Hello everyone, hope you’re all doing well and are keeping healthy and happy. Most of us have experienced the feeling of bloating, acidity and being a little gassy. When your stomach gets stretched due to excessive eating it tends to get extremely uncomfortable. All these are result of poor eating habits, poor food choices and a unhealthy lifestyle. Let’s discuss the basic reasons for this very uncomfortable feeling of bloating and how by following simple steps you can get over bloating.
What is Bloating ?
- Bloating is the swelling of belly immediately after eating or after a few hours of eating
- It is caused by excessive gas, solid or liquid in the digestive system or due to disturbance of stomach muscles
- Roughly about 25-35 % people have issues of bloating
Causes of stomach gas
- Overeating
- Poor food choices (refined processed food)
- No fixed eating routine (constant grazing)
- Low digestive agni
- Lack of good enzymes
- High amount of bad gut bacteria might also lead to bloating
- Various antibiotics and medication like birth control pills might also lead to bloating
How to take care of stomach bloating ?
- Avoid eating too much at a time, instead have several small meals
- Follow a fixed routine for eating, avoid constant grazing
- Sit down and eat slow, when you eat fast, you don’t break the food properly and you end swallowing more air
- Avoid distractions while you eat
- Eat your dinner at an early hour, eating late gives lesser timefor your system to rest
- Look out for food allergies and intolerances
- You might be intolerant to some food, most of the times if these intolerances are mild, you wouldn’t even come to know, but the problem persists, it is better to find out and avoid the food which doesn’t suit your body
- Milk, eggs, chole, chana, rajma and besan are some of the food from which people are mostly intolerant
- Avoid refined, processed nd very greasy food
- Avoid consuming tea / coffee empty stomach
- Avoid dairy at night, also avoid mixing spices like ajwain, cinnamon and fennel etc at night
- Following a low sodium diet is a very good option for avoiding bloating
- Eat a high potassium, magnesium and high electrolyte diet
- Avoid poor food combination whenever you eat, it is imperative to consume food which compliments each other
- Chewing a mix of fennel, ajwain and cumin seeds mix helps with bloating
- Consuming ginger, fennel, ajwain and clove tea also assits with bloating
- Roasted ajwain and black salt mix with warm water works like magic in getting rid of bloating
- Include some enzyme supplement in your diet
Taking care of Intestinal Bloating
- Add prebiotics and probiotics to your diet (dahi, fermented food, isabgol etc)
- Don’t stay constipated, have loads of fluids
- Consume healthy fat in moderation
- Increased activity levels play a very important role in getting rid of intestinal bloating
- Deep concentrated breathing, yoga, working out the core muscles also help increasing the blood flow in that area
- Reduce stress and anxiety as these slow down the digestive system of the body
- Get adequate and good quality sleep
- Reduce toxity from your lifestyle. Reduce preservatives, plastics, genetically modified grains and other harmful toxins from your diet