If you suffer with constipation then you’ll know how uncomfortable it can be to live with. It can involve hours of discomfort or even pain sat on the toilet. It can also lead to other digestive issues and hemorrhoids. Often people mistakenly go for extra fibre to help get things moving. Fibre is great for scrubbing out your gut and keeping you regular but if you are really blocked up it can’t pass through. This means the fibre sits there and festers – irritating the gut more.
So what can you do about it? Luckily there’s lot you can do to help…just check out the list below. If you want to know how to help constipation in children click here.
- Linseed tea or aloe vera juice. These basically moisturize your gut and help lubricate everything. Sometimes if things have gotten very dry water can pass through a bit quick without being properly absorbed. These liquids are a little more viscous so act more like a lubricant and allow more to be absorbed. They are also very soothing and nourishing for your gut and help it to heal and reduce inflammation. You can buy aloe vera juice in health food shops ready to go but it can be a little bit pricey. Linseed tea you can make at home for the cost of a bag of linseeds (£2-3). Buy some golden linseeds, put 2 tablespoons in 2 pints of water and bring it to the boil. Take it off the heat and leave for 1-2hrs. Then gently re-warm (not too hot), sieve out the seeds and drink a cup. This mixture can be kept in the fridge, re-warmed and then drink 2 cups a day. Discard mixture older than 3 days. It’s basically a homemade gut moisturiser. Very soothing for your digestive system and nutritious.
- Abdominal Massage. It can be tricky for your gut to heal and move things if it is full of blockages that out extra pressure on it, reduce circulation and irritate the bowel wall. Sometimes the best way to help is to physically encourage movement. Massage stretches out the bowel to allow the pockets of blockages to be released and get the bowel back to a happier position. The massage works with the bowel assisting its natural movement to get back to normal. It also releases pressure and tension on the bowel, reduces inflammation and improves circulation. All this allows the bowel to heal and drastically improves digestive function so it works on the symptoms and causes of constipation. This means the massage can help relieve the symptoms but also stop them happening again. To book a session Click Here.
- Tablespoon of olive oil before bed and lemon water in the morning. This is a great way to boost your digestive system and help get things moving when you have issues. It stimulates the bile to get working and move things along and also helps lubricate the process via the oil.
- Using a toilet stool. This is one of the simplest ways to help constipation. You have a muscle that hooks round your colon when you are stood up. We evolved to go to the toilet squatting and when you squat this muscle releases. When you sit down this muscle is still engaged – creating a kink in your colon that your body has to push the faeces around rather than a nice straight path for it to leave through. This puts more pressure on your pelvic floor and makes it harder to pass anything – particularly if it is hard not soft. Using a stool that lifts your knees above your hips gets everything in the right position and makes going to the loo much easier. You can get special stools designed for this purpose pretty cheaply but any step-stool you have lying around will usually do the trick – so long as your knees are above your hips, you’re good to go.
- Plenty of water and more liquid diet. Constipation is a very common symptom of dehydration and the best way to combat this is to increase the amount of water you have. If the problem has been going a long time it can take a while to notice a difference with this but it will stop things getting worse in the meantime. Moisturising your gut as detailed above really helps. In the meantime, 1.5L of water per day for women and 2L per days for men is really important. Having a more liquid diet can also really help reset the digestive system. A few days of soup and smoothies is sometimes a great way to reset things.
- Exercise. Walking, yoga, cycling – anything that gets those hips moving – is great for helping to relieve constipation. Sun salutation in yoga is great as it moves your hips in almost every direction and helps massage your gut internally. Running through 3 sun salutations can really make a difference.
Treatments available in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire and Oxford, Oxfordshire.
Accessible from Bedford, Biggleswade, Ampthill, Cambridge, Huntingdon, St Neots,
Milton Keynes, Woburn, Hitchin, Letchworth, Stevenage, Royston, Cambridgeshire,
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Swindon, Reading, Thatcham, Wallingford, Wheatley, Thame, Lambourn, Burford,
Chipping Norton, Cotswolds, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire,
Gloucestershire, Hampshire.
To book an abdominal massage appointment for symptoms relief click here.