Bloating. It’s a very common problem which affects most of us at some time or other. However, unfortunately a lot of the time it can be persistent, uncomfortable and even escalate as the day goes on.  Read on discover what may cause a bloated stomach, and some simple home remedies to try.

Often clients will complain that their clothes fitted them perfectly well in the morning when they were getting ready for their day, but by the time the afternoon rolls around they feel as though they’re six months pregnant and bursting out of their clothes.  Not nice at all. Luckily, in most cases the dreaded bloating can be alleviated by making a few simple changes to your diet and routine.

(If you’ve got persistent bloating that won’t shift, no matter what you try, then always pop along to your GP to get them to check it out).

What causes a bloated stomach?

In most cases it boils down to one or more of the following –

Insufficient breakdown of carbohydrates and sugars

This is due to a lack of enzymes needed to do this. You may have heard of the low FODMAP diet – this method involves removing the harder to digest carbohydrates from your diet, temporarily alleviating symptoms. It’s not a method I recommend using for too long as there are far too many very healthy and delicious foods which are high in FODMAPs! It’s far more beneficial to unearth why you’re not digesting these foods efficiently.

Poor protein digestion

This may also be due to a lack of enzymes.

Disturbances in your gut microbiome

In other words, too many non-beneficial species and not enough of your beneficial species. There are a few strains of bacteria that are notorious for causing excessive bloating. Not only that, but they can damage your delicate gut-lining and hinder your absorption of vital nutrients. Gut testing can reveal whether or not you have excessive levels of these.

Yeast overgrowth

Particularly candida, can cause bloating among other numerous symptoms.

Food allergies or intolerances

The easiest way to determine whether or not a suspect food is aggravating your system is to remove it from your diet for a week or two and see if your symptoms subside. You may then like to try reintroducing it very slowly to see what happens. Dairy and gluten-containing foods commonly cause bloating and other issues for people. (Needless to say don’t try this with foods you have a known severe allergy to).

Dehydration

You may notice your bloating is much worse if, for example, you’ve been out for the evening eating salty food or drinking more wine than usual. Although it seems counter-intuitive drinking more water will help things flow much more easily through your digestive system.

SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)

This is when you have bacteria living in the wrong part of your intestine. We want the bulk of your bacteria residing happily in your large intestine. If it starts migrating up to your small intestine you may get some very uncomfortable symptoms, including bloating. Testing will show whether or not this is causing your symptoms.

If you’d like to learn more about eating to alleviate bloating, I’d highly recommend downloading my online course The Ultimate Gut Health Programme to help support your digestive system whilst avoiding triggering symptoms.

It’d be impossible to include all you need to know in one blog, but the programme will have all you need to know to ensure you’re soothing your digestive system, whilst eating delicious and filling foods.

Most importantly, how do we alleviate a bloated stomach?

Fibre

You want to be aiming for 25-30 grams of fibre each day in your diet. If your diet contains a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits, together with plenty of legumes such as lentils and chickpeas, whole grains (if you tolerate them) along with nuts and seeds you’re probably on the right track with your fibre intake. If you know you’re off-track and you’re getting plagued with bloating this would be a great place to start. Increase your fibre intake very slowly though, to allow your gut to get used to it.

Herbs & Spices

Have plenty of delicious herbs and spices on hand! My favourite is by far chamomile tea – it’s superb for so many ailments, including anything gut related. Two or three cups should help to bring balance back for you. Other useful ones to have to hand are ginger (in all its forms – fresh, diced into a cup of boiled water is great, as is tea), mint and fennel.

If you find your digestion’s feeling bit off, maybe with bloating, nausea or aches and pains, you could do a lot worse than to make sure you have plenty of spices and herbs for gut health to hand in your kitchen cupboards.

There are literally hundreds of herbs and spices to help with day to day tricky gut situations.

Some herbs will support your body in producing bile – a digestive substance produced by the gallbladder which helps you digest fatty foods.

Also, many of these herbs and spices will soothe the gut wall and ensure your gut is functioning correctly to get any pesky excess gas out of your system.

However they do their job, you can be assured that the following herbs and spices will support healthy digestion, allowing the gut to function as it’s supposed to.

And apart from all that they taste amazing too!

If you’d like to learn more about incorporating herbs and spice into your diet, I’d highly recommend downloading my online course The Ultimate Gut Health Programme to help support both your digestive sysem and hormone health, whilst avoiding triggering symptoms.

It’d be impossible to include all you need to know in one blog, but the programme will have all you need to know to ensure you’re soothing your digestive system, whilst eating delicious and filling foods.

Here are four of my favourites –

Fennel

The seeds are often served in Asia alongside or after your food to promote healthy digestion.  An easier way is to drink fennel tea, or buy a fresh fennel bulb from the supermarket – it makes an awesome soup!

The seeds and the plant have been scientifically proven to be –

• Antibacterial
• Anti-fungal
• Anti inflammatory

So, it may well help you get rid of any bacteria which is causing gassiness, or help with an upset stomach.

