Maintaining Good Bowel Health

This is not normally a subject that you see aired often is it? But, if your digestion is not working well, then your bowels will not either.

Elimination is vital for good health and if not working properly can show with bad skin, lacklustre hair, bad breath, bloating, wind and other unpleasant side effects.

It is important to say that if you are experiencing problems with your bowels you should in the first instance go to your doctor to rule out any underlying condition.

What is good bowel health?

Put simply it is the easy (without discomfort), regular elimination of waste from the body. Although we like to be straight talking we are all ladies here so will stick to the “generic” terms.

So what is regular?

Once a day – once a week? In terms of holistic health it is the considered opinion of professionals that if you eat three meals a day then you should move your bowels at least once a day and ideally 3 times. Waste that hangs around for days and days will just ferment and eventually start to seep through the intestinal wall causing all sorts of health problems.

How you can have good bowel health?

First of all look at your diet if you consume red meat, dairy products, coffee and processed foods on a regular basis then maybe you are just storing up problems.

The interesting thing is that you seem to get away with this when you are young. Payday comes much later.

Consult our Food Pyramid for recommended foods with portion advice for healthy maintenance but if you have a specific problem with digestion consult the Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid which removes some acidic foods.

Exercise regularly – this stimulates muscle activity.
Yoga is a great form of exercise and has specific poses to stimulate the bowel and internal organs
Take whole linseeds. When steeped in water or juice these little heroes swell and when in the digestive system move through pulling waste with them and are expelled whole. They keep the faeces soft and are an easy effective solution to keeping your insides sweet.
Psyllium Husks are an intestinal bulking agent that aids easy elimination
You can massage over the area to move things along. Read our take on how to make your Colon work better
Take a probiotic to maintain a healthy balance of intestinal microflora – this is all over the supermarket and advertising but do you know what these are?
Read our take on probiotics
Drink water to help move foods through
Activated Charcoal is a highly effective natural adsorbent of gases and toxins in the medicinal treatment of wind.
Chlorella is has the ability to 'grab onto' unwanted materials, pollutants and heavy metal residues. As it passes through the digestive system it pulls and then flushes from the body with the rest of the waste.

The Do nots

Do not add bran to your food. This just scratches its way through, can cause more problems and sometimes leaches nutrients.

Do not strain this will result in piles/haemorrhoids and you now have another problem to deal with. If you have to strain a bit the best thing to do to avoid this unpleasant condition is to raise your arms (you are on your own so what does it matter what you look like?). This takes the pressure off your rear end.

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Our Food Pyramid for really good nutritional advice.

Our Multi Vitamin and Mineral Supplement selection is essential for topping up on the things your daily diet doesn’t provide and unlocking the potential of all the other vitamins and supplements you take.

Consider supplementing your diet with Vitamin C, Psyllium Husks and L. Acidophilus and Chlorella