Before going into why you feel anxious after you eat, let's discuss the signs and symptoms of anxiety after eating.

Anxiety after eating is the result of your sympathetic nervous system firing. The sympathetic nervous system is the branch of the nervous system responsible for our fight-or-flight response.

The sympathetic nervous system activates during stressful times. The activation process consists of a cascade of chemical and electrical processes. However, to you, the fight-or-flight response manifests itself as the following physical symptoms:

• A heightened sense of awareness

• Rapid heartbeat

• Faster and shallower breathing

• Sweating in certain parts of the body (like the palms)

• Increases in your blood pressure

• Muscle tension

• Difficulty concentrating or focusing

• Trembling

If all of these symptoms sound like what you feel after meals, then you are indeed experiencing anxiety.

The Reasons Why You Feel Anxious After Meals

Food-related anxiety happens because something in a meal or the practice of eating triggers a response from the sympathetic nervous system. In meals and certain foods, several things can trigger anxiety.

Of course, not all cases of post-meal anxiety are the result of sympathetic nervous system activation. Sometimes, the cause is biological, as in the case of reactive hypoglycemia — which we'll talk about later.

Also, you may just have mistimed your meals or be eating foods that your body doesn't handle well.

Whatever the case may be, know that anxiety after eating does happen, and the first step to addressing your post-meal jitters is to know the root cause.

In detail, here are some of the possible causes of your food-related anxiety.

A Food Allergy or Food Sensitivities

One of the possible causes of food-related anxiety is food intolerance. Food sensitivities or allergies are a sign that there is something in certain foods that your body cannot tolerate.

When you eat foods that you may be sensitive to, your body will treat what you've ingested as a foreign agent. As a result, your body reacts by trying to get rid of it by activating the immune system.

The immune response represents a stress on your body. As a result, your sympathetic nervous system will kick in and trigger anxiety.

Reactive Hypoglycemia

Reactive hypoglycemia occurs when your blood sugar drops too suddenly after a meal. Usually, reactive hypoglycemia happens when you ingest foods high in processed or refined sugars.

Processed and refined sugars metabolize quickly in the digestive system. As carbohydrates are broken down, insulin production increases dramatically. The high amounts of insulin cause sugars to enter the cells, resulting in low blood sugar.

When your blood sugar drops to certain levels, you will experience anxiety symptoms like shakiness and difficulty concentrating. At their worst, the symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia can resemble those of a panic attack, especially in people who have type 1 diabetes.

Excessive Caffeine Intake

Many of us love pick-me-ups. However, if you take in too many stimulants like caffeine, it may be the culprit behind your food-related anxiety.

Caffeine works by increasing brain activity. As brain activity increases, the body enters a heightened state of readiness. This is why you feel more focused and energetic after your morning coffee.

Unfortunately, when caffeine intake becomes excessive, the body becomes overstimulated. This results in anxiety symptoms like jitteriness, increased respiratory rate, and even palpitations.

Time your stimulants too closely to your meals, and you may experience anxiety after eating. Consider this the next time you think of having that espresso or energy drink with your meal.

An Eating Disorder

Do you feel anxious or guilty after you've eaten a hearty meal? If you do, you might just have an eating disorder.

Eating disorders are mental health conditions that can affect one's relationship with food. People diagnosed with eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia often have underlying problems like body image issues or low self-esteem.

When such individuals eat, they may fear sudden weight gain. The fear of weight gain triggers severe anxiety after eating and the symptoms associated with it.

People diagnosed with eating disorders may also perform certain activities after meals. For example, people with bulimia nervosa tend to induce vomiting in an attempt to prevent the digestive system from absorbing the food they ate.

Others may also engage in activities that seem healthy but aren't. They may try to undo their binge episode by obsessively following a healthy diet or overexercising.

If you suspect that you have an eating disorder, it's best to see a mental health professional. A mental health professional can thoroughly assess you and determine if your food-related anxiety is because of an eating disorder.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

If you're generally an anxious person, you will likely feel anxious even after meals. In such scenarios, you can attribute your food-related anxiety to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

GAD is one of the reasons some people experience anxiety after eating. While it can be a cause by itself, GAD happens to co-occur with several types of eating disorders. Among these eating disorders are bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.

Unpleasant Memories Surrounding Certain Foods

Negative experiences with certain foods can trigger anxiety after eating them again. For example, if you suffered from food poisoning after eating chili con carne, you may become uneasy after eating it a second time.

In this case of diet-regulated anxiety, food becomes the direct cause. However, you can also experience anxiety if you've tied a certain food to past negative experiences.

For instance, imagine that you and your family had a falling out during a family barbecue. If something like this happened, you may feel anxious after eating a steak.

