Feeling nauseous all of a sudden is high on the list of “Wow, this is absolutely miserable” experiences. It also probably sets your mind racing. You might start recalling every single crumb of food and sip of a drink you've taken recently, trying to pin down a culprit. Or maybe, if it's possible for you to get pregnant, you might be looking at the calendar to remind yourself when you last got your period. But if you're definitely not pregnant, and you didn’t eat anything funky, it’s only natural to wonder what’s up.
Turns out, plenty of other things can make your stomach churn that have nothing to do with babies or bad food. Here are nine unexpected things that might leave you feeling nauseous—plus what you can do to start feeling back to normal.
What is nausea? | Symptoms of nausea | Causes of nausea | Nausea treatments | How to prevent nausea | When to see a doctor
What is nausea?
The odds are pretty high that you’ve experienced feeling nauseous at some point in your life, but it never hurts to recap the most basic of basics. Nausea is an uneasy sensation in the stomach that often comes with the urge to vomit.1 You can have nausea without vomiting—you might just feel like it’s going to happen.
Anyone can experience nausea, although it’s more common under certain circumstances, like when someone undergoes chemotherapy or is pregnant. It's important to understand that nausea itself is not a disease or health condition—instead, it's a potential sign of a disease, condition, or other physical state.2
Symptoms of nausea
The symptoms of nausea can be a little difficult to explain—ultimately, your stomach just doesn’t feel right. But to get more specific, here are potential nausea symptoms you might experience3:
- A strange feeling in the chest, upper abdomen, or back of the throat
- Sweating
- Stomach discomfort
- Lack of appetite
- Uncontrollable contracting respiratory and abdominal muscles (also known as retching)
- Feeling like you're about to vomit
- Actually vomiting
- Excessive saliva4
Causes of nausea
Here are some of the most common causes of feeling nauseous that are always good to know.
Even though stress is an emotion, it causes a cascade of physical changes in your body. Including in your gut, which is highly sensitive to negative feelings, explains Randy Wexler, M.D., an internist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Your gut is lined with nerves that work to expand and contract to push food through your digestive tract. But when you’re stressed or anxious, your brain may send signals to those nerves that cause additional contractions. This is called tachygastria. All those contractions mess up your gut’s normal rhythm, which can leave you feeling nauseous. And you don’t have to be majorly upset to feel the effects. Even minor stress can leave you feeling nauseous, Dr. Wexler says.
Pausing to take a few deep breaths can help you feel calmer, which could help ease your nausea. Another option: Sip a cup of ginger tea or chew on a piece of candied ginger, says Kristine Arthur, M.D., an internist at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. The spicy root has properties that are thought to ease nausea. And if you routinely find yourself feeling sick to your stomach due to stress or anxiety, talking to a therapist for help may be a good idea.
When you’ve gone several hours without eating, your blood sugar can get too low (especially if the last thing you ate was mostly carbs, like a plain bagel or cookies). That can leave you dizzy and nauseous, with a sensation like you’re going to pass out, says Dr. Arthur.
The fix? Eat something that’s high in carbs like a glass of fruit juice, a piece of fresh or dried fruit, or bread. Getting sugar into your system will bring your blood sugar back up to normal, so you start to feel better. (Steer clear of foods that are high in fat or protein. They won’t raise your blood sugar and can actually slow the absorption of carbs.)
On the flip side, it's possible to feel nauseous because you suddenly ate a large amount of food. If you think this is why you're feeling nauseous, you can try home remedies like over-the-counter stomach-upset medications.5
Feeling nauseous might just be your unsettled stomach telling you to serve yourself some more H20. And we’re not talking about day-in-the-desert-without-water dehydrated. For some people, even mild dehydration could cause stomach trouble, Dr. Wexler says.
You’ll probably know whether dehydration is causing your nausea if you also feel, well, really thirsty. So if that’s the case, drink up. Usually plain water is fine, says Dr. Wexler. But if you have signs of severe dehydration—like fatigue, dizziness, or confusion—seek medical attention right away.
Also worth noting: The dehydration and low blood sugar that can come along with hangovers may cause nausea too.
Plenty of medications—even supplements and over-the-counter meds—can leave you feeling nauseous. Sometimes popping an over-the-counter pain reliever (like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or an NSAID) on an empty stomach can actually cause you to feel nauseous. Without some food in your belly to act as a buffer, the components of some pills can be irritating to the lining of the stomach, Dr. Wexler says. Supplements like vitamins C and E and iron can have a similar effect.
If it’s been more than an hour or two since your last meal, you can keep discomfort at bay by eating something small. “Often just a piece of bread or a few crackers will suffice,” Dr. Wexler says. Just be sure to have your snack before you take your vitamins or meds, so it can coat your stomach. Eating afterward won’t usually help, says Dr. Wexler.
As if migraines weren’t bad enough, they can also cause some people to feel nauseous. Experts don’t fully understand why a migraine can leave you feeling like you have to hurl. What they do know? Migraines can cause dizziness and blurry vision, which can make you nauseous.
