Why Your Gut Isn’t Broken — It’s Guarded

If you live with IBS, reflux, functional dyspepsia, or ongoing GI symptoms with “normal” tests, you’ve likely been told some version of this:

“It’s just stress.”

Which is both true — and wildly incomplete.

Stress isn’t new. We’ve known for decades that stress affects digestion.

What’s new is understanding that in many chronic gut disorders, the primary issue isn’t structural damage.

It’s a nervous system stuck in protection mode.

That’s different.

And it changes how we treat it.