Why does my stomach always hurt? The unspoken connection between trauma and digestion

I hate feeling so bloated all the time. If I could just take a pill so I’d never have to eat again I would!”

Welcome to this conversation you might not expect on a trauma blog: digestion. You might be thinking, “What does trauma have to do with my digestion? And also — how did she know I had digestive issues?” Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to unpack today.

Want a deeper dive? Listen to the podcast! 👇

While nutrition blogs, functional health experts, and doctors have a lot of helpful information about our epidemic of digestive issues, there’s a major factor getting far too little attention: chronic stress and trauma.

This post is for the people who end up in my orbit after years of chasing answers for digestive discomfort. They come looking for help with emotional overwhelm only to discover that their bloating, constipation, and unpredictable digestion are deeply tied to their trauma history.

These are the people who have tried everything: eliminating inflammatory foods, going lactose-free or gluten-free, swearing off seed oils and processed sugar, filling their cabinets with supplements like saffron, turmeric, spirulina, probiotics, digestive enzymes — you name it.

Many have diagnoses like IBS or just plain “mystery tummy issues.” They’re eating strict, painstakingly careful diets — not because they’re chasing a trend, but because they are desperate for relief. They don’t want to feel bloated all the time. They don’t want to dread eating.

And layered on top of that discomfort is a heavy dose of shame. A quiet belief that their digestive struggles are somehow their fault. Like they’re not disciplined enough or not healthy enough.

Let me say this loud and clear: nothing could be further from the truth.

I see how hard you’re trying. I see how deeply you care about your comfort and health. I know how exhausting this is.

I also completely understand that digestion can absolutely be affected by food itself, by genetics, by anatomical differences. In fact, I didn’t know I had celiac disease until my thirties — and once I figured that out, a whole layer of digestive issues disappeared practically overnight.

But there’s more to this story. There’s a huge missing piece in these conversations about gut health: the emotional piece. The chronic stress piece. The trauma piece.

When we act like stress and trauma are just “mental” problems while digestion is a “physical” one, we create a false divide that leaves so many people stuck. The truth is, we’re not meat machines that need better fuel or a tune-up. We are organisms. Whole beings whose nervous system experience is the conductor of both our emotional and physical lives.

Nothing happens in your digestive process without your nervous system orchestrating it. It manages your digestive enzymes, the muscles that move food through your gut, and the hormones that regulate hunger and fullness. So when you’re stuck in chronic stress or carrying unresolved trauma? Yeah… your digestion is going to feel it.

Trauma doesn’t have to be some big dramatic event. The most damaging patterns are often subtle, chronic, ongoing stresses that wire your nervous system into survival mode.

Understanding this connection changes everything.

The nervous system: your digestion’s boss

If you’ve hung out with me for a while, you know I talk about the nervous system all the time because it’s the foundation of my work as a trauma coach.

The nervous system isn’t some vague spiritual concept — it’s literal anatomy. It’s your brain, brainstem, spinal cord, and a vast network of peripheral nerves branching through every part of your body. It’s running an incredible number of processes 24/7, most of which you never think about.

Its number one job? To keep you alive. That’s it. Everything else is secondary.

Digestion isn’t some isolated process happening “over there” while your emotions are happening “over here.” Digestion is deeply entwined with your survival response. Your autonomic nervous system is the boss of digestion — full stop. You don’t have conscious control over it.

It’s constantly adjusting the speed and priority of digestion based on one simple question: “Are we safe right now?”

Picture this: I’m out hiking and stumble into the path of a mama cougar. In that moment, my nervous system does not care about digesting the sandwich I ate earlier. It’s laser-focused on keeping me alive.

It redirects energy away from digestion so I can run or fight. Heart rate up. Blood pressure up. Muscles tense. Digestion? Paused.

And if that situation escalates to where escape is impossible and injury occurs, my nervous system shifts into shutdown — a biological “sleep mode.” It slows everything down even further, numbing me to pain, reducing energy use, and keeping me just barely alive.

This is the brilliance of our nervous systems — adjusting moment to moment to prioritize survival.

And here’s the kicker: it reacts this way even when there’s no cougar. Modern life — emails, family conflicts, social media overwhelm — is full of threats your nervous system registers as dangerous. Especially if you grew up in a home where your safety or belonging felt fragile.

