Going Deeper: 10 Ways to Support Digestion
- ashleychapman
- Feb 5, 2020
- 11 min read
Updated: Feb 10, 2020
Last week, I shared an infographic with 5 tips for better digestion. This week, we dive deeper into how to support healthy digestion and learn about alternatives to the practices that inhibit it.
1. Chew Thoroughly
I know, this seems obvious, but you may be surprised to learn that many of us don’t chew our food adequately. Most of us aren’t giving chewing much thought, consuming our meals quickly and on-the-go. Chewing is one aspect of digestion that we have conscious control over and can have a major impact on how we feel after eating and how well nutrients are absorbed by the body.
Why is chewing so important? As we chew our food, our saliva begins digesting carbohydrates with the help of the enzyme amylase. The more thoroughly we chew, the less work our stomach must do to break down our food and the more easily our food is digested and absorbed. Chewing also stimulates the release of gastric juices, priming our system for optimal digestion, but this doesn’t happen if we’re inhaling our food!
Modern life has many people experiencing symptoms of low hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) which can result in gas and bloating, cramping, feeling sluggish or tired after consuming a meal, and poor digestion and absorption of proteins. We'll explore other factors that deplete stomach acid and why this is so detrimental to our health later in this post.
So how much should we chew? If you google this, you’ll find recommendations all over the board, some as high as 100 chews per bite! I always get bored and quit chewing LONG before I reach 100 chews. A more realistic goal that is attainable for most is to chew 30 times per bite. I challenge you to try this- even just 30 chews can feel like it takes forever! Regardless, if you make it your goal to be more mindful of your chewing, you’ll likely improve your digestion. This brings me to our next recommendation:
2. Mindful Meals & Managing Stress
Many of use are accustomed to eating our meals in a hurry, perhaps even in the car or while standing up. Rarely do we just sit and eat without looking at our phone or going over to-do lists in our heads. I’m here to tell you how important it is to prioritize time to sit down, unplug, and mindfully enjoy your meal. Your digestion depends on it! Let’s discuss how stress impacts digestion AND what to do if your stress isn’t going anywhere.
Why is stress bad for digestion? When we are stressed, our sympathetic nervous system is activated. This is our “fight or flight” response, useful for keeping us safe when we’re in danger, but intended to quickly run its course before shutting off, allowing us to return to “rest and digest” mode. Instead, chronic stress (impending to-do lists, worrying, lack of sleep, caffeine consumption, smoking, the pressures of work/life/family etc.) has us in fight or flight mode far more often than we are meant to be, and it’s having a negative impact on digestion. Why? Adequate digestion can only take place when our parasympathetic nervous system, our “rest and digest” mode, is activated. If we’re in fight or flight when we’re eating, our digestive system may not adequately release the enzymes and gastric juices required for breaking down and absorbing our food. This can result in bloating, gas, cramping, abdominal discomfort, and nutrient deficiency.
Your stress isn’t going anywhere- so what can you do? The good news is that there are many ways to manage stress. If you’re able to simply give yourself permission to not worry, put away your phone, and enjoy your mealtime, great. That doesn’t work for me! What does work for me is taking a moment before I begin eating to take a few deep belly breaths. If this seems silly to you, try it. Breath work is incredible and not to be underestimated. You breathe, and your nervous system responds. If you take quick, shallow breaths (like you might if you were anxious or afraid), you’ll activate the fight or flight response, halting digestion. However, if you breathe slowly and deeply, you will signal to your nervous system that you’re calm and safe, helping you feel calm and safe amid stress, activating rest and digest mode.
Research is emerging that supports what the ancient yogis have known for centuries: there are tremendous benefits of deep breathing, sometimes called diaphragmatic breathing. Practices like yoga can be useful in cultivating mindfulness and breathing techniques that you can call upon during times of stress. If your busy schedule doesn’t allow you to attend yoga classes, that’s okay- you don’t have to attend yoga to learn to breathe deeply. Here are some resources to learn the technique of diaphragmatic breathing. I will be posting an instructional video on this topic in the future and will be writing at length regarding strategies for managing stress.
Further reading regarding breathwork as an effective modality for stress management:
3. Limit Liquids at Meals
Whenever we go out to eat, the first thing the waiter does is fill our glass with ice water. It’s a cultural norm to consume cold liquids with our meals. Unfortunately, drinking a lot of liquid with our meals is a good way to dilute and slow down our digestive enzymes, resulting in sluggish or poor digestion. Hydration is critical for health, but we should be hydrating between meals, not during them. Ideally, you would drink room temperature water throughout the day between meals, leaving 30 min-1 hour on either side of a meal without consuming liquids. Sipping at meals is fine to keep your mouth hydrated, but avoid throwing back several glasses of water while eating.
