What is causing the feeling around your stomach that happens when cringing or stressing out?
In: Biology
Your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight system) is designed to draw blood away from your less vital organs (including your stomach) to instead fuel your brain and limbs in the event that you threatened and need to move. The sensation you are feeling is the nerves in your stomach reacting to the limited oxygen supply you’re getting and the constriction of blood vessels in your stomach as the rest of your body hogs the blood.
Unfortunately, your body can’t tell apart social stress from life-or-death fights, so everything that makes you anxious can set off those feelings in your gut.
What you’re essentially describing is the physical response to what your body interprets as a stressful situation, or what we commonly refer to as anxiety.
Lots of things are happening here, and we don’t exactly know what causes that feeling, but the current working theory is it’s a decrease in blood flow to your stomach & organs surrounding such.
This happens because, if you’re running from a predator, your muscles, heart, and brain need all the oxygen & nutrients they can get. So, your body diverts the blood from unimportant organs in that moment, such as the stomach/intestines/liver etc. This is, we think, what is responsible for that feeling of “butterflies”.
Latest Answers