Ginger

A very well known remedy for all types of nausea, including morning sickness and travel sickness.

It’s very versatile so you can either buy the fresh bulbs and then grate or chop it into hot water to make tea, or in stir-fry or curries.

Alternatively buy it as a tea or use dried ginger in cooking.

So there you go, four essential herbs and spices to have in your cupboard to support your digestion day to day – enjoy them as teas or in cooking!

In recent years the phrases ‘gut cleansing’ and ‘detox’ have become very popular indeed. There are lots of products and methods being bandied around which claim their product, method or diet will ‘detoxify’ you.  Both terms are a bit misleading, suggesting you need to do something particularly special, or spend lots of money on expensive products in order to get results.

These phrases are misleading because our body is constantly detoxifying on its own. For example, the main function of your liver is to filter and remove toxins from your body. There are lots of processes involved using a variety of complex biological systems. These eventually end up showing toxins the door.

Other ways your body is constantly detoxing include –

• Your skin pushing out bacteria through sweat
• Kidneys filtering blood and producing urine
• Lungs expelling carbon dioxide
• Intestines extracting nutrients from food and excreting waste.

Your liver is very busy, clearing toxic xenobiotics from pharmaceutical drugs, food additives and environmental pollutants. These are metabolised by detoxification enzymes into less harmful compounds.

So, in a nutshell you’re already gut cleansing and detoxing without thinking about it!  It’s really just a question of how effectively you’re doing it.

How to support gut cleansing & detox

Although detoxification happens naturally, that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to support it in doing its job. Your body’s own detoxing mechanisms don’t work properly without the right fuel. The right fuel being the nutrients contained in whole, natural foods.

So while it’s not accurate to suggest that certain types of food/juices/supplements/superfoods will cleanse your gut and detoxify you directly, a healthy diet is definitely necessary to provide your system with the enzymes to detoxify your body adequately.

In addition, factors like –

• Chronic, ongoing stress
• Poor sleep
• Lack of physical activity
• A diet high in processed foods

Can cause your body’s detoxification systems to underperform and not remove all those toxins efficiently.

However, a ‘detox diet’ can provide a great focus to get your body back on track, and help it to efficiently do what it’s supposed to.

If you’re worried your diet is impacting your gut health, and also your sleep, I’d highly recommend downloading my online course The Ultimate Gut Health Programme to help support both your digestive sysem and hormone health, whilst avoiding triggering symptoms.

It’d be impossible to include all you need to know in one blog, but the programme will have all you need to know to ensure you’re soothing your digestive system, whilst eating delicious and filling foods.

In a nutshell, what you’ll need to do to help your body detox more efficiently, is to minimise the things it doesn’t need, whilst maximising what it does need.

Help your body detox like this –

If you tend to drink fizzy and sugary drinks, swapping them for plain filtered water, herbal teas and green tea will ensure you stay well hydrated whilst at the same time reducing your toxic load.

Cut out all highly processed and pre-packaged foods such as ready meals, convenience foods and snacks from your diet.

Whilst you’re decreasing your intake of processed and sugary foods, ensure you increase you intake of whole raw foods, cook from scratch and include healthy protein foods.

It’s just a case of providing your body with the building blocks it needs to do its own, inbuilt, cleansing process naturally.

Although you may not have heard of it before, having a ‘leaky gut’ is very common and is associated with loads of symptoms and conditions all around your body. Not only the symptoms you may be experiencing with your gut, but also if you’re having difficulty losing weight or have allergies, for example.

Fixing a leaky gut (yes, it can be done) can alleviate a lot of symptoms, some trivial, some a bit more serious.

So what is ‘leaky gut’ exactly?

Your intestines are lined with a single layer of cells that are linked together by tight junctions. When you have leaky gut these tight junctions aren’t working as they should.

The gaps between the cells lining your gut determine what can pass through into your bloodstream from your digestive system. They need to be tight enough to ensure that no nasties pass through, but have enough room between them to allow the things we do want to pass through – vital nutrients for example.

When you have leaky gut, certain particles that shouldn’t be able to enter your bloodstream start to leak through. 

Much of your immune system is also located throughout your gut, and this may also be affected. The result being possible inflammation and autoimmune reactions.

What might cause a ‘leaky gut?’

Genes – some people may be more likely to develop leaky gut because they are sensitive to certain environmental triggers, causing their bodies to mount autoimmune responses.

Diet – certain foods are more likely to cause allergic or inflammatory responses. The main offenders tend to be

• grains, particularly wheat
• added refined sugar
• genetically modified foods
• refined oils
• food additives, and
• processed dairy products.

Stress – chronic, unrelenting stress will take its toll on your body in many ways. Therefore learning techniques to manage it is vital.

Toxins – The worst offenders as far as your gut is concerned are chemicals in household products; for example cosmetics, hair dyes and washing powder, together with alcohol, prescription drugs such as antibiotics and NSAIDS, drinking unfiltered water and pesticides.

