often referred to as the second brain[5] because it has the second largest number of nerves in your body. Your gut bacteria is directly linked to your hormonal and nervous systems. This means anxiety and its stress hormones affect your gut functioning and vice versa. This is called the gut-brain axis[6] and controls how your body reacts under stress. It’s also why an unhealthy diet and poor gut microbiome lead to an increase in mood disorders, including worsening depression and anxiety symptoms.
Anxiety nausea, in particular, can happen because of acute anxiety, such as fearing an imminent threat, or chronic anxiety and stress buildup. Either way, when you perceive a threat, it triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response in your body which can lead to symptoms such as:
- Nausea.
- Diarrhea.
- Indigestion.
- Tense muscles.
- Rapid breathing.
- Frequent urination.
- Unnatural hunger or loss of appetite.
- Increased heart rate and blood pressure.
These symptoms come up because our body often responds to stress by releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This puts our bodies out of rest and digest mode and into reactive mode.
It’s usually for a good reason since stress hormones put our body on alert to let us manage the threat better.
In our modern world, however, threats are very different compared to a millennium ago when we lived in survival mode. Now, sitting in traffic or being late to a meeting can release cortisol.
This includes a fight with your partner or an important interview, making it all the more important to prioritize practicing stress-relieving activities and living a healthy lifestyle.
How To Deal With Anxiety Nausea?
It’s normal and even healthy to experience anxiety to some extent. After all, those anxious feelings help push us to take action to solve a problem. But when all it makes you want to do is throw your guts up, it tends to get in the way of things.
Next time you feel anxiety rising, consider these strategies to calm yourself.
Tips For Immediate Relief
Here are some tips to try the next time you start feeling nauseous:
- Chew ice or sip on cold drinks such as water, juice, or soda.
- Eat something bland and easy to digest, such as bananas, crackers, or toast.
- Avoid fatty, sugary, and salty foods since your digestive system is too sensitive to handle a heavy workload.
- Stay away from caffeine since it exacerbates anxiety, and its high acidity content can cause even more digestive distress.
- Smell an essential oil like calming lavender or a fresh slice of lemon or orange.
- Chew gum or suck on a mint.
- Sit or lie down in a comfortable position.
- Avoid sudden movements and transportation.
Tips For Long-Term Care
There are actions you can take to reduce your overall level of stress, making it less likely you’ll have extreme reactions to perceived threats. These include:
Talk Therapy
Reaching out to a mental health professional is likely to give you the best chance of recovering from anxiety-related nausea. They’ll help you get to the root issue and dive in deep to work on changing your maladaptive patterns of thought and behavior.
Your therapist will likely use cognitive behavioral therapy[7] and exposure therapy[8] to get you through your fears and learn new coping mechanisms.
Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy
Gut-directed hypnotherapy shows promising results for irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS,[9] and other related digestive issues. Within three months,[10] people suffering from these chronic anxiety digestive symptoms experienced significant improvements and a better overall quality of life.
If your stomach frequently churns when stressed and you’re noticing digestive issues, contact a trained mental health professional to give hypnotherapy a try.
Stress-Relieving Activities
If you’re like most of us, you probably feel like you’re constantly running ragged by the demands of work and home life. If so, it’s unlikely you’ll get enough rest and relaxation unless you make it a priority.
Start slow with at least a few minutes a day, and set a time and place for where you’ll get your me time to make sure it happens, such as:
- Meditating.
- Journaling.
- Alone time.
- Time in nature.
- Deep breathing exercises.
- Progressive muscle relaxation.
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs.
These are all science-backed ways to reduce your overall levels of stress, with most activities needing anywhere from just 5 to 20 minutes a day to have an effect.
Self-Care
Taking care of yourself physically and mentally is essential to reduce anxiety or depression. Choose one of these areas to begin focusing on, with one small and realistic habit you think you could slowly introduce into your life:
- Sleep routine.
- Exercise routine.
- Limit alcohol and drugs.
- Add nutrient-dense foods to most meals.
- Try a multivitamin or supplement for anxiety.
- A low FODMAP diet[11] if you regularly have digestive issues.
FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols, which are sugars that are difficult for some people to absorb by the small intestine.
Many people with digestive issues or IBS find their symptoms are drastically reduced when they cut certain high FODMAP foods from their diet, such as dairy, beans, apples, garlic, or onions.
A Community Of Support
Healing from anxiety and reducing its symptoms requires both effort and support. We are social beings that rely on each other to feel safe and secure – which are exactly the emotions we need to reduce anxiety.
Friends, loved ones, and support groups can all help make us feel calmer[12] and more equipped to manage whatever stressors we face.
You can also ask friends to help you out when it comes to your triggers. For example, you can ask them to join you at an anxiety-inducing event, even if it’s just to drop you off at the door.
It might take some courage to reveal whatever you’re struggling with, but a kind soul will understand and want to help.
When To See A Doctor
If anxiety nausea is a rare occurrence and only pops up in extremely stressful situations, it might not be something to worry about. If you’re nauseous quite often, however, it’s time to see a medical professional.
Here are some other signs and symptoms that signify you should schedule a check-up:
- Regular IBS symptoms.
- Difficulty sleeping or eating well.
- Persistent and overwhelming feelings of anxiety.
- Feeling inhibited from doing what you want (i.e., accepting a speaking opportunity, going to a crowded party, dating, etc.)
After making sure you don’t have any underlying medical conditions that could be causing nausea, any other anxiety symptoms are a good indication that seeing a therapist regularly would help.
A mental health professional can help you reduce physical symptoms and teach you coping mechanisms to prevent them from popping up. There are also many free support groups that can offer a community of much-needed emotional support.
The Bottom Line
Anxiety symptoms show up differently in everyone, including duration and severity. With its variety of gastrointestinal symptoms common to many, you may wonder; can anxiety cause nausea and vomiting or other extreme digestive issues?
Unfortunately, anxiety nausea is a symptom experienced by many people with anxiety disorders. If you’ve noticed IBS symptoms or feel more anxious or nauseous in general, it’s time to schedule a check-up and consider contacting a therapist.
With professional help and an effort to include time for self-care, nutritious food, and sleep, it’s possible to reduce symptoms and fully recover from an anxiety disorder.
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