By Schuyler Corrigan

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April 18, 2022

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When it comes to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, food is often only half the issue.

From a naturopathic perspective, stress, anxiety, dietary inputs, and lifestyle obstacles can be significant clues when approaching someone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. IBS is a multi-faceted imbalance that encompasses a whole-body approach including stress reduction, mental/psychosomatic attention, and often specific food allergies or intolerances that need to be identified and removed.

When IBS lingers

When IBS is present for several months or years, this can cause what’s called “dysbiosis” in the gut flora, meaning the probiotics within your digestive tract can become unbalanced and disturbed. When this is an ongoing issue, disrupted probiotics can greatly weaken the gastrointestinal lining and also hinder digestion, metabolism, and absorption of foods. Over time, digestive issues (i.e symptoms of IBS) may become worse because the volatility of the digestive tract is becoming more reactive. What may have been a sensitivity to one single food may expand to dozens of foods, often making the triggers for IBS attacks extremely hard to pinpoint.

As symptoms of IBS continue, an extreme amount of stress and anxiety can develop around the otherwise common practice of simply eating food. Eating out, eating while traveling, going to work, or even going out at all may become a stressful trigger for someone with chronic IBS. In some cases, just the thought of an IBS attack is enough to mentally develop digestive symptoms that were almost completely caused by the mental hyperactivity, not a food trigger. This is called a “psychosomatic” reaction – when our mental brain causes a gut-brain reaction. Even unconscious stress can trigger digestive problems, leading to a cyclical whole-body digestive imbalance.

Naturopathic Therapies and Strategies

Your naturopathic doctor will always gain an underlying sense of your lifestyle, work, stress load, home life, self-care rituals, and common dietary inputs. They may request a food intolerance assessment or a food allergy panel or review recent tests that you bring with you. They will inquire deeply about how IBS presents for you individually, and what your triggers are. Food is often only half of the issue. They may also utilize personalized supplements, lifestyle and stress support suggestions, and utilize custom formulated herbs. Herbal medicines work incredibly well to not only help and repair the digestive process but also to support the stress response. 

Read More: Nutrition Support for Balancing Probiotics and Gut Health 

If you think you may have IBS or have been diagnosed with IBS, here are a few tips to help begin building a clearer picture:

1. Get clarity on your symptoms: Become very conscious of how digestive upset shows up for you and write it down to identify patterns. Do you feel spasms, pain, burning, cramping, or bloating? Does it present as diarrhea or constipation? Do you know of any clear food triggers that always set off symptoms? Write everything down.
2. Be honest with yourself about your stress load. If you’re feeling stress, where does it show up in your body? Do you feel tightness in your stomach or intestines? Is your mental state agitated or hyperactive? What are your triggers?
3. Practice mindfulness meditation and breathwork. Deep breathing is very beneficial for a sudden IBS attack. Although it may not solve the issue completely, it can buy you some time until you’re in a place where you feel safe and comfortable. Close your eyes, breathe deeply into your lower digestion, and visualize a calm stillness. Do this for 5-10 repetitions, as often as needed. Do this even when you feel calm to develop the habit.
4. Incorporate warm chamomile tea into your daily routine. Chamomile is a digestive calming aid that is soothing, cooling, and antispasmodic to the entire digestive tract. Warm tea is so wonderful on a daily basis for digestion.  A chamomile tincture is also great to carry around with you for acute attacks when you’re not at home.