How To

How to Improve Digestion

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer
(5 Ratings)

Digestion affects all facets of health. Your body depends on the breakdown of foods to get the nutrients it needs for healthy cells. If food sits too long in the stomach it can become toxic, recalculate throughout the body and cause illness. Follow these steps to improve digestion so that your entire body will function at optimal performance.

Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
  1. Step 1

    Chew your food well. If you chew your food until it is in liquid form, your other organs do not have to break down larger chunks of food and can therefore digest your foods more efficiently. This is the best thing you can do above all else to improve your digestion.

  2. Step 2

    Eat foods that make you feel good and avoid foods that your body doesn't like. For instance, avoid foods that give you indigestion, make you feel dragged down or give you lots of gas.

  3. Step 3

    Choose unprocessed foods to improve digestion. Processed foods include junk food or anything that is pickled, cured, has sugar, or has been altered or preserved in any way. These additives can cause a slowing down of digestion.

  4. Step 4

    Drink lots of water. Water helps remove toxins from the digestive tract and helps prevent constipation which slows down digestion.

  5. Step 5

    Eat fruit on an empty stomach. Fruit digests quickly and other foods, especially proteins, take longer to digest. The fruit cannot move on if it is trapped in the stomach with other foods and can rot in the stomach causing gas and making other foods harder for the body to digest effectively.

  6. Step 6

    Relax for at least 30 minutes after eating meals. Your digestive organs need a large portion of your total blood volume to digest food. It cannot use that blood if you are active after a meal because the blood goes instead to your muscles.

Tips & Warnings
  • The Institute of Medicine recommends that men drink about 13 cups of total beverages a day and women about 9 cups.
  • How much gas you have is a good indicator of how well your food is digesting. If you pass a lot of smelly gas, your body is not digesting food as well as it should be.
  • It takes about a month for your body to adapt to a whole food diet from a processed food diet so you may get a lot of bloating in the beginning if you switch over.

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