If you feel a migraine coming on, taking an OTC pain reliever might help, says Dr. Arthur. (Just be sure to have it with a small snack like crackers. And drink plenty of water, since dehydration can make headaches and nausea worse.) And if OTC pain meds don’t work, talk with your doctor. They can prescribe prescription migraine meds that may be more helpful.
Fingers crossed this isn't the case, but it's worth discussing as a potential cause behind feeling nauseous. There are two main health issues that are important to know here: food poisoning and stomach flu. Food poisoning happens when your GI tract gets irritated or infected due to contaminated food or drinks.6 The stomach flu, or viral gastroenteritis, specifically happens when a virus infects your GI system.7 Either way, nausea is a common symptom of both of these issues, along with other signs of upset like diarrhea and abdominal cramping.
This one might be surprising, but if you feel pressure in your ear along with nausea, it could be an ear infection. Good news: That’s totally treatable. The canals in your inner ears play an important role in helping you maintain your balance. But an infection can cause changes to the normal fluid levels in one ear, Dr. Arthur says. When that happens, your brain gets a signal that the pressure in your infected ear is different than the pressure in your healthy ear. And those mixed signals can leave you feeling nauseous and dizzy.
How can you tell whether an ear infection is making you nauseous? “Typically, an ear infection causes ear pain, a feeling of pressure in the ear, changes in hearing, nasal congestion, headache, and fever,” Dr. Arthur says. If you notice these symptoms, see your doctor. They will prescribe antibiotics to fight the infection, and you’ll start feeling better within a couple of days.
We'd be remiss not to mention this one! Due to fluctuating hormones, pregnancy is a common cause of nausea, especially early on.8 It usually begins before nine weeks of pregnancy, and although it typically recedes by 14 weeks, some pregnant people experience nausea and vomiting during pregnancy for longer than that. This is commonly referred to as “morning sickness,” but the unfortunate truth is that it can happen at any time of day (or night). It's worth noting that while some nausea and vomiting can be completely normal (though extremely unpleasant) during pregnancy, if it gets to a point where it's severely affecting your life or scaring you, you should talk to your ob-gyn. Severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is known as hyperemesis gravidarum,9 and it can lead to issues like dehydration.
This potential cause of feeling nauseous may surprise you, but the truth is that heart attack symptoms can go beyond chest pain—especially for women. While chest pain that persists for minutes or advances and recedes is still the most common symptom of a heart attack no matter a person's gender, women are more likely to experience some lesser-known heart attack symptoms, which include10:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- A cold sweat
- Shoulder or arm pain
- Back, neck, or jaw pain
- Shortness of breath that may or may not accompany chest pain
Nausea treatments
In addition to the specific nausea treatments listed above, you can try these general tips to try to tamp down on feeling nauseous11:
- Drink clear or ice-cold drinks.
- Eat light, bland foods, like saltine crackers or plain bread.
- Avoid fried, greasy, or sweet foods.
- Eat slowly and have smaller, more frequent meals.
- Don’t mix hot and cold foods.
- Drink beverages slowly.
- Avoid activity after eating.
- Avoid brushing your teeth after eating.
- Choose foods from all the food groups as you can tolerate them.
How to prevent nausea
There are a few things you can do to try to keep nausea from surfacing at all. An ounce of prevention, right? You can try these strategies12:
- Eating small meals during the day instead of three large meals
- Eating slowly
- Avoiding hard-to-digest foods
- Eating foods that are cold or at room temperature to avoid feel nauseous from the smell of hot or warm foods
- Resting after eating
- If nausea is an issue in the morning, eat crackers before you get out of bed or have a high protein snack like lean meat or cheese before you go to bed.
- Drinking liquids between meals, instead of during meals
If you’re prone to nausea, try avoiding certain triggers, like food and cooking smells, perfume, smoke, stuffy rooms, heat, humidity, flickering lights, and driving, when possible.13
When to see a doctor
You may be able to easily deal with feeling nauseous using the home remedies listed above. But some of these nausea causes—like severe dehydration or ear infections—require you to see your health care provider. But are there telltale signs that you should pay your doctor a visit? Yes.
Since nausea is usually accompanied by the urge to vomit, any nausea and vomiting that lasts more than two days for adults, 24 hours for children under two years old, or 12 hours for infants should escalate to receiving medical attention. Even if your bouts of feeling nauseous or vomiting don’t last for several days, if you have episodes that continue longer than one month, you should definitely see your doctor. Other signs that you should seek medical attention include chest pain, severe stomach pain and cramping, blurred vision, confusion, fever, stiff neck, or if your vomit contains blood or fecal matter.14
Even if you’re not dealing with any of these issues, it’s totally fine to reach out to your health care provider for a little clarity if you’re feeling nauseous. Getting a bit of comfort and medical advice might not make the wooziness go away immediately, but it may at least help you feel emotionally better as you wait for it to pass.
Sources:
Related:
