Why Does Your Stomach Growl When You’re Not Hungry?
There’s a special kind of betrayal that happens when you’re sitting in a quiet room, like library-level quiet, and your stomach decides to perform a solo.
You’re not hungry, you’re not even thinking about food, yet there it goes, rumbling like a distant thunderstorm trying to get everyone’s attention in the room.
People look around and you smile awkwardly. You feel completely betrayed by your stomach who you fed salmon and salad just an hour ago, and it should be grateful!
Anyway, that’s what inspired this blog post. My embarrassment turned into curiosity, and it turns out, your stomach is far more talkative than you think.
The Song Beneath the Silence
Your insides never rest, even when you do.
Long after lunch, long after the last bite of anything on your plate, your digestive tract is still awake doing it’s thing which involves stretching, contracting, pushing, and a little bit of stirring. It’s like a conveyor belt of quiet activity, moving bits of air, leftover food, and digestive juices through the long winding road of your intestines.
I’m not sure why digestive juices made me cringe, but sorry if it did the same to you as you read that.
Those contractions have a rhythm, sort of like ocean waves against the shore. Every so often, the waves crash into a pocket of air or liquid, and what we hear from the outside is that funny little grrrr or gurgle.
It’s not hunger, it’s just motion happening inside your belly. It’s life doing it’s thing, sometimes at the most inconvenient time. It could’ve been worse though. It could’ve been a fart.
The Empty Stage
But why is it louder when we’re not eating?
If you’ve ever had a call in an empty house with no furniture, you know the reason already, it’s because emptiness is echo.
When your stomach is full (or there’s a couch in the room), the food dampens the sound. But when it’s empty, when there’s nothing to muffle the music, the acoustics turn up. Suddenly, the same contractions that once sat quietly in your gut become a whole ensemble of sounds.
So yes, the growling isn’t necessarily saying, “feed me,” but it also could be. Sometimes it’s just saying, “I’m sweeping up and doing my thing.” It’s the body’s version of vacuuming the kitchen after dinner, cleaning house before the next meal arrives.
I like to imagine someone with headphones on vacuuming and singing along badly to music while not noticing other people are in the room with them. Same vibe.
The Hungry Growl
Now when you are hungry, that’s a slightly different and angrier concert.
Your brain and gut start talking to each other. Your brain releases a hormone that signals hunger, and your stomach contracts in anticipation, and those same moving muscles get louder, stronger, and more insistent the longer you wait. They’re calling for a refill and working together to do it.
It’s not just digestion at work anymore, it’s preparation. Your stomach is revving its engine, warming up for the meal it hopes is coming.
That deep, primal growl you feel before lunch is your body reminding you that it still remembers the rhythm of survival, and you have seemed to forget by not feeding it.
You ever wait like ten extra minutes to feed your dog and it just sits there looking at you with all kinds of betrayal written on their face?
Some people’s stomachs are louder than others.
It could be more gas, more liquid, or just a digestive system that likes to keep things moving on schedule. Sometimes nerves can trigger it too, your gut responds to anxiety like it’s caffeine sadly. That’s why the moment you need silence most (a meeting, a date, a movie), your body decides to host the performance of its life.
The gut never had great timing.
A Quiet Little Trick
If you really want to silence it (for that important moment or that awkward pause), try sipping on some water. Still water is best, the sparkles might make you burp, which is also bad for timing. Or eat something small and simple. Hydration and food muffle the echo. But honestly, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all.
Your stomach is an honest thing, it doesn’t know manners, but it knows movement, rhythm, and truth.
Your stomach doesn’t just growl when you’re hungry, it growls because it’s alive.
Because inside that quiet room, under your ribs, there’s a world of muscles and waves and organs doing their daily work, never asking for attention (except when it’s the least opportune moment), only giving out little signs of life.
I strive to be as unbothered in the world as my stomach was in that doctor’s waiting room.
