Tips to help improve your digestive system and reduce bloating

Bloat is any abnormal gas swelling, or increase in diameter of the abdominal area. Symptoms that is associated with it is a feeling of full and tight abdomen, which may cause abdominal pain and is sometimes accompanied by increased stomach growling, or more seriously, the total lack of it. Bloating usually occurr at the worst timing for you, bloating can be caused by common triggers such as stress, food sensitivities, and a lack of digestive enzymes, among other things.

The following tips can help reduce bloating.

1. Fiber
   
   Fiber helps in digestion and bowel function. Insoluble fiber is able to pass through the digestive system with minimal changes. This is beneficial because it can bind to waste to be excreted from the body, eliminating toxins and ensuring a good bowel motility. Eating fiber from natural sources such as whole grains, vegetables and fruits means you’re going to get the vitamins, minerals and other wholefood benefits - so opt for this rather than the processed fiber sources.

2. Being careful about Mental Health
   
   It’s been found that there is an association between stress and digestive upset such as IBS.If your body is in sympathetic dominance you don’t have the energy to adequately digest your food and absorb its nutrients. Psychological and digestive health go hand in hand - your serotonin (your ‘feel-good’ hormone’) actually lives in your digestive system. So it’s fair to say that an unhappy digestive system may be partly responsible for an unhappy mood.

3. Eating Mindfully
   You may have heard about the two parts that make up our nervous system - the sympathetic, which is needed for our 'fight or flight' response, and the parasympathetic, which is also known as ‘rest and digest'. We need to be in a relaxed state, or without sympathetic dominance, to be able to digest our food optimally. Eating mindfully means that we are relaxed enough for our parasympathetic nervous system to do its enormous job of digesting food and absorbing its nutrients.

4. Eat Fermented Foods - But Don't Overdo It!
   
   Fermented foods are those that have been through a process called lactofermentation. Once foods go through this process, the end result is full of B vitamins, omega-3’s, and various strains of probiotics. When we eat too much sugar, processed foods and alcohol, the good and bad bacteria can become imbalanced. Consuming things like yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchee and other fermented vegetables will introduce live beneficial bacteria into the digestive system to help rebalance this. Although these foods change the state of our digestive system in a positive way, some people do have reactions such as bloating or flatulence when introducing these foods - so introduce them slowly and be mindful of how they make you feel.