You’re lying in bed at 3 am, kept awake by a familiar burning sensation just under your sternum. YOu instinctively reach for the antacid. The next morning, you find yourself scarfing down a second jelly donut with your morning coffee. Sound familiar? These are just a couple of signs of poor digestion. Fortunately, you can fix the problem by following some sound advice.
Symptoms of Poor Digestion
While poor digestion impacts your gastrointestinal tract, its effects can reach far beyond your stomach. You probably recognize its most common symptoms: heartburn, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. However, an unhealthy gut can also lead to sleep problems, food intolerances, skin irritation and migrations. Gut problems can even trigger anxiety and depression.
There’s another surprisingly negative outcome of an unhealthy gut: extreme sugar cravings. Our GI tract contains lots of microbes, outnumbering our own cells by about 100 to 1. Believe it or not, these microbes can influence what we eat. Yeasts consume sugar, so they can trigger cravings for high-sugar foods and simple cards. But other types of microbes can change these cravings: Prevotella bacteria get their energy from plant-based carbs, and Bifidobacteria prefer fiber-rich foods.
How To Fix Your Digestive System
Thankfully, you can change how your digestive system functions. A Mega Clean detox is an excellent first step in fixing your GI problems. Designed for effective, fast and convenient cleanings, Mega Clean contains several natural plant extracts such as burdock root, milk thistle seed and gurana seed. These extracts contain good stuff like antioxidants and prebiotic fiber that aid in digestion. As a bonus, a one-day Mega Clean cleanse also benefits your urinary and circulatory systems.
After you complete a cleanse like Mega Clean or Detoxify XXtra Clean, it’s important to adopt healthier habits going forward. Here are three practical tips that can put your feet (and GI tract) on the right path:
- Eat a healthy, balanced diet.
- Drink plenty of water and non-caffeinated fluids.
- Practice stress reduction techniques.
What is a healthy and balanced diet? Well, it’s composed of about 50% fruits and non-starchy veggies (with slightly more veggies than fruit), about 25% whole grains and 25% protein. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains and plant-based protein foods supply fiber, which keeps your digestive system moving and minimizes nasty stuff like constipation and heartburn. It also encourages more good bacteria in your gut — and as long as you limit your intake of sugary foods, the good bacteria will outnumber the less-desirable microbes in your GI tract.
Fluid intake is another key to proper GI tract function. Most experts recommend drinking between 50 and 66 ounces of non-caffeinated fluid each day. Stress management is also critical here — excess stress can lead to ulcers, diarrhea and constipation, among other maladies. Popular and useful approaches include yoga, meditation and deep belly breathing.
Healthy Choices, Healthy Life
A healthy lifestyle isn’t just about what we eat: It’s about how we treat our bodies and ourselves. Making good choices is vital to supporting our health. But we’re not perfect, and we can occasionally overindulge. For those moments, it’s important to have healthy living tools like Mega Clean cleanses and a hangover detox on hand.
