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Digestion and Diet: Overcoming Your Tummy Troubles
By Andrea Johnson on 08/07/2011
Digestion is dependent upon many items beyond the foods you choose to eat and can have positive or negative effects on your digestion. While important, diet is only one piece of the puzzle. Food sensitivities, food intolerances, stress, medications, deficiency of certain enzymes, genes, and gastrointestinal conditions all affect digestion and should be considered.
Diet
A universal diet for improved digestion does not exist and is individual to each person. If you know a certain food is hard for you to digest, then don't eat it even if it is a recommended high fiber food or a food recommended to improve digestion. Generally, a fiber intake of 25 g to 35 g each day is recommended to improve digestion. Fiber functions to prevent both constipation and diarrhea. Additionally, fluids are critical for digestion at amounts of a minimum of 2 to 3 liters daily preferably from water. Coffee is recommended for some people with constipation since caffeine stimulates the colon. Probiotics and fiber supplements may assist digestion, but the effects vary from person to person.
Triggers
Triggers are foods, chemicals and beverages which evoke symptoms of constipation and diarrhea leading to overall digestive discomfort. Other triggers may involve certain medications, genes, lack of digestive enzymes, food intolerance and conditions such as celiac disease or Crohn's disease. Some triggers are controllable and some are not and identifying your triggers can help you to avoid them
Stress
Stress occurs in a variety of ways and affects digestion. Minimizing stress and dealing with it appropriately are the best ways to improve digestion. Constipation results with busyness and stressful situations that cause you to forget or delay bowel movements. When this occurs, less water is available to allow for softer stools and further dehydrates the stool making it more difficult to pass. On the other hand, some types of stress cause the opposite effect and increases transit time leading to diarrhea. Stress such as giving a speech or meeting an important deadline can contribute to gastrointestinal distress. Examples of stress-reduction strategies include yoga, breathing, psychotherapy, massage and exercise and should be utilized to help improve gut function.
Exercise
Exercise improves digestion for some people. Exercise speeds transit time, according to a study in the May 1985 "Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition." However, another study points to mixed results in the December 1989 journal "Gastroenterology" in which exercise improved digestion in five people and slowed transit time in nine others. Overall benefits of exercise far outweigh the negatives, so it would be unhealthy to decrease exercise in order to improve digestion.
Food Sensitivity
Food sensitivities may be contributing to issues with digestion. A food sensitivity involves an immune response from your body in response to an antigen food or chemical. The body responds by eliciting symptoms of bloating, pain, diarrhea, constipation and a variety of other digestive symtpoms. Identification of the offending food helps to decrease painful symptoms and improve digestion.
Related articles of interest:
Try These Tips For Healthy Digestion
Enzyme Soothes Tummy Troubles and Controls Weight
Your Digestive System and Health: What You Must Know
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
Andrea Johnson, MA, RD, CLT is a dietitian specializing in diet therapy for food sensitivities in order to help reduce painful symptoms associated with IBS, migraines and fibromyalgia. Andrea also uses food sensitivity diet therapy to optimize weight loss efforts and enhance sports performance. To learn more and receive free nutrition tips, visit http://www.renewal-nutrition.com.
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Boomer12k
If you are bothered by stress...
There is a new technique that takes stress, anxiety, depression, pressure and tension, down very quickly. It is described in a work called, "Happiness is no Charge", it works for many things. I have used it on stress, negative emotions, irritation, frustration, problems, anxiety, depression, etc.... I have been using this technique for 2 and a half years. I used to be a "basket case" of emotional problems due to my Grave's Disease, candida and leaky gut disorders, and I was "all-a-jumble" of NERVES..(very sensitive to even tiny things, like dropping toast)..that is what stress used to be called....a case of nerves....my nerves were raw, my nerves were shot. My Adrenal glands were shot, cortisol was off the chart and all over the place, according to the tests.
Emotions are related to different body locations, you "feel it in your gut", "my heart swells with joy", etc... The heart has been found to have 40,000 or so neurons. Neurons are what the BRAIN HAS! So there is a "memory" system in the heart. A connection to the NERVES.
That is also PROBABLY why you feel tension in the stomach, and why "stress" affects digestion. A connection to the stomach nerves.
Well, "Happiness is no charge", takes these negative emotions, and resulting conditions, and discharges the energy of them. It is like grounding a lightning bolt. It dissipates into the ground, and vanishes. This technique works like that, and works QUICKLY, IN MINUTES!!!! NO KIDDING, the first time I used it, it worked in under a minute, the second time about 2 and half minutes. I had an anxiety attack 13 years ago, and when I went to that place again, 13 years later, I started to have the same feelings, only I did this technique. It took many times, but it did dissipate, and is basically gone and vanished, now when I go through that area...I LAUGH AT IT!!!!!
It is a simple, easy technique to learn, and is inexpensive to get. Well worth your time to check out.
www.feelbetter.co.nr
Be Well and Happy, and dissipating all your negative charges will help with that.
Steve
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