Digestion tips!
Do you suffer from bloating? Constipation? Acid reflux? Diarrhea? Heart burn? It’s not fun having digestive issues that cause a disruption to your every day life. In this blog post, I am going to share some quick tips to help your digestion. Some of these may sound “woo woo” to you, but I promise if you do them, you will see improvement in your digestion! Digestion issues can be due to a variety of different reasons and this blog post will not cover all of the nuances. This blog post is more about the basic things that anyone can do to help with digestion!
Digestion starts in our brain. When you see food or think about what you are going to eat, your brain signals “ohh it’s about to be time to eat! yay!” Your saliva production increases and you take your first bite of food. This is where the first tip comes into play.
Take three to five deep breaths before you eat your food. Make sure you are in a relaxed state before eating/while eating. Why does this matter? If your body is in a stressed/distracted state when eating then your body does not prioritize digestion. Your body and brain thinks that something more important is happening so digestion is not important right now. This simple tool of breathing and getting into a relaxed state can help your digestion IMMENSELY. This is a tip that was told to me by my functional medicine doctor and I didn’t actually try it until about 6 months after she suggested it. I was convinced I had food intolerances when in reality, my body was trying to consume food in a stressed out state. Once I was able to relax and eat without distractions and SLOW DOWN. My “food intolerances” all of the sudden went away. DON’T SKIP this tip.
Slow down. How quickly are you eating your meals? Next time you eat, start your phone timer and turn your phone over, when you are finished, see long it took you to eat your meal. Most people are eating in 5-8 mins. Meals should take 20+ minutes.
Chew your food. Chew your food. Not 5-10 times, not 15 times, more like 25-40 times before swallowing. This may sound like a lot but it’s really not. It takes mindfulness and slowing down and being present when you are eating. You aren’t doing the rest of your digestive system any favors if you are sending it big chunks of food that have barely been chewed. That is A LOT more work that your body has to do, chew chew chew.
Put away your phone/distractions during meals. Eat without distractions. Shut the laptop, turn off the TV. If you are someone who scrolls social media while you are eating, I am going to challenge you to stop. If you are not being present with your food then you are not giving your body a chance to communicate with your brain that you are full/satisfied/etc. A lot of issues come up when we are not present with our food because then we leave the meal unsatisfied and then tend to go back and snack when we actually aren’t hungry, but we simply weren’t present when we ate the first time so we didn’t even give our body/brain a chance to register that we had eaten. This also goes back to tip number one. Scrolling social media isn’t exactly relaxing, so you aren’t doing yourself any favors there either.
Avoid large fluid consumption close to meals. This is a tip that helps my digestion. I have some clients that don’t seem to notice a difference with this one either way. So try this out and see what feels best for you. I find that when my stomach is full of water before or during meals, then my digestion isn’t as good. Again, try it out and see what works for you. (20 ish mins before/after is my sweet spot)
Incorporate regular exercise into your routine. Movement can help get all of the things moving, if you know what I mean. Moving your body on a regular basis can help in so many ways and many people don’t realize that digestion is impacted by lack of movement. If you don’t know where to start with movement, start adding a daily walk. also this is a P.S.A—If you aren’t pooping at least once a day, you are constipated. End of sentence.
I’m going to keep this one short, but if you’d like a more in depth blog post about digestion, please let me know! I love this topic. If you try any of the tips, let me know which one helped you the most! I’m most active on INSTAGRAM.
