Are you embarrassed over a growling stomach? Well then, you are probably hungry! It is important to take proper meals at the right time. But sometimes, our busy schedules do not allow that. In order to prevent severe hunger, you should try to grab a quick bite when you can, just to fill up your stomach a little.

Our stomach is similar to a carton of juice. When the carton is full, it will not make any noise, however, when it is almost empty, you shake it and it will make some noise. Just like this, when our stomach is full, it will not make any noise, however, when it is empty for longer duration, it starts growling.

Read on to know why our stomachs growl and make funny sounds which land us in awkward situations.

Why do our stomach growl?

Our stomachs growl because there are many physiological processes involved during the digestion process. Once the food is digested, it has to be pushed through the intestinal tract. The stomach is muscular and it tends to frequently contract itself to help circulate the digestive juices.

When your stomach is empty, these juices slosh around with the gases generated during the process of digestion thereby generating a distinctive growling noise; the noise is also caused when the walls of the stomach come in contact with each other.

Often, our stomachs growl when we are hungry, because our stomachs are empty. However, a growling stomach does not necessarily mean that we are hungry; it also means that the stomach is empty or relatively empty. For example, stomachs growl in the middle of the night a lot as they process the food we have eaten during the day, but we do not realize this, because we are asleep.

Our stomachs growl if we have irritable bowel, for example, we often experience frequently growling stomachs along with a host of unpleasant symptoms like cramps. If your stomach growls a lot, or you experience extreme cramping or other gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhoea then you may want to see a doctor to make sure that everything is well with your digestive system.

Interesting Facts about stomach growling

The issue of growling stomachs interested the Greeks so much that they developed a word to describe it. They called it as borborygmi, which mean "growlings." Some doctors refer to stomach growling as borborygmi as a more polite term.

Growling of the stomach is not a cause for concern; in fact it is simply a part of the natural digestive process. Stomachs growl because the stomach never fully ceases its digestive work; in fact, digestive juices continue to work even after death.

In fact even our intestines growl, we may not hear it because the soft tissue of our body muffles the sound from the outside. Growling in the intestines is also caused because of the digestive processes. If you have a human or animal stomach handy, you can listen for the sounds of growling in the stomach and intestines.

So the next time, your stomach growls, you know why it is happening and hence you can avoid the unpleasant situation by ensuring that you have had your fill!