Stomach Cramps

It comes like a vice. Your stomach clenches, the muscles spasm, the pain rolls in waves through your abdomen — sometimes so fierce that you double over and nothing else exists but this contraction. Medically speaking, stomach cramps are involuntary contractions of the smooth gastric musculature. They can be triggered by stress, food, or inflammation.

But why does your stomach — the organ that digests, processes, dissolves — cramp up? And why right now?

A cramp is not a coincidence. It is a contraction, a tightening, a holding-on in the most radical sense. Your stomach clenches like a fist — and that fist tells a story.