Understanding the Link Between IBS and Repressed Anger

Camille
Sep 26
5 min read

For a long time, I didn’t connect my IBS to my emotions. I thought it was all about food, or gut bacteria, or some missing supplement. But underneath years of pain and flare-ups, something deeper was going on.

I’ve started to see a clear pattern in myself (and in so many others I work with): my IBS flares sometimes followed moments when I felt unsupported, dismissed, or disrespected. Times when, deep down, I was angry, but I swallowed it, smiled, and kept going or isolated myself.

That tendency started in childhood. Growing up, anger didn’t feel safe. Expressing it could mean conflict, rejection, or disconnection, so my body learned to push it down. I became the “nice one,” the one who didn’t make waves.

On the outside, I was fine. But inside, that energy didn’t just disappear. It had to go somewhere. And for me, it went to my gut.

Signs You Might Be Carrying Repressed Anger

Many of us don’t even realize we’re repressing anger, it feels so automatic that it just becomes “who we are.” Some real-life signs:

You feel tightness in your jaw, neck, back gut, or shoulders when something upsets you, but you brush it off and say you’re fine.
You dwell on angry thoughts or feelings towards the people or things in your life.
You have trouble saying “no”, you overcommit, then feel resentful or drained.
You replay arguments or slights in your head later, wishing you’d spoken up.
You get irritable over small things (slow drivers, loud chewers)
You feel guilty the moment you do show anger, apologizing or minimizing it right away.
IBS flares, headaches, back pain, or jaw pain often show up after conflicts or stressful interactions.

What It May Have Looked Like in Childhood

Repression usually starts young, when healthy anger expression isn’t allowed, modeled, or safe. It might have looked like:

Being told: “Don’t be so dramatic.”
Getting punished or shamed for having a tantrum.
Parents shutting down anger with silence, withdrawal, or “go to your room until you calm down.”
Watching siblings or parents explode in scary ways, so you learned it was safer to stuff your own feelings.
Being the “good kid” who kept peace in the family, even at your own expense.
Hearing messages like “anger is ugly,” “good girls don’t get mad,” or “don’t talk back.”

When a child isn’t allowed to express anger safely, their nervous system learns to push it down to preserve connection.

That unexpressed energy doesn’t vanish, it gets stored in the body. Over time, it shows up as tension, pain, and gut symptoms.

Why Anger Affects the Gut - Link Between IBS and Repressed Anger

Anger is a mobilizing emotion. It’s the nervous system’s way of saying: “Something’s not right. Protect yourself. Set a boundary.”

In a healthy system, you feel the anger, act on it (set a limit, say no, push back), and then the energy discharges. The body returns to balance.

But if you can’t (or don’t) express it? That mobilizing energy has nowhere to go. The nervous system gets stuck in a loop, and the gut pays the price.

In fight-or-flight (mobilizing nervous system state), digestion is deprioritized. Blood flow shifts away from the gut, motility becomes irregular, inflammation rises.
If that state becomes chronic, the gut becomes hypersensitive and unpredictable.
IBS symptoms (cramping, constipation, diarrhea, bloating) are the body’s way of processing energy that never got expressed.

Constipation vs. Diarrhea: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Repressed anger doesn’t look the same in everyone. Some of us hold, some of us dump.

Constipation (the “hold”): the body mirrors the strategy of keeping anger locked inside. Muscles clamp down, motility slows, and everything feels stuck.
Diarrhea (the “dump”): the body takes the opposite approach: urgency, speed, offloading as fast as possible. The system tries to purge what feels intolerable to hold.

Neither pattern is random, both are protective adaptations. Your body is just trying to help you survive what feels unsafe.

John Sarno’s Perspective

Dr. John Sarno’s work on TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome) showed that repressed emotions (especially rage) often get converted into physical symptoms. The brain essentially distracts you from “unacceptable” feelings with something else:

“Better to feel stomach cramps (or back pain, or diarrhea) than to feel this much rage.”

It’s not that the anger isn’t there, it’s that your nervous system has decided it’s safer to feel physical symptoms than to face the full charge of your emotions.

Repressed Anger and the Pain–IBS Loop

Here’s how the cycle often plays out:

1. Repressed Anger → Chronic Tension → Chronic Pain

When anger isn’t felt or expressed, the nervous system stays in a background state of fight/flight readiness.

Muscles tighten (gut walls, jaw, back, pelvic floor).
Circulation is reduced.
Over time, this chronic tension creates real pain, cramping, or altered motility.

This is exactly what Sarno and other mindbody researchers describe: the brain “uses” physical symptoms to keep you away from threatening emotions like rage or grief. IBS, chronic back pain, pelvic pain, and migraines often live here.

2. Chronic Pain → Frustration/Anger → Lower Pain Threshold

Living with constant pain naturally creates more anger and frustration. That frustration cycles back into the nervous system, raising cortisol, fueling inflammation, and lowering your threshold for pain. Small triggers now create big flares.

3. The Feedback Loop

Suppressed anger → nervous system dysregulation → pain → frustration/anger → more dysregulation/sensitization → more pain.

It’s a vicious circle. The link between IBS and repressed anger is very real. And yet, the body’s goal is protective: anger is mobilizing energy, but if it’s never discharged, it gets trapped and shows up as pain.

Breaking the Cycle

The good news is that loops can be rewired. Healing is about interrupting the cycle at multiple points:

Awareness: Catch anger early (even subtle irritation or resentment counts).
Expression: Use safe outlets -> journaling, movement, stomping, shaking, voice work, therapy. Let the body know it’s safe to move anger.
Regulation: Pair expression with nervous system tools like grounding, co-regulation, breath - so you don’t just recycle the tension.
Meaning: Reframe anger as protective, not shameful. It’s not “bad”, it’s your body guarding your boundaries.

Think of it like two rivers feeding each other: one is anger creating pain, the other is pain creating anger. Both flow into the same body-mind loop. The healing work is learning to feel the anger, express it safely, rewire the habit of being angry, and rewire the nervous system’s learned response to pain.

My Story with Anger and IBS

When I look back, so much of my pain tied to moments I didn’t feel supported or when I felt disrespected. Instead of letting myself get angry, I turned it inward. My system held onto the charge and my gut became the outlet.

IBS was never random. It was my body trying to speak for me, trying to process emotions I had no safe place for. Once I began to feel and release anger instead of swallowing it, my nervous system slowly learned a new way. And my gut began to settle.

If IBS has stolen years of your life like it did mine, please hear this: you’re not broken. Your body isn’t against you, it’s protecting you the only way it knows how.

When we start to listen to anger, express it safely, and bring the nervous system back into balance, the body can finally let go of the tension it’s been holding. And symptoms can shift.

Healing takes effort, but it doesn’t have to take forever. The same way your body learned to hold anger, it can also learn to let it go.

Want Support on Your Healing Journey?

I help my 1:1 clients navigate their healing journeys. If you’re ready for guidance, accountability, and personalized practices, I’d love to support you.