Food Sensitivities and Anxiety
Food sensitivities, such as developing a sensitivity to foods you normally aren’t sensitive to or having an increase in food sensitivities and their severity is a common anxiety symptom, including anxiety and panic attack symptoms.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and food sensitivities.
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Food Sensitivities Common Anxiety Symptom Descriptions
- You suddenly develop sensitivities to foods you weren’t sensitive to before.
- You developed an intolerance to certain foods that you weren’t intolerant to before.
- Your list of food sensitivities has grown dramatically since your anxiety has increased.
- You’ve suddenly developed reactions to foods you normally eat.
- Even though you’ve had some food sensitivities in the past, the list of foods you react to now has grown dramatically.
Your increased food sensitivities can involve only a few foods, many foods, or most foods where you can only eat a few without a reaction.
This symptom can ebb and flow, where you are sensitive to certain foods occasionally, frequently, or persistently over long periods.
Food sensitivities can range in intensity from slight to moderate to severe sensitivity, where you react violently to certain foods.
For some people, food sensitivities can vary from day to day, week to week, and month to month.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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Causes
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
Stress, including anxiety-caused stress, activates the stress response, which puts the body on hyper-alert for danger [1]. Because of the many body-wide changes caused by the stress response, stress responses stress the body.
Visit the “Stress Response” article for the many ways it affects the body.
As part of the stress response preparedness, stomach and digestive functions are suppressed, the immune system is suppressed, the nervous system is stimulated, and the body’s senses are heightened [2].
While these changes are beneficial when in temporary danger, they can cause problems when the stress response is activated too frequently, such as from overly anxious behavior.
Chronic activation of the stress response can cause the body to become hyperstimulated (chronically stressed) [3][4] since stress hormones are stimulants. Hyperstimulation can keep the body in survival mode, which can cause persistent emergency response changes.
Visit our “Hyperstimulation And Its Effects” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel.
Consequently, the stomach, digestive, and immune systems remain chronically suppressed, the nervous system remains stimulated, and the body’s senses remain hyper-alert.
This combination of changes can cause the body to develop heightened sensitivities, including environmental chemicals (which become chemical sensitivities) and food (which become food sensitivities) [5].
Furthermore, chronic suppression of the stomach and digestive system can cause digestive problems, such as slowing down intestinal motility and changing the flora makeup in the gut. Hyperstimulation-caused digestive problems can increase food sensitivities.
Moreover, hyperstimulation can cause issues with inflammation [6], which can also trigger inflammatory reactions in the intestines [7], causing chronic food sensitivities.
Any combination of the above reasons can cause an increase in food sensitivities.
Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
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Treatment
1. Eliminate hyperstimulation
When hyperstimulation (chronic stress) is the cause of this symptom, you’ll need to eliminate hyperstimulation to find relief.
Faithfully practicing the physiological recovery strategies we explain in Chapter 4, addressing the underlying factors of your anxiety so that your body CAN recover (continuing to trigger stress responses because of unidentified and unresolved underlying factors can prevent recovery), and giving your body ample time will allow it to recover and stabilize over time.
As your body recovers, it stops presenting symptoms of hyperstimulation, including increased food sensitivities. Eventually, the sensations and symptoms of stress completely disappear as the body regains its normal, non-hyperstimulated health.
As your body recovers from hyperstimulation, you should see these sensitivities subside.
There are also other considerations.
A. Temporary changes in digestive function can cause chronic digestive problems
If your stomach and digestive system have been affected, you should work with a nutritionist or Nutrition Science Practitioner to help you restore healthy digestive function.
Sometimes, the digestive system can become so upset that it takes major changes in diet to restore healthy digestive motility, flora, and function. Eliminating hyperstimulation might not be enough to return to normal digestive health.
B. Temporary changes in sensitivity can become chronic
It might take a long time to eliminate increased sensitivities even though you’ve eliminated hyperstimulation (which can take a long time in itself). Sometimes temporary changes in sensitivity become chronic even though hyperstimulation has been eliminated.
C. Chronic inflammation problems
If inflammation is a factor, it might take your body a long time to overcome inflammation problems even though you eliminated hyperstimulation. Again, working with a nutritionist or Nutrition Science Practitioner might be required since diet can greatly influence inflammation.
If inflammation is playing a role in prolonged food sensitivities, you will also need to address your anxiety issues to reduce the stress that can fuel inflammation. Chronic stress, such as that caused by overly apprehensive behavior, is a common cause of chronic inflammation problems.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
As mentioned, we recommend therapy to address your anxiety issues. Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors is the most common cause of ongoing anxiety problems and symptoms.
An experienced anxiety disorder therapist can not only help you identify and address the underlying factors that cause issues with anxiety and chronic stress, they can also help you eliminate hyperstimulation and its many symptoms.
Since anxiety has caused these problems, you’ll need to address your anxiety issues to eliminate them.
Additionally, we recommend working with a nutritionist or Nutrition Science Practitioner to help settle the stomach, digestive, and food sensitivities since they can be pesky without professional help.
Nevertheless, addressing the above factors can eliminate increased food sensitivities.
Since worrying, fretting, and becoming emotionally upset about food sensitivities stress the body, these types of behaviors aren’t helpful to recovery. Passively accepting this symptom in the short term – allowing it to persist without reacting to, resisting, or fighting it – while working to eliminate it can bring about success. Acceptance, practice, and patience are keys to recovery.
Also keep in mind that it can take a long time for the body to recover from the adverse effects of hyperstimulation. You have to persevere with your recovery strategies in spite of the lack of apparent progress and remain patient as your body recovers.
NOTE: Medication can also cause food sensitivities. If you suspect your medication might be playing a role, talk with your doctor and pharmacist.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[8][9][10]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Research has shown that therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorder, and distance therapy (via phone or the Internet) is equally, if not more effective, than face-to-face in-person therapy.[11][12][13]
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Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including food sensitivities anxiety symptoms.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
4. Hannibal, Kara E., and Mark D. Bishop. “Chronic Stress, Cortisol Dysfunction, and Pain: A Psychoneuroendocrine Rationale for Stress Management in Pain Rehabilitation.” Advances in Pediatrics., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2014.
5. Schreier, Hannah and Wright, Rosalind. “Stress and food allergy: mechanistic considerations.” Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 28 Aug. 2013.
6. Liu, Yun-Zi, et al. “Inflammation: The Common Pathway of Stress-Related Diseases.” US National Library of Medicine, 20 June 2017.
7. Buret, Andre. "How Stress Induces Intestinal Hypersensitivity." The American Journal of Pathology, Jan. 2006.
8. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
9. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
10. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.
11. Kingston, Dawn.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
12. Markowitz, John, et al. “Psychotherapy at a Distance.” Psychiatry Online, March 2021.
13. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.