So while you’re not literally being chased every day, your nervous system may still be acting like you are — keeping digestion deprioritized for years, even decades.

That’s why you can eat perfectly and still feel awful: your body’s digestive machinery isn’t even fully turned on when your nervous system thinks you’re in danger.

Understanding this isn’t about blame. It’s about compassion. Your body isn’t betraying you — it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do to keep you alive.

The tension patterns that restrict digestion

There’s more. Chronic stress and trauma don’t just suppress digestion through nervous system signaling — they also shape how your body holds itself.

When you’re startled — like if a kid sneaks up behind you and yells “BOO!” — your body contracts. Shoulders hunch. Chest caves in. Knees pull toward your chest. It’s your body’s instinct to protect vital organs.

If you grew up under chronic stress or lived in an environment where you felt consistently unsafe, that contraction didn’t just happen for a moment. Your body held onto it. Your muscles, your posture, your breathing all began reflecting this chronic “pulled-in” shape.

This matters deeply for digestion because digestion depends on movement.

One of the sneakiest ways this shows up? Shallow breathing. When you’re in survival mode, your breathing shifts from deep belly breaths to shallow chest breaths. And when that happens, your diaphragm stops moving properly.

The diaphragm — that big dome-shaped muscle below your ribs — moves up and down when you breathe deeply, gently massaging your digestive organs and supporting the muscular contractions that move food through your intestines. When your diaphragm isn’t moving, that massage stops. Your gut loses mechanical assistance. Things slow down.

Bloating, constipation, sluggish digestion — not because of what you ate, but because your body isn’t moving the way it’s meant to.

And then there’s fascia — your body’s connective tissue network. Think of peeling an orange: the white stringy stuff wrapping around the entire fruit and separating each wedge is a perfect metaphor for fascia. It wraps every muscle, organ, and cell. It’s a communication network allowing your entire body to function as an integrated whole.

Fascia needs movement to stay healthy. When you stretch, breathe deeply, and move freely, fascia stays soft, pliable, hydrated. But when you’re stuck in tension patterns due to stress or trauma, it stiffens and seizes up — restricting not just your muscles but your digestive organs too.

This is why movement matters — not as punishment or exercise for weight loss, but as nourishment for your body’s natural systems. Gentle, multidimensional movement helps soften fascia, restore mobility, and support healthy digestion.

Separation from your body’s cues

There’s one more sneaky way chronic stress and trauma impact digestion — and that’s the way they separate you from your body’s cues entirely.

When you’ve lived in a body exposed to chronic stress, pain, or fear — especially from a young age — your nervous system has ways of protecting you from being overwhelmed. One of the most effective ways it can do that? Turning down the volume on your internal sensations. Like way down. Sometimes nearly on mute.

Because think about it: if your body is constantly under threat, it would simply be too much to feel every churn of your stomach, every heartbeat, every signal coming from inside. So your system adapts by creating distance — by muting that sensory feedback.

This works in the short term, but over time it means you become disconnected from your hunger cues, your fullness cues, even your gentle cravings for nourishing foods. What breaks through? Only the extremes. The richest, sweetest, saltiest foods — because those intense sensory inputs finally penetrate the numbness and help you feel something.

And this isn’t about you being weak, indulgent, or lacking self-control. No. This is your nervous system doing its best to help you create some kind of connection with your body in a landscape where subtlety has been lost.

But here’s the thing: when the only signals that break through are extremes, it becomes nearly impossible to sense what’s actually working for your digestion. We can’t tell what cravings are showing up as a survival adaptation. We can’t tell which foods or protocols are actually helping when we’re numb to what’s happening inside.

So the work here isn’t about forcing yourself into better habits. The work is about reestablishing enough safety in your body so you can start to hear the conversation your body is trying to have with you again — even when it’s been drowned out for decades.

Where this all leads

This isn’t about giving you a 3-step plan or a quick fix. This is a shift in perspective.

Your digestive struggles aren’t a reflection of failure — they’re your body’s brilliant adaptations to difficult circumstances.

And here’s the good news: your body can heal. Your nervous system can relearn safety. You can rebuild that relationship with your body gently, slowly, sustainably.

You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to “fix” yourself.

You just have to create the conditions for healing and trust that your body knows exactly what to do when it feels safe enough to do it.