Feeling bloated is definitely no fun. Your clothing feels tight and it is just overall an uncomfortable feeling. You might have pain, tightness, and/or a sense of fullness. There are a lot of reasons why this can happen and I work with my clients all the time to figure out why it is happening and what we can do to eliminate this symptom permanently.

What is bloating?

Simply put, bloating is just excess intestinal gas. The feeling can range from uncomfortable to pretty painful. It usually resolves on its own after a period of time after eating, but if you’ve got something going on with your digestion, it is probably coming back pretty regularly. Most of the time bloating happens because of some sort of dysfunction in the gut, but it can also happen when you have a food sensitivity or intolerance, or for women, around their menstrual cycle.

Why does bloating happen?

Bloating is a symptom and symptoms are our body’s way of crying out for help. This symptom can happen for a lot of reasons which is why it is nice to work with a practitioner who can help you to determine what the root causes are of your specific situation, but here are some situations and reasons why bloating can occur.

• Not eating in a relaxed state, eating slowly, and chewing enough. The parasympathetic nervous system is activated when our body is in a state of “Rest and Digest” and is the state our bodies need to be in to properly digest our food. It is the optimal healing state and allows the body to relax, repair, and utilize the food we are giving it. Muscles relax and saliva is increased, which is the first part of the digestive process. If you are not in that relaxed state, the rest of the digestive process may not function well, leading to bloating. Additionally, when you chew well your brain has more time to signal to the rest of the body to begin the process of digestion, providing the proper signaling for all of the different organs and hormones involved.

• Low stomach acid. Stomach acid is needed to properly break down food in the