There’s nothing worse than being constipated! Unfortunately, this frustrating condition is quite common in adults and children alike.
Constipation can strike out of the blue – but it’s often for very simple reasons. Diet is a major cause, particularly when you haven’t been eating enough fiber or drinking enough water.
Other causes include a disruption to your normal bowel routine, such as not going to the bathroom often enough. This sort of disruption can occur with traveling or even being in a sedentary desk job. Lack of activity can have a major impact on your bowel regularity.
Certain medications can also upset your bowel movements, especially opioids, anti-inflammatories, antacids, and antihistamines.
Constipation can also be caused by gut imbalances. Candida overgrowth or SIBO can trigger a variety of digestive symptoms including constipation.
If you find that you’re getting constipated frequently, don’t keep reaching for the laxatives. Think about what’s caused your bowel to slow down, and what you can do to prevent it from happening again.
The most important thing you can do is eat the right foods and watch out for your gut health! Here’s our pick of what to eat when constipated.
7 Foods to Improve Your Gut Health
1. Pure Water
For some reason, the most obvious cause of constipation is also the last to be considered: hydration!
When you don’t drink enough water, your body quickly becomes dehydrated. This means any waste in your intestines will become slow and ‘stuck’ because your body can’t add enough moisture to your stools. If this is the case, your stools will be small, hard, dry and lumpy.
Try to drink at least 2 liters of clean, filtered water daily. The easiest way to do this is by carrying a drink bottle with you everywhere, so you can sip it regularly. This will help to move food and waste through your body and keep everything flowing naturally.
After all, you wouldn’t try to clean a drain without turning on the tap!
2. Fermented Dairy Products
Yogurt and kefir are two types of fermented dairy products that can be invaluable to a constipated gut. They both contain probiotics , which are a type of ‘friendly’ bacteria that helps to break down food that you eat.
Probiotics have been shown to improve digestion and elimination by supporting a healthy gastrointestinal environment and maintaining bowel regularity.
Numerous studies have shown that adding probiotics to your diet can help to reduce constipation. One study found that when patients with chronic constipation drank an unflavored probiotic yogurt every day for two weeks, their bowel transit time was significantly shortened. This specific yogurt contained Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis.
3. Chia Seeds
Chia seeds are tiny black and white seeds from the plant, Salvia hispanica L. They’re rich in omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.
The great thing about chia seeds is that they form a lubricating gel-like consistency when they absorb water. This gel can help to improve stool formation , keeping them moist and making them easier to pass. The omega-3 fatty acids are also renowned for their anti-inflammatory properties, which is highly beneficial to an irritated gut.
As well as their amazing lubrication effects, chia seeds are packed with soluble fiber. Soluble fiber is the type that most people find much gentler on the gut, and it’s should be top of your list of what to eat when constipated. It’s easy to add chia seeds to cereals, baked goods, smoothies and yogurt for a fiber-rich snack or meal.
4. Legumes
When you’re wondering what to eat when constipated, your best bet is fiber-rich foods. Lentils, beans and chickpeas are great for preventing and treating constipation.
Fiber is an important macronutrient that should be included in your daily diet in order to keep your bowels healthy. It works by adding bulk to your stools, which causes waste to press against your intestines and stimulate peristalsis – the wave-like movements that push waste along to be excreted.
Research has shown that just 100 grams of cooked beans or other pulses provides around 26 percent of your recommended daily intake of fiber. What’s more, these foods are packed with plenty of other nutrients such as potassium, folate, zinc, and vitamin B6, which also help support the health of your gut.
5. Broth
Broths have been a dietary staple for centuries – and for good reason. The rich mineral content of bones and other ingredients makes a broth highly nutritious and easily absorbed by the gut.
Most importantly, bone broth provides a good dose of moisture to an inflamed or dehydrated gut. This can help to soften any hard stools in your intestines and make them easier to eliminate. You’ll also be supporting your nutritional intake if your appetite has diminished, which can happen during bouts of constipation.
It’s easy to make your own bone broth from chicken bones, beef bones or other animal carcasses. Bone broth is particularly beneficial for an irritated gut because it’s rich in gelatin, which can soothe the lining and help repair damaged cells. The warmth of bone broth makes it very easy to digest and very appetizing!
6. Prune Juice and Prunes
Prunes have long been hailed as the king of ‘keeping you regular’! These dried fruits are absolutely packed with fiber, that important macronutrient that keeps waste moving through your gut.
Prunes also contain a type of sugar called sorbitol. Because sorbitol can’t be broken down by your body, it passes through your colon undigested and draws water into your gut. This helps to bulk up your stool and stimulate a bowel movement.
Studies show that sorbitol is a safe and effective remedy for constipation, and it’s often a favorite with older adults. Prunes can increase the frequency of your bowel movements and improve consistency.
If you really have no idea of what to eat when constipated, a handful of prunes could be the easiest remedy in the book. Take care not to overdo the prunes though, as they can also cause some gas and bloating!
7. Broccoli
Eating your greens was never so important as when your bowels need some stimulation. Broccoli is a good source of fiber, like other foods mentioned above. But it also contains a valuable nutrient called sulforaphane, which can help to protect the gut and improve digestion.
