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7 Bad Habits that Make Your Digestion Poor

By Diane Hanson

A good digestive system results in effective weight management. However, bad lifestyle habits, including unhealthy food preferences can harm your digestion to a great extent. It can make weight loss difficult to achieve.

That explains why before you start any diet program, it is very important that you kick off the bad habits and eliminate all the factors that make your digestion poor. Let's go through a few things that can disrupt your digestive system, and find out what you can do to improve bad digestion.

Bad Digestion Causes and Remedies

1. Cigarette Smoking

Smoking affects not only the oral mucus membrane, it also irritates the stomach lining, making you more susceptible to gastritis, ulcers and other digestive system disorders.

On top of that, smoking is linked to increased risks of having colon and stomach cancer. So the best thing you can do to improve poor digestion is stop smoking.

2. Excessive Coffee Intake

Consuming moderate amount of coffee is considered to be helpful for digestion since coffee stimulates gastric juice production. However, drinking more than 3 cups of strong coffee a day can lead to bacterial floral imbalances in the stomach, resulting in various diseases of the digestive system.

Instead, try herbal teas such as chamomile, peppermint, and cinnamon to improve digestion after meals.

3. Carbonated Drinks

Sodas or carbonated drinks weakens the stomach acid, thereby severely interfering with digestion. Avoid consuming carbonated drinks if you have sensitive stomach or you already suffer from various ailments associated with poor digestion.

4. Alcohol Abuse

It is a fact that those who drink too much alcoholic beverages usually have issues with the liver, pancreas and digestive system. Alcohol affects bacterial balance in your bowels and causes colon cancer.

Since it is high in calories and slows down metabolism, it is wise not to consume any alcoholic drinks when you want to lose weight.

5. Fatty and Spicy Foods

Most spices, including cayenne peppers, chili, and ginger are irritants. They create mucous, wreck digestion and can cause stomach burning and even ulcers.

However, spices such as anise and dill are quite helpful for the digestion as these spices stimulate and improve digestion.

6. Eating Too Quickly

Bad eating habits such as eating too quickly, not chewing food well or drinking lots of liquids with meals can lead to inadequate breakdown of food as well as incomplete mixing of the digestive juices and enzymes with the food, which can cause an uncomfortable after meal experience.

Eat your food in a relaxed environment, and make it a habit to chew each bite 20 times or more. That way, you can avoid bad digestion.

7. Sedentary Lifestyle

Good digestion function needs motion, and sedentary lifestyle causes stagnation of bowel activities (constipation and flatulence). Therefore, to help your digestion, you should adopt an active lifestyle.

Yoga breathing exercises is believed to improve bad digestion.

If these simple self-help steps do not resolve your poor digestive problems, speak with your physician. Your physician can investigate the possibility that a medical problem is causing your bad digestion.

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