4. Avoid Caffeine, Alcohol, and Smoking Around Meals
Easier said than done, right? Don’t stress if you're not ready to quit smoking or love your morning coffee or the occasional adult beverage. I will provide practical tips for those who aren’t ready to cut out caffeine, alcohol, or smoking completely.
Nicotine and caffeine are stimulants, and when you consume them, you stimulate the fight or flight response, halting digestion. Another unfortunate cultural norm is having coffee with our morning breakfast, which starts the day off for our GI tract on the wrong foot. Not only will this leave you with lower energy (poor digestion = poor energy) but this will likely have you reaching for another cup of coffee to get through the day, further perpetuating the issue.
What to do: Try having your coffee 30 min-1 hour away from your breakfast (or any meal). This is essentially the same advice as limiting liquids at meals. The same goes for smoking. This may mean waking up, having breakfast, and allowing an hour for digesting before having your morning coffee. Many smokers I know enjoy lighting up right after finishing a meal. If you do this, you will halt the digestion of the food you just consumed by triggering fight or flight. Do your best to smoke 30 min-1 hour away from meals.
Alcohol impacts your digestion differently, halting digestion at the time of consumption because of its priority to your liver as a poison to be eliminated immediately. In other words, alcohol jumps ahead of the line in front of the nutrients from the food that you’re trying to digest to be processed by the liver because it’s a toxin. The processing of alcohol by the liver also causes you to become depleted in nutrients such as B vitamins which are mandatory for the absorption and use of proteins in the body. In addition, regular alcohol consumption depletes stomach acid and smooths out the lining of your small intestine, reducing nutrient absorption. I could write an entire post about how alcohol inhibits digestion and likely will in the future, but for now, you need to know that alcohol and digestion simply do not mix.
What to do: Reduce alcohol consumption, avoid drinking alcohol during meals as much as possible, and consider supplementing with a B-complex if you drink regularly.
5. Limit the Use of NSAIDS and PPIs
It’s well known now that NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) such as Aleve, Motrin, Ibuprofen, and Aspirin come with serious gastrointestinal risks. The reason for this is because NSAIDs work by inhibiting Cox 1 and/or Cox 2 enzymes. These enzymes help to create prostaglandins, hormone-like chemicals which are responsible for some of the pain that you feel as a result of inflammation in the body. However, prostaglandins also have other jobs, such as protecting the lining of the GI tract. This explains why regular use and high dose use of NSAID can cause ulcers of the stomach, esophagus, and intestines.
Additionally, chronic or high does use of NSAIDs may cause kidney damage, increased blood pressure, and even increase risk of stroke and heart attack. Taking an occasional NSAID to manage pain might not be an issue, but there is plenty of evidence to show that chronic use is very risky. In the future, I plan to write about holistic strategies that involve nutrition, lifestyle, and herbal support for pain management that could help reduce the use of NSAID. For now, if you’re interested in learning more about holistic alternatives to NSAIDs, check out Dr. Aviva Romm’s post about this here.
Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) such as Prilosec and Nexium are also quite detrimental to the digestive tract when used chronically. Often prescribed to treat heartburn/acid reflux/GERD and stomach ulcers, they work by inhibiting the proton pump in the parietal cells of the stomach from producing hydrochloric acid. This is due to rationale that excess stomach acid is the cause of heartburn, and therefore if you reduce the stomach acid, you will eliminate heartburn. Heartburn is actually caused by too little stomach acid, not an excess of it. I’ll be writing about this in detail in a future blog post and offering recommendations for preventing and managing heartburn symptoms without exacerbating the root cause and disrupting your digestive system.
The reduction of stomach acid creates a negative domino effect: reduced activation of pepsin (required for protein metabolism), reduced activation of intrinsic factor (an enzyme required for absorbing B12), increased gas and bloating, inefficient closing of the esophageal sphincter (a common cause of heartburn that allows acid to backup into the esophagus), depletion of good bacteria in our large intestine (more on that later) and reduced delivery of bile from the gallbladder and enzymes from the pancreas, further inhibiting digestion. Adequate levels of stomach acid are paramount for good digestion and overall health.
6. Taste Something Bitter!
Did you know that we have bitter taste buds beyond our tongue on our esophagus, lungs, and small intestines? That blew my mind when I was in school! Traditionally, dinner salads consisted of bitter greens such as arugula, dandelion, radicchio, collards, or mustard greens to prime the digestive system for the upcoming meal. Goodbye, iceberg lettuce! Hello, bitter greens!
When we eat something bitter, it signals the release of pancreatic enzymes that help to digest our food so that we can absorb its nutrients. Try eating something bitter 15-20 minutes before a meal can improve your digestion. There are also bitter sprays that you can spray on your tongue before a meal if that’s more feasible than eating the greens. I’d recommend the brand Urban Moonshine. Bitter greens are also nutrient dense, promote healthy stomach acid (of which we just learned the importance) and can help to cut sugar cravings. Most herbalists agree: Everyone needs more bitters! I’ve included multiple recipes below if you’re interested in learning about how to make your own or purchase some.
