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Holding in a fart won’t hurt you, but it can be uncomfortable. Gas in your gut can be painful, and the sensation can be unpleasant. Ultimately, however, holding in a fart won’t cause any permanent damage to your gastrointestinal system.
This article will let you know what happens when you hold in a fart, and if holding in a fart can be harmful.
What Happens When You Hold In a Fart
Just because you feel bloated doesn’t mean your abdomen is distended or that the amount of pressure in your intestines is at dangerous levels. Bloating and distension are real complaints, but they might not have very much to do with flatulence even though they can make it feel as if you need to fart.
At least one study found that theperceptionof discomfort is higher when you choose not to let a fart go versus when there’s a physical reason why you can’t.
The way the gut triggers the brain to let us know that we need to fart is part of the reason this happens. The increased pressure causes the feeling of bloating and the urge to release gas. If you’re ignoring the feeling, it means you’re hyper-aware that you need to pass gas. It’s the awareness that makes it so uncomfortable.
Gassy Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, and Other Foods
How Farts Form
The gastrointestinal (GI) system starts at your lips and ends at your anus. There are several names for the GI system: GI tract, alimentary canal, and gut (which usually refers to the parts that come after the esophagus), are the most common.
You eat and drink, chewing what needs to be chewed with your teeth. You then swallow it into the esophagus where it drains into the stomach and gets broken down with acids. The stomach churns the food and acid mix.
Gas can form early in the digestive process, often because you’ve swallowed air while eating or drinking. If it’s not released when belching, it will travel through your digestive system until it’s expelled through the rectum.
At the bottom of the stomach, the slurry of food and stomach juice is poured into the small intestine. The small intestine is about an inch wide and it has muscles running through it that contract and push its contents along in a wave-like motion.
The small intestine is filled with bacteria. Most of the nutrients from our food are absorbed through the walls of the small intestine. Different sections of the small intestine absorb different things.
Throughout the process of moving matter through the intestines, gas gets in the way. The wave action of the walls of the intestine pushes the gas along first. When gas bubbles get between the walls of the intestine and its other contents, the contents aren’t moved along.
Holding in a fart just keeps those bubbles of gas in the gut. Nothing of substance can really move along until the gas is gone. The fact that nothing is moving, even though the signals coming from the gut are telling the brain that movement needs to happen, is the reason why the whole experience feels so uncomfortable.
Why Am I So Gassy in the Morning?
How to Keep From Farting
What you put into your gut determines what you’ll get out. Eating theright foodscan help you avoid farting.
Your gut containsbacteriathat support your immune system and help you digest food.There are also multiple theories on other benefits of gut bacteria andthe microbiome.
The bacteria most likely to give you gas ismethanobrevibacter. At least one study found that eating probiotics can help reduce three different bacteria strains from the gastrointestinal tract, includingmethanobrevibacter.More importantly, the study found that reducingmethanobrevibacterreally didreduce farts.
Why Do I Fart When I Walk?
When to See a Healthcare Provider
If your symptoms are interfering with your quality of life, or if you just think you might be farting too much and changing your diet hasn’t helped, talk to your healthcare provider. This is especially important if you have other symptoms such as:
When Should I Worry About Excessive Gas?
Summary
Holding in a fart won’t hurt you, but it can be uncomfortable. If you’re concerned about how much you’re farting, changing your diet can sometimes be helpful.
See your healthcare provider if you have excessive farting along with other symptoms like bloating and abdominal pain.
Does Farting Burn Calories?
4 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Malagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: Old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol. 2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129Serra J, Azpiroz F, Malagelada J.Mechanisms of intestinal gas retention in humans: impaired propulsion versus obstructed evacuation.Am J Physiol - Gastrointest Liver Physiol, 2001;281(1):G138-G143. doi:10.1152/ajpgi.2001.281.1.G138Johns Hopkins Medicine.Gas in the digestive tract.Seo M, Heo J, Yoon J, et al.Methanobrevibacterattenuation via probiotic intervention reduces flatulence in adult human: A non-randomised paired-design clinical trial of efficacy.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(9):e0184547. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184547Additional ReadingMalagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol.2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129
4 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Malagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: Old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol. 2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129Serra J, Azpiroz F, Malagelada J.Mechanisms of intestinal gas retention in humans: impaired propulsion versus obstructed evacuation.Am J Physiol - Gastrointest Liver Physiol, 2001;281(1):G138-G143. doi:10.1152/ajpgi.2001.281.1.G138Johns Hopkins Medicine.Gas in the digestive tract.Seo M, Heo J, Yoon J, et al.Methanobrevibacterattenuation via probiotic intervention reduces flatulence in adult human: A non-randomised paired-design clinical trial of efficacy.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(9):e0184547. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184547Additional ReadingMalagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol.2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Malagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: Old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol. 2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129Serra J, Azpiroz F, Malagelada J.Mechanisms of intestinal gas retention in humans: impaired propulsion versus obstructed evacuation.Am J Physiol - Gastrointest Liver Physiol, 2001;281(1):G138-G143. doi:10.1152/ajpgi.2001.281.1.G138Johns Hopkins Medicine.Gas in the digestive tract.Seo M, Heo J, Yoon J, et al.Methanobrevibacterattenuation via probiotic intervention reduces flatulence in adult human: A non-randomised paired-design clinical trial of efficacy.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(9):e0184547. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184547
Malagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: Old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol. 2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129
Serra J, Azpiroz F, Malagelada J.Mechanisms of intestinal gas retention in humans: impaired propulsion versus obstructed evacuation.Am J Physiol - Gastrointest Liver Physiol, 2001;281(1):G138-G143. doi:10.1152/ajpgi.2001.281.1.G138
Johns Hopkins Medicine.Gas in the digestive tract.
Seo M, Heo J, Yoon J, et al.Methanobrevibacterattenuation via probiotic intervention reduces flatulence in adult human: A non-randomised paired-design clinical trial of efficacy.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(9):e0184547. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184547
Malagelada J, Accarino A, Azpiroz F.Bloating and abdominal distension: old misconceptions and current knowledge.Am J Gastroenterol.2017;112(8):1221-1231. doi:10.1038/ajg.2017.129
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