What To Do When You Experience Anxiety After Eating

Anxiety after eating can occur for various reasons, as you've seen in the previous section. Once you've narrowed down the root cause (or causes) of your food-related anxiety, you can take certain steps to address it.

What do you do? Implement any of the following practices for managing anxiety after eating.

1. Keep a Food Diary

Certain types of food will trigger anxiety after eating. Your first strategy may be to eliminate these foods. Of course, this won't be easy as you're likely to eat several kinds of food in a day. This is where a food diary comes in.

Record everything you eat in a day in the food diary. Besides the food you consume, identify patterns of how you feel after each meal.

By doing this, you'll narrow down what's causing you to have panic attacks after eating. Keeping track of your food intake can also reveal any specific food sensitivities you may have.

Once you've determined which food leads to your anxiety, you can eliminate it and see what happens.

2. Limit Your Caffeine Intake, Especially Close to Meal Times

You don't need to eliminate caffeine from your diet. However, if you're consuming tons of it before your meals, you'll be setting yourself up for acid reflux, the resulting chest pain, and — most importantly — anxiety.

You may not experience anxiety right away. However, when the caffeine takes effect after you eat, you'll start feeling post-meal jitters.

3. Choose Whole Foods

Reactive hypoglycemia leads to anxiety-like symptoms because of how quickly glucose gets shuttled into the cells after you eat. With this in mind, you need foods that help prevent low blood sugar after you eat. Right off the bat, that means minimizing (or even eliminating) your intake of highly processed sugars, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, and refined grains.

Whole foods like natural grains, lean meats, fermented foods, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats can keep your blood sugar stable. When you eat these foods, your energy levels will remain constant, and you won't experience the dreaded post-meal crash.

Most importantly, whole foods release glucose steadily into your bloodstream. The gradual release of glucose prevents sudden blood sugar drops that you feel as anxiety after eating.

4. Manage Mealtime Stress With Mindful Eating

Chronic stress can affect how you feel after meals. For this reason, another way to reduce stress and anxiety after eating is to go into your meals with the least amount of stress possible.

An effective method for reducing anxiety and stress is mindful eating. To practice mindful eating, pay full attention to your meal as you are eating. Savor your food's texture and taste. Also, chew as many times as you can.

By eating this way, you'll engage all your senses and focus on the present moment while you eat. As a result, you'll promote a sense of calm and reduce anxiety after your meal.

5. Add Probiotics to Your Diet

Your gut biome (the bacterial environment in your digestive system) affects your cognition throughout the day. This is why it's essential to maintain the health of your gut-brain axis.

The gut-brain axis is the link between your gut microbiota or bacteria and your brain. A balanced microbiota will have a positive effect on your mood and focus whereas any imbalance could spell anxiety after eating.

To ensure that your gut microbiota's affect on your cognition keeps your mood balanced after meals, you have to feed it. You can feed your gut microbiota by adding probiotic foods to your diet.

Probiotic foods include yogurt, kefir, and other fermented foods like tempeh and sauerkraut. Other probiotic foods are:

• Miso

• Kimchi

• Pickles

• Kombucha

6. Eat in a Calm Environment

If you have social anxiety, eating in a calm environment may help curb your post-meal anxiety. By eating in a calm environment, you can eat in solitude and avoid any stress you might experience from crowds and noise.

7. Practice Deep Breathing Around Mealtimes

Deep breathing is one of the most effective relaxation techniques to mitigate stress and anxiety after eating. Deep breathing engages the diaphragm and enables the lungs to maximize oxygen intake. This stimulates the vagus nerve and lowers the heart rate and shakiness — two physical symptoms of anxiety after eating.

8. Eat a Prescribed Diet

Chronic pain from digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) will trigger your anxiety. If you've sought professional help for such conditions, your healthcare provider will likely have prescribed a diet.

Whatever the diet is, your healthcare provider prescribed it because it's safe and agrees with how your body processes food. For this reason, you'll reduce anxiety after eating by following the diet your physician recommended for you.

9. Seek Professional Help

Feeling anxiety after eating can be due to underlying anxiety disorders or mental health issues. If everything else on the list fails to reduce your anxiety and the physical sensations associated with it, it's time to seek a mental health professional.

By speaking with a licensed therapist, you can identify any conditions that lead to your food-related anxiety. You'll also discover any unhealthy patterns like emotional eating or other symptoms of eating disorders.

From here, you and your therapist can develop an action plan to eliminate post-meal anxiety for the long haul.

Anxiety After Eating Happens for Many Reasons — But We Can Help

Feeling anxious after eating doesn't have to be a death sentence. By implementing the tips we've shared here, you'll be taking steps to reduce anxiety and develop healthier habits and attitudes around food.

Of course, we all need a little bit of help sometimes. That's why we're here. If you're struggling with post-meal anxiety, schedule a free 30-Minute Discovery Call today.