Toxins are everywhere and it’d be unrealistic to try and avoid them entirely, but switching to natural household products and cosmetic brands, filtering your water and opting for organic foods where possible will go a long way to reducing your toxic load.

Leaky Gut Symptoms: Dysbiosis –

This is where the good and bad bacteria which live in your gut get out of balance. The pathogenic bacteria and yeasts get too much of a stranglehold and start to cause damage to your gut, and throughout your body too. A large body of evidence now shows that gut microbiota are important in supporting the cells lining your gut, and preventing autoimmune reactions.

If you’re worried your diet is impacting your gut health, and also your sleep, I’d highly recommend downloading my online course The Ultimate Gut Health Programme to help support both your digestive sysem and hormone health, whilst avoiding triggering symptoms.

It’d be impossible to include all you need to know in one blog, but the programme will have all you need to know to ensure you’re soothing your digestive system, whilst eating delicious and filling foods.

So, how do you know if this is affecting you?

Here are some of the main leaky gut symptoms –

Leaky gut symptoms and signs

• IBS
• Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis
• Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)

• Metabolic diseases such as fatty liver or Type II diabetes
• Autoimmune disease
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Propensity towards weight gain or obesity

At the current time it’s not known for sure if having a leaky gut causes these conditions, but its safe to say that leaky gut tends to occur concurrently with these other issues.

How to overcome leaky gut symptoms

There are basically four main steps I recommend in order to repair a leaky gut, these are –

• Establish what your trigger foods are, and remove them from your diet.
• Ascertain which diet and/or lifestyle factors have given rise to leaky gut – for example, ongoing stress or medications.
• Repair the gut lining with herbs and/or supplements.
• Rebalance the microflora with probiotics.

If you’re struggling to sleep, know you’re not alone. It’s a very common problem indeed. Strangely enough it’s an area which is very closely linked to our gut health. Not only does the health of our microbiome impact how well we sleep, or don’t sleep – but our sleep (or lack of it) definitely has a huge effect on our microbiome and overall gut health. Let’s look at how this happens, who is most affected and what we can do to support our insomnia and gut health.

How the microbiome affects insomnia

Numerous studies to date have demonstrated that the gut microbiome definitely seems to influence sleep quality.

Via the gut-brain-axis the microbiome determines sleep-related physiological functions in a few different ways, it seems –

• It can shift your circadian rhythm
• Affect the hormones that regulate sleep
• Alter your body’s sleep-wake cycle

An abundant and diverse gut microbiome correlates with more time spent asleep, and that sleep quality is improved. In other words, time spent actually sleeping when you’re in bed.

Serotonin – key if you’re struggling with insomnia

There is a strong link between the levels of serotonin we have circulating, our gut bacteria and how well we sleep. Serotonin regulates our sleep cycle, and our gut microbiome determines the levels of serotonin in our body. However the exact mechanism remains unclear. Serotonin has different functions in the brain and around the body, but studies involving mice given antibiotics to wipe out most of their gut flora, demonstrated that they had generally low serotonin levels and disrupted sleep cycles.

How does insomnia affect your gut?

Naturally, it also follows that a lack of sleep affects our gut in numerous ways. So if we don’t take measures to look after our gut health we could end up with a vicious cycle going on here.

How well you sleep, and how much sleep you get, certainly seems to affect the diversity of your gut microbes. This undoubtedly has a knock-on effect for your health generally.

The bacteria in your gut are dynamic and in a delicate balance. They respond to changes such as sleep deprivation and shift work. Changes such as these will cause some species to die-off, and some to proliferate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when you keep waking up in the night it seems it gives rise to a proliferation of less-than-desireable species proliferating: Specifically those species which cause bloating.

If you’re worried your diet is impacting your gut health, and also your sleep, I’d highly recommend downloading my online course The Ultimate Gut Health Programme to help support both your digestive sysem and hormone health, whilst avoiding triggering symptoms.

It’d be impossible to include all you need to know in one blog, but the programme will have all you need to know to ensure you’re soothing your digestive system, whilst eating delicious and filling foods.

Insomnia causes changes throughout the body

All these factors on their own may not sound too troubling, but your gut health certainly influences the rest of your health too. These changes in your microbiome may lead to –

• Tissue inflammation
• Decreased insulin sensitivity
• Leaky gut
• There is also a clear link between sleep disturbance and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heartburn and acid indigestion.

Unfortunately it doesn’t take long for all these negative effects to start occurring either. As little as a couple of nights disturbed sleep can have this effect :-/ So if you’re someone who has insomnia, works shifts or is a new parent, for example it’s definitely worth supporting your gut.

Prebiotic-rich foods

• Leeks
• Onions
• Garlic
• Chicory

If you’re chronically sleep-deprived then supporting your digestion with probiotic and prebiotic supplements would probably be wise.