Our digestive system is composed of the liver, gastrointestinal tract, gallbladder, and pancreas. Its responsibility is to break down foods and liquids so they can become basic chemical components like carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Used as energy for cell building and repairing, and also to help you function, the body absorbs these components as nutrients.
The digestive system plays a significant part in your overall health as it carries nutrients throughout your body. If you don’t have great digestive health, you will experience many painful symptoms such as bloating, indigestion, abdominal pain, and more. Furthermore, there can be an adverse impact on your health and wellbeing when you get a lack appropriate nutrition from the food you eat. This is the reason why digestive health is very crucial.
How To Speed Up Digestion Naturally
The question of how to speed up digestion is not as complicated as you’d think. In fact, there are a variety of ways that you can speed up your digestion naturally. This all comes down to learning how to properly support your digestive system. Things like fluid intake, food consumption, consuming specific foods (ex. omega 3 fatty acids), and tracking symptoms for possible food allergies can all be helpful in aiding digestion and general well-being.
Here are five different natural methods to help speed up digestion and improve your gut health.
1. Drink Lots of Water
To function properly, your digestive system must be well-hydrated. Depending on your weight and physical activity level, be sure to drink enough water and focus on your fluid intake. You may suffer from dehydration, bloating, constipation, and a bunch of unwanted symptoms if your body is not hydrated well. It can also lead to slow digestion, things like inflammatory bowel disease, and even heartburn!
Make sure to drink an adequate amount of water every day to achieve good digestive gut health.
2. Stay Active with Exercise
Staying physically active can be sensational for digestion, even though it’s not the first thing you really want to do when you’re feeling bloated.
Brisk walking or moderate jogging assists in stimulating bile production and digestion. Also, another activity that stimulates the colon is deep breathing. It helps with constipation; hence doing exercise, specifically, yoga can bring great benefits to your digestive health.
Making sure to moderate exercise can help relieve things like constipation, bowel movements, and increase nutrient absorption. Not to mention it helps to work against heart disease and can speed up digestion.
3. Fresh Vegetables and Fruits
Another great way to get nutrients and natural enzymes that can help with total digestive health and function is by eating fresh fruits and vegetables. To improve the way your digestive system works, you must add healthy vegetables and fruits to your diet. Note that it should be balanced for maximum digestive benefits. Whenever possible, get fruits and vegetables that are fresh and organic.
When you are consuming food, a snack, or a meal, try not to drink water or other liquids until after you are done eating; this will also help to aid any problematic digestive symptoms.
Also, make sure to avoid inflammatory oils like canola oil, and reach for one like olive oil instead.
4. Add Fiber Into Your Diet
It’s a well-known fact that fiber improves digestive health. A high-fiber diet is associated with a decreased risk of inflammatory bowel conditions and digestive illnesses like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This is because it allows your body to process bowel movements easier.
But beware of taking too much fiber as it can have the opposite result of what you want, causing constipation, gas, and bloating.
5. Decrease stress
There’s a huge possibility that if you’re experiencing stress or anxiety, your gut health and digestion will be affected negatively. Studies show that stress can lead to gut biome issues and overall digestive tract problems as well. In order to keep healthy digestion or speed up digestion, limiting stress can be super helpful. You can do this through natural remedies such as yoga or exercise, or you can also consider taking a stress relief supplement to support your mind and body. Some popular stress relief options include Cortisol-Stress Balance, Moon Juice Spirit Dust, Natural Vitality Calm, and AnxioCalm.
Why Does Digestion Slow Down?
Amongst the many common causes of slow digestion is what you put in your body, the food and drinks that you consume. Mostly, it is the usual western diet that is one of your gut’s worst enemies. From fast food, fried food, many different popular snacks, and ready-made meals, these are high in sugar, salt, artificial additives, and saturated fats; hence they make digestion difficult.
Many of these foods lack nutrients, the fiber in particular, which slows down the entire digestive tract. Many of these meals can also contain high amounts of salt that can lead to slow digestion as well.
Instead, avoid consuming too much food and drinks like processed foods, meat for every meal you eat in a single day, fried and fatty foods, caffeine, alcohol, spicy foods, dairy products so you can speed up digestion.
Nutritionists say that what you consume is only half of the reason why digestion slows down. The other half is the manner of how you eat, which plays a crucial role in healthy digestion. Digestion begins in your mouth when you chew food. It is easier for your digestive tract to digest what you ate while absorbing more healthy nutrients if you chew properly.
Chewing Plays a Key Role in Your Digestion
Your mouth produces more saliva when you properly chew your food. If you chew fast, you will experience slow digestion, whereas if you chew slowly, your digestion will speed up. Digestion of carbohydrates, as well as fat digestion, starts already in your mouth. Along with the solid food, saliva is mixed with it. Assisting the stomach to alter it into the fluid that can travel efficiently through your intestine.
Some studies have even shown that chewing food properly plays an important part in lessening stress levels, further aiding to ease the digestion process. The key is in eating food unhurriedly and carefully. Enjoy having your food in peace, without exterior disturbances such as being on the phone while eating or watching TV.
Based on studies, to realize that you’re full of food, your brain needs around 20 minutes to give yourselves ample time and to pay attention to the indications your body is conveying. Preventing many painful digestive conditions.
Additionally, resulting in swallowing huge amounts of air along with your food is eating it too quickly. Accordingly, you can swiftly increase the quantity of gas in your system, contributing to the heightened feeling of bloating and discomfort. If you are experiencing slow digestion, it might be time to take a look at how you are chewing your food.
