Bloating

Bloating has become very common, and the word covers a lot of ground. For some people it means wind and belching, often with constipation and a distended abdomen. For others it means waking with a flat stomach and finishing the day with a noticeable belly. Both are bloating and they don’t necessarily have the same cause.

Diet is one reason among several. Medical conditions can contribute or account for it entirely, which is why working out the cause is rarely a straight line — there are a lot of variables and everybody’s are different.

Five things that help

1. Chew properly. Eating in a rush doesn’t give your body time to digest. Chewing is what primes everything downstream.
2. Move regularly. Exercise increases circulation and helps move food through the digestive tract.
3. Don’t lie down straight after eating. It works against you at the point digestion is just getting going.
4. Sit somewhere quiet and breathe before you eat. This shifts your body into the state where it actually secretes what it needs to break food down. It also settles your head.
5. Try a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar 30 minutes before a meal. For some people it helps stimulate digestive secretions.

When it’s worth getting it looked at

If bloating is persistent, painful, or comes with changes in bowel habit, weight or energy, it’s worth a proper assessment rather than more guesswork.

Digestive health is the area this clinic’s naturopaths work in most. Sara Canney in particular has built her practice around it — IBS, SIBO, candida, constipation, intestinal permeability and food intolerance are the presentations she sees most often.

Your naturopath will take a full history, and where it’s clinically appropriate may recommend pathology or functional testing — including microbiome testing — to identify what’s actually going on before prescribing anything. Herbal and nutritional support, dietary change and practical strategies follow from what that turns up.