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Interview with an expert
Love goes through the stomach and if you are in love, you have butterflies in your stomach. Many German idioms say that the stomach has a connection with the psyche. Right, says Prof. Dr. med. Michael Schäffer. In an interview with the news agency spot on news, the surgeon and author of “Every stomach has its charm” (Heyne) explains the interaction.
How feelings affect the stomach
The so-called gut feeling should not be underestimated, because it actually provides information about our feelings. Schäffer explains: “The stomach is more than any other organ via nerves and hormones in exchange with our brain and subconscious. We therefore project emotions such as joy, fear and feelings of love onto the stomach, which reflects them back to the brain.” That is why, in addition to gut instinct, we also talk about feelings “beating the stomach”, “feeling sick” in the case of unpleasant experiences or “butterflies fluttering in our stomachs”.
And what is it about the saying “love goes through the stomach”? According to Schäffer, the phrase describes “on the one hand the tasty common meal in which familiarity and bonds are strengthened”. On the other hand, she underlines the wisdom that “the culinary art of the lady or the gentleman increases the affection of the cooked”. But there is a difference, explains the surgeon: “Male recipients of culinary art and kitchen favor have a clear advantage. Because functional magnetic resonance imaging examinations have shown that hunger is particularly intensely linked to emotions, especially in men.” On the other hand, after eating – when the feeling of satiety occurs – they would feel a higher degree of reward than women.
The stomach as a “love brain”
“As is often the case with our mysterious world of emotions, all of this has to do with our hormones,” said Schäffer. In the case of those who are newly in love, it is also the hormones that “go crazy”. According to the expert, researchers have found that the adrenaline level is increased in those who are newly in love. “We are in a state of emergency, in a stress reaction. Most of the time we do not feel hunger or thirst, we have the feeling of being able to live on air and love, sometimes we get weak knees.”
The “love brain called the stomach” gives its special signals, which we cannot explain, but which can be felt. Whether slight contractions of the stomach muscles with corresponding slight stomach cramps lead to a real tingling sensation in the stomach is, however, controversial: “Sometimes the lack of hunger is followed by strong cravings. Then love goes through the stomach again.”
Investigations by Italian doctors have shown that a certain messenger substance, serotonin, is greatly reduced in the blood – “almost as low as is sometimes demonstrated in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example in the case of compulsory washing”. To be “crazy” about someone therefore has a real meaning, according to Schäffer.
It is the same with lovesickness. This releases “equally strong hormone reactions with corresponding effects on the stomach and the hunger center”. Reactions to this, however, are different. “While one person reacts with stomach cramps and loss of appetite, heartache leads to real binge eating in the other. Chocolate is what is preferred to be eaten. As is well known, it releases the happiness hormone serotonin in our body,” explains the author.
Negative emotions can cause stomach pain
“Negative emotions such as fear, frustration, anger and quarrels – professionally and privately – can also hit us on the stomach through the close connection via nerves and hormones with our brain and trigger symptoms similar to painkillers or bad food,” says Schäffer. In the case of stomach problems triggered by emotions, “luckily, however, there is practically never any actual damage to the stomach during an examination with a gastroscopy”.
Similar to love, other emotions also affect the organ. It is no accident that “something hits you in the stomach”. Schäffer explains: “The stomach reacts very intensively both to direct influences that we exert on it through medication or food, as well as to indirect effects and emotional influences via connections to our brain and subconscious. If these influences are stressful for the stomach, we speak that something hits us on the stomach. “
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