Homemade Bitters Recipes
7. Eat Carminative Herbs & Spices
Carminative herbs increase bloodflow to the small intestine, where most of your digestion/absorption of nutrients from food occurs. Carminative herbs include just about every herb and spice that you’ll find on the spice aisle at the grocery store, and many of the culinary herbs that are easy to grow in the garden such as sage, thyme, oregano, and rosemary. Cooking with as many herbs and spices as possible will not only improve your digestion but will add lots of nutrients and antioxidants to your diet, further aiding the absorption of nutrients.
8. Choose Whole Foods for Adequate Potassium
Our bodies require potassium to pump hydrochloric acid into our stomach in order to digest food, breaking it down into smaller molecules to be absorbed into the blood and lymph in the small intestines. If we don’t have adequate stomach acid to break our food down into smaller molecules and digest proteins, we may become protein deficient (even if we eat adequate amounts of protein), experience gas, bloating, or discomfort when digesting, feel sluggish or tired after a meal, and have a higher risk of experiencing heartburn.
One way to support healthy stomach acid is to choose whole foods over processed foods. Processed foods tend to be low in potassium and high in sodium and glucose. By contrast, consuming a whole foods diet with plenty of vegetables is much more likely to provide adequate potassium, among other nutrients! It’s recommended that we eat 9-12 cups of veggies per day- most Americans aren’t getting anywhere near that amount. If you’re hardly eating any veggies currently, try adding just 1 cup of veggies to your daily diet. Once that becomes easier, try adding 1 cup of veggies to every meal. One small step will snowball over time into healthier ways of living, so you can feel your best!
9. Eat Fiber with Every Meal
Another reason to choose whole over processed foods: fiber! Not only does fiber keep you regular (you should poop 1-3 times per day!) but it is also necessary to feed healthy gut flora and rid the body of toxins. Bile teams up with soluble fiber to bind to wastes such as heavy metals, carcinogens and pesticides, excess hormones, and excess cholesterol to excrete them from the body. However, if there is inadequate fiber in the diet, 99% of the toxins are reabsorbed into the bloodstream rather than being eliminated through feces. A trick I like to use is to add 1 TBS ground flax seed to a salad, smoothie, or stir fry for a healthy dose of fiber with the added bonus of omega-3 fatty acids!
Insoluble fiber helps to keep things moving, also supporting detox by promoting regular bowel movements. Another great reason to eat plenty of fiber with every meal is that it feeds "good" gut bacteria, which brings me to our last tip:
10. Feed the Good Bugs
Everybody is buzzing about the microbiome these days, and for good reason. New research is constantly emerging that sheds light on the immense importance of the microbiome (the community of various bacteria and other microorganisms that live in our gut) and its relationship to our health. While we may have only just scratched the surface in understanding the microbiome, we have learned a bit about how to keep it happy- and when the microbiome is happy, we are happy!
Most of the bacteria in our gut is considered “good” bacteria, meaning that they promote good health. They do this by protecting us against harmful infections, making the vitamins D and K, breaking down fibers that our own digestive enzymes were unable to, supporting the detox of excess estrogens, breaking down some heavy metals, and even regulating inflammation and weight. The populations of bacteria that reside in your gut may determine far more than you think! As described by Dr. Aviva Romm here, an imbalanced microbiome has been connected to autoimmune diseases, depression, anxiety, skin issues, PCOS, diabetes, problems with weight, immune health, sugar cravings, adrenal dysfunction, fatigue, and more.
The food that we eat doesn’t only feed us, it feeds our gut flora. Choosing whole foods with plenty of fiber feeds the good bugs, promoting the proper balance of bacteria and reducing the likelihood of the bad bugs taking over and creating an imbalance. By contrast, eating processed foods, added sugars, and trans fats reduces the good bacteria while increasing the bad bacteria, damaging the gut lining and setting you up for an array of health issues.
Another way to support good bacteria in the gut is to include fermented foods as a part of your diet. These include sauerkraut, kimchi, kvass, kefir, and yogurt. It's easy and cheap to ferment your own veggies at home! Check out this guide to fermenting your own foods here. If you aren't read to ferment your own foods just yet, you can purchase encapsulated probiotics at your nearest health food store. They are expensive and not all are guaranteed to be effective. If you choose to purchase encapsulated probiotics, opt for those in the refrigerator section with colony forming units (CFUs) in the billions with a variety of multiple strains of bacteria. You can also purchase pickles, kimchi, and kraut at the store, but these need to have living organisms and should also be found in the refrigerator section. I like Bubbies pickles.
If you’re interested in reading more about the microbiome, here are some links that may be of interest:
I hope you’ve found this post helpful and would love to hear from you below in the comments! Did you learn anything from this post? Which of these tips do you feel you’d be the most likely to implement and why?
Happy digesting,
Ash
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