Everything we have been learning in this class so far has been about stress and how it affects the body. College students know more than most that stress can have some major effects on one's mental, physical, and emotional well-being. In this case, there seems to be a strong correlation between college students perceived stress levels and their gastrointestinal habits.
The study split a cohort of college students into a control group and an experimental stressed group. The two groups were given two surveys. One was a common stress questionnaire and the other was a gastrointestinal habits survey. The control group was evaluated during the regular academic period and the experimental group was evaluated during the examination period.
Researchers found that students in these examination periods reported increased perceived levels of stress, which is not surprising to anyone who has experienced these trying times. However, the study also showed that more than 40% of these stressed college students declared a change in their gastrointestinal habits during these times. These changes included abdominal pain, abdominal discomfort, and changes in stool consistency.
The overall conclusion of the article is that functional gastrointestinal symptoms are commonly associated with high levels of stress and could be considered to be a negative response to stress. These levels of perceived stress only increase with age, which means it's all downhill from here.
If further research is to be done on this topic, there should be more research into the long-lasting impacts of these stressful events on one's gastrointestinal health. I also think that it would be interesting to research if these functional gastrointestinal symptoms have any impact on cognitive abilities during these stressful times.
As midterms and final exams roll around, we can now all understand why our stomachs hurt while trying to ace those exams.
Balmus IM, Robea M, Ciobica A, Timofte D. PERCEIVED STRESS AND GASTROINTESTINAL HABITS IN COLLEGE STUDENTS. Acta Endocrinol (Buchar). 2019 Apr-Jun;15(2):274-275. doi: 10.4183/aeb.2019.274. PMID: 31508190; PMCID: PMC6711640.
As we experience stress, it is extremely important to find ways to mitigate its effects. For some, that mitigation technique looks very different… reading a book versus going on a run or playing a round of golf. All are adequate if our performance during stressful events improves and side effects of stress, like gastrointestinal changes, are minimized.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest tests of our mental strength to manage stress is the MCAT exam for medical school applications (our refers to us science majors and future physicians). Again, we see many ways to manage this stress: eat healthy, arrive to the exam early, get a good night sleep, but a most beneficial strategy for all is to take practice tests. It has been suggested that a test taker should take a minimum of four practice exams to reach their proficient score that can be mirrored on test day (Chen, Corridon 2020).
Though data suggests, that doesn’t give us a definitive answer. It is always worth a trial and error for what works best for yourself because the last thing I would want is a gastrointestinal ache during a seven-hour exam.
Chen, W., & Corridon, P. R. (2020). The Predictive Value of Full-length Practice Exams for the New MCAT Exam for Premedical Students. Journal of medical education and curricular development, 7, 2382120520981979. https://doi.org/10.1177/2382120520981979
I feel like stress is a difficult balancing act. A little bit of stress is great because it motivates you to finish assignments and study. However, a lot of stress can have the opposite effect and negatively influence your health. I think a lot of college students, myself included, find themselves on the wrong end of the stress spectrum. I found this article that describes the physiological relationship between stress and the gastrointestinal tract. Researchers found that stress can actually put us at a greater risk for colon inflammation, bowel disorders, peptic ulcer diseases, and reflux disease. It's evident that there's definitely some correlation between psychological stress and physical health.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this isn't the greatest news for stressed out college students, I think it's good we are establishing these connections. Maybe this research will motivate us to change our perspective of school workloads and standardized testing.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2004.03508.x
I would definitely agree that there is a correlation between stress and gastrointestinal problems that may arise. As someone who has gastrointestinal issues, I would agree with the notion that when I become extremely stress not only does it prompt abdominal pain mostly epigastric, but I also become very anxious. I can recall having my primary physician tell me that one's GI tract becomes disturbed with stress, therefore it important to remain calm, but sometimes that can be difficult to do. I think that it would be beneficial to see how the gut-brain-axis (bi-directional signaling system between the gut and the brain) may cause inflammation not only in the gut as stress increases, but how it also causes changes within our brain that can be seen with cognitive and executive function.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/stress-and-the-sensitive-gut
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ReplyDeleteThis link between gastrointestinal health and our stress response is fascinating. It made me think about my own stress response and how that impacted my personal and gut health. But it also made me curious about how what you ate contributed to gut inflammation and pain. After a bit of digging, I found that while under high levels of stress, people are more prone to eat foods with more sugars and fats in order to activate the dopamine receptors in their brain to alleviate some of the stress (Yau TH. 2013). However, on that same note, it has also been found that both sugars and fats contribute to an increased inflammation response (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2010). Putting these together, it is possible that at least a factor in what we are seeing with the increased gut pain during high stress situations could be affected by an individual’s diet.
ReplyDeleteSources:
Kiecolt-Glaser, Janice K. PhD. (2010). Stress, Food, and Inflammation: Psychoneuroimmunology and Nutrition at the Cutting Edge. Psychosomatic Medicine: May 2010 - Volume 72 - Issue 4 - p 365-369. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181dbf489
Yau YH, Potenza MN. Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva Endocrinol. 2013 Sep;38(3):255-67. PMID: 24126546; PMCID: PMC4214609.