Research suggests that sulforaphane may even help to ward off ‘unfriendly’ gut bacteria that can upset normal digestion. One study showed that when participants ate 20g of raw broccoli sprouts every day for 4 weeks, they had fewer symptoms of constipation than those who ate alfalfa sprouts. The broccoli also seemed to improve their bowel transit time and the quality of their bowel motions.
Gut health is key to overall health. This makes perfect sense as the gut, aka our gastrointestinal tract, is the organ system in charge of digesting the food we eat.
The mouth, oesophagus, stomach and intestines work together to extract the energy and nutrients our body needs to thrive from it and then our rectum and anus get rid of any leftover waste. 1
However, our busy modern lives can sometimes compromise our gut health, which isn’t hard to do as our gut is incredibly complex.
Not many of us can say we’ve never had tummy troubles. Whether it’s a gluten intolerance, indigestion or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), an unhappy gut can make anyone miserable.
Why is gut health important?
The term ‘gut health’ generally refers to the balance of healthy ‘live bacteria and harmful ‘bad’ bacteria.
We have over 100 trillion live bacteria, aka our microbiome, living in our gut which help our bodies with a number of tasks.
This microbiome actually accounts for 90% of the cells in our body.2
However, if our gut’s healthy natural bacteria balance gets toppled, we can start to experience some problems.
How can a healthy gut improve overall health?
A healthy gut with the right balance of bacteria may help your body in the following ways:
- Immunity: maintaining a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut can help to support your immune system . In the same way as taking too many antibiotics – and disturbing the balance, can weaken the immune system 3
- Heart health: evidence suggests that probiotic supplements can help control total cholesterol levels in the blood 4
- Digestive issues: a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut has been seen to help with bowel disorders like lactose intolerance and antibiotic-induced diarrhoea 5
- Sleep and fatigue: our gut microbiome may affect the quality of our sleep . This is because our gut is responsible for producing most of our serotonin – a hormone that affects sleep 6
Your gut is your ‘second brain’
Our ‘gut brain’ contains millions of nerve cells and helps control digestion, sensing the food we’ve eaten and responding to it, adjusting digestive secretions, absorbing nutrients and telling our brain what’s going on.
Our brain and our gut are closely connected in order to allow digestion to happen under the right circumstances.
This is why eating a meal when we’re stressed can cause symptoms like bloating, as our body is focused on fight or flight, rather than digesting our food.
Experiencing an emotional upset while eating can also trigger digestive problems.
Your ‘gut brain’ remembers the upset and can develop symptoms around the contents of that meal – after receiving bad news in a fish restaurant, you might then react to fish, for example.
Is your gut healthy?
Gut health is a tricky one to determine.
There is never simply a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, as there isn’t a single measure used to assess the health of our gut.
However, there are some signs that you can look out for that may give you an indication either way.
3 signs of a healthy gut
Read on to find out 3 signs of a healthy gut…
1. Healthy bowel movements
We are talking about your digestive system here, so it only makes sense that our stools can be a great indicator for gut health.
Smooth ‘sausage-like’ stools are ideal, not hard, lumpy or really squishy ones.
And while they’re not going to smell like roses… if you smell something really foul in the bathroom, this could be a sign that something is up.
2. You’re not bloated often
If you find that you feel comfortable after most meals and that you don’t often experience bloating, it may be that your gut is happy and healthy.
Having said this, passing wind between 10-20 is still normal, but if it’s a lot more for you, you may want to invest in your gut health.
3. You can poo without pain
A key indicator of a healthy gut is also that you can visit the bathroom without experiencing any pain – or having to work too hard to push it out! 9
How to improve gut health naturally
Read on for our top tips to naturally improve your gut health…
1. Follow a gut-friendly FODMAP-free diet
FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols.
These are groups of carbohydrates that are not absorbed by the gut, so they ferment and bacteria feed on them, causing unpleasant gut behaviour.
Food high in FODMAPs include apples, pears, milk and cabbage.
2. Try taking friendly bacteria supplements
These have been shown to be beneficial in some people with gut problems and there is some evidence they may also help with mood fluctuations associated with gut issues.
3. Reduce your fibre intake
Too much fibre can overstimulate the gut, making symptoms even worse. Ask a dietician for advice before cutting out any food groups.
4. Practice gut-focused hypnotherapy
Research shows this can reduce symptoms by at least half in 70 per cent of patients.
It’s thought it may make the gut less sensitive, decrease the strength of contractions and help with the stress and anxiety of having gut problems.
5. Exercise
Exercise raises your heart and breathing rate, which in turn stimulates the waves of muscle contractions that move stools through the gut – a process called peristalsis. 26,27
This helps the gut operate more efficiently, which means food spends a shorter time in the bowel. In turn, this means less water is absorbed back into the body via the small intestine – keeping the stools soft. 28
In a 2014 study published in World Journal of Gastroenterology, researchers asked inactive patients in a psychiatric hospital to exercise for 60 minutes three times a week for three months.
The results found that for the exercising patients, food spent around 30 hours in the bowel, compared to 54 hours for the control group. 29
Leave a Reply