Supplements To Speed Up Digestion
Probiotics
Probiotics are always on top of the list when it comes to the best supplements for digestive health. The gut microbiome is complicatedly associated with your digestive health. Specific carbohydrates that we cannot digest ourselves, like fiber and starch, are broken down by gut bacteria. Over this fermentation process, a derivative called short-chain fatty acids (or SCFAs) is produced, which have been proven to aid ease digestive problems.
Here comes the problem. One more result of this fermentation process is gas; in moderation is really fine, but some strains of bacteria excrete more gas than the other ones. Once these gassy bacteria are more than the good bacteria in your gut, the disproportionate gas can build up and be the reason for bloating, stomach pain, and other digestive problems.
This is where probiotics come in to help. Probiotics are good bacteria that you can take as a supplement to do your gut a favor and help keep the bad bacteria in check. Adding probiotics to your diet can help your digestive tract heal, as well as aid in things like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), bloating, or other unfavorable digestive symptoms. Some top probiotic options worth checking out include Klean Probiotic, Dr. Mercola Complete Probiotics, Hyperbiotics Pro-15, and MegaSporeBiotic.
Prebiotics
Another option that supports the gut microbiome is prebiotics. The particular types of fibers that feed the good bacteria that are already existing in your gut are called prebiotics. They can cultivate and reproduce by themselves.
Through time, prebiotic supplements can provide you some of the similar gut benefits as probiotic supplements give, despite the fact that it could take a long time to sustain your good bacteria this way. Just like probiotic supplements, though, there are quite a few solid choices available such as PrebioThrive, Dr. Tobias Prebiotics, and Performance Lab Prebiotic.
L-Glutamine
The most copious amino acid in the human body is glutamine. While it’s used all throughout your body, 30% of it is located in your gut. Its main function is to sustain the small intestine’s integrity.
Intestinal junctions are kept tight by it so that huge, undigested units can’t pass through from your small intestine to your blood, which is the main cause of a leaky gut. Then this can cause many digestion problems such as constipation, gas, diarrhea, and bloating to brain fog, memory loss, headaches, and fatigue.
Ginger Root
Helping with the whole lot from nausea to constipation to indigestion to abdominal cramps and bloating is the most versatile of the digestive supplements. It is the ginger root. Crediting its antioxidant properties, ginger helps promote good digestion.
Ginger functions as a prokinetic. It is a substance that speeds up the process of discharging the stomach and assisting in moving things forward in your digestive system.
Psyllium Husk
To increase the bulk of your stool and make it easier for you to go to the toilet, add psyllium husk in your daily regime. When taken, it forms a gel in your intestines that traps liquid. This supplement can also have positive effects on your gut microbiome by standing in as a prebiotic and aiding the number of bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids, which are beneficial.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D has a vital function in the immune system and the inflammatory process. Whereas healthy vitamin D levels retain a smooth process in your body, a decline in vitamin D can prompt the body’s inflammatory response. This can make the present symptoms of inflammatory digestive problems get worse.
Food
One of the best ways to help your digestive symptoms is by changing the way you eat food along with making some lifestyle changes. Increasing the amount of soluble fiber can be useful in many different ways. Soluble fiber is what helps your body properly process your food, and can help with things like constipation, water content, bloating, and even weight loss.
Making sure to limit fast food, processed foods, and any type of food that tends to cause you to feel worse is key. Instead, focus on foods that are beneficial and make you feel good, alongside ones packed with fiber. Depending on your specific health issues, this can vary from person to person. At the end of the day, figure out what food makes you feel good and base your meals around said foods. You do not need to “diet” per se, but choosing a diet that works well for your body is key. For instance, instead of eating overly processed white bread, chose sourdough bread. This bread is a great option because of the live bacteria cultures it is made with.
Eating doesn’t have to be boring, and even bland foods on a digestive focus diet can become tasty.
Lifestyle Changes
If you are experiencing any health issues, there are a variety of lifestyle alterations you can make to try to help these issues. The first would be to decrease stress levels. Stress has an impact on your overall health, but your digestive tract in particular, so learning how to deal with this can be extremely helpful. Stress can even lead to things like heartburn, stool-related issues, IBS, and general problems when it comes to a bowel movement.
If you are a quick eater, then try to slow down. Instead, learn to enjoy and appreciate your meals, and eat each food slowly. This can greatly benefit you when it comes to digestion, muscle contractions, and other stomach symptoms.
Is Speeding Up Digestion Safe?
It’s always a good decision to consult your doctor or healthcare practitioner when changing something about your diet. While taking a natural approach to healing can help with various issues, sometimes you may find that you need medical intervention to help. People who have severe digestion issues may find that they experience great weight loss, an inability to exercise, and failure to digest foods.
If this is occurring, contact your medical professional.
Should You Speed Up Your Digestion?
If you are experiencing digestion issues, whether it be slow digestion, bowel movement-related problems, retaining water, stomach muscle contractions, or anything else, it might be a good time to work on your gut biome.
Learn to be mindful of what food you consume and how you eat your meal. Add more fiber to your meals, and take out processed foods. Accompanying a healthy diet with careful eating and an active lifestyle can also be extremely helpful for people with stomach problems.
Committing to having healthy digestion is the key. In a matter of time, you’ll definitely reach your healthy goal!
