5 Ways to Improve Digestion Naturally

5 Ways to Improve Digestion Naturally : Health is determined by many factors—what kind of food we eat and don’t eat, how hydrated we are, the quality of sleep we get, the amount of exercise and physical activity we perform, the environment we live in, our attitude on life, and so much more—but one of the most important contributors to our health is how well we digest our food.

Digestion is the process of breaking down food into nutrients that the body can absorb. If we aren’t digesting our food efficiently, we are restricting the amount of nutrients that our body is absorbing, and our health suffers as a result.

There is a huge misconception that just because we eat something healthy that we are receiving benefit from that food. It is not only what we eat, but how we eat, and whether or not what we eat is actually being digested, absorbed, and assimilated by the body. In this article, we’ll explore 5 tips to improve digestion naturally.

Chew Your Food

It should come as no surprise that chewing your food is important for digestive health. We’ve all been told numerous times as children to make sure we chew our food, yet as adults, many of us fail to do this simple task effectively. We get excited about our meals and we tend to eat them up with our properly chewing them.

Chewing breaks food down to prepare it for the next steps of the digestive process. It is a very important first step to the whole process of digestion. When we do not chew our food thoroughly, we create more work for our stomach. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26188140/

An assembly line of workers requires each worker to do their job in order for the product to be assembled completely. Imagine that the first employee on an assembly line decided to stop doing their job, or decided to do it lazily and incompletely. It would create much more work for everyone else down the line, and it would ultimately ruin the whole process of assembly. This is what happens in the digestive process when we don’t chew our food completely—we create more work for the rest of the body and ultimately inhibit our overall digestion.
Do Not Eat While Stressed

In order to digest food effectively, the body needs to be in a relaxed state. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22314561/ When the body is relaxed, our parasympathetic nervous system is active—this is our “rest-and-digest” response, as opposed to the sympathetic “fight-or-flight” response.

When the body is stressed and in a “fight-or-flight” mode, there are different body processes happening that are more supportive to taking action and escaping a situation, and less supportive to digestion and restoration. To support the digestive process, aim to eat only when you are relaxed, and avoid eating when you are stressed.
Avoid Overeating

Overeating is harmful to your health, and it’s something that many people do often. When you eat too much, your stomach swells and expands like a balloon to accommodate the large amount of food, which then pushes against the other organs in your body and makes you feel bloated and gassy. The large amount of food requires your organs to work harder. They secrete extra hormones and enzymes to break the food down. To break down food, the stomach produces hydrochloric acid. If you overeat, this acid may back up into the esophagus resulting in heartburn. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754813/
Eat Real Food

The typical Western diet is high in refined carbs, oxidized fats and food additives that are harmful to health. Furthermore, processed foods often contain artificial sweeteners and chemicals which may cause digestive problems and further damage health. To improve digestion and to stay healthy, focus on eating real foods. Eat a diet based on whole foods and limit the amount of processed foods that you consume.
Detox the Gut

Sometimes the gut simply becomes too full of waste, and to improve gut health, we need to remove this excess waste. The colon, for example, can easily become too full, and this can negatively affect our health. Even worse, the gut may become infected by intestinal parasites that can steal our nutrients and release toxic waste inside us. To improve the health of your gut and to keep your gut in good health, it is recommended to detox the gut a few times each year. Doing a colon cleanse and a natural parasite detox cleanse (https://www.zumanutrition.com/products/parasite-detox) are great ways to detox the gut, and doing so may significantly improve your digestion.

Conclusion

The health of our gut is very important to our overall health. Due to common dietary and lifestyle habits, many people suffer from poor gut health. The best way to improve our gut health is to improve our digestion. With these 5 simple steps, you can improve your digestion naturally and can make significant improvements in your gut health.