9 Quick-Working Home Remedies for Bloating

Bloating is a common problem amongst adults, and to a lesser degree, children. If you often feel bloated throughout the day, there are a few main causes, but if you feel tired of being bloated after you eat, these home remedies are specifically for you.

Each method is designed to be implemented quickly and cheaply, so if you’re feeling bloated right now, put one into practice and see how you get on.

Starting with the easiest method first, the suggestion here is to simply eat slower. When we eat fast our stomach becomes overloaded with the food, thus ‘bloating’ out and causing us to feel as such. Eating slower and taking the time to chew your food can give the stomach a chance to expand naturally, meaning less of a bloat for you.

Fiber is an essential nutrient, but is found in relatively few foods. Citrus fruit, oats, beans and lentils are all rich in fibre, so if you increase your intake of these by simply adding a few to a meal once a day, you’ll likely feel the benefits on your digestive system relatively quickly.

If you haven’t heard by now, fizzy drinks are perhaps some of the worst things you can ingest into your body (save for alcohol and drugs). With no nutritional value, they are laden with sugar and various unnatural chemicals that the body isn’t used to digesting, and even if they’re sugar free they’re packed with terrible things such as aspartame and phenylalanine. Combined together, these can not only have a harmful effect on your mind, but will cause your body to bloat, although the main cause of bloating from fizzy drinks will be the fizziness inside them – expanding your stomach unnaturally.

The best thing to do? Completely avoid them and drink water instead. If water isn’t good for you, try adding a lemon or drinking green tea.

As most bloating is caused by eating certain types of food, it makes sense to educate yourself and then stick to a healthy eating plan. Don’t go on a diet – make a lifestyle change and add better foods into your diet in place of ones you feel may be causing you to feel bloated.

There are foods you can add into your diet that will help specifically with bloating. A great idea would be to cross-reference them with the method below, keep a food diary for a week to see when you feel bloated and after eating which foods, and then subtract the bloat-causing foods for the bloat-reducing foods. Simple, right? Some foods you can add straight away are parsley, pineapple, probiotic yogurt, peppermint tea, and ginger – all do wonders to speed up your metabolism and reduce bloating.

In as much as you should adopt healthier, bloat-reducing foods into your diet, you should almost completely avoid the foods known to cause bloating if you don’t want to feel bloated again. These foods include bread, baked beans, sprouts, potatoes, and fizzy drinks.

Although science is split, in a hub about home remedies for bloating we have to include the philosophy of eating 6-7 smaller meals instead of 3 big meals with snacks in between. The idea is that the metabolism and stomach will get used to have frequent, regular meals and will reduce bloating and body fat, often caused by the shock to the system caused by eating a huge meal all at once. It’s a common way of eating used by athletes and bodybuilders, and for very good reason too.

Many people have a food intolerance without even knowing it, and this is something I recently discovered myself. I would always feel sluggish, tired and bloated after eating white bread, and after adding 2+2 I came to the conclusion that my body simply wasn’t meant to eat such large amounts of refined wheat. I gave a week without bread a go, and to my (un)surprise I felt a whole lot better. Gluten, wheat and lactose can cause bloating in individuals sensitive to them, and the average western diet contains way too much of these 3 ingredients.

The best thing to do here would be to give what you suspect is causing the bloating a miss for a week, and see if you feel any better by the end. If so, keep it out of your diet, and if not try something else. It’s likely you’ll find the cause and feel much better if you do have an intolerance. Alternatively, your doctor may be able to give you a test to confirm your intolerance to certain types of food.

If your lifestyle is seriously lacking in exercise, it may be a great time to start, using the bloating as a kick-start. Even just 20 minutes of light cardio 3 times a week can work absolute wonders, and it’s as good for your mental state as it is for your body. You don’t have to be an athlete or a weight lifter if you don’t desire – a simple brisk walk around the block before or after a meal, combined with eating a fairly healthy diet, will go a long way in reducing any bloating you may be feeling.

If you’re feeling terribly bloated and are looking for something you can do instantly, providing you have a lemon on hand, have some ice water and lemon. This will give your stomach and digestive system a quick shock, and you should be feeling back to normal again soon. Don’t rely on this though – bloating is a problem that something is wrong, so find the cause and fix it for a permanent cure.

So there are the home remedies for bloating. There’s nothing revolutionary, and you’ve probably come across the information before, but simply knowing isn’t enough. Pick a method and apply it to your lifestyle for a week, and if you feel better, then carry on, adding more in if you feel like it.

Note: Although fairly rare, bloating can also be a symptom of ovarian or bowel cancer. If you feel bloated and haven’t eaten anything that could possibly call it, or have a feeling that it just isn’t right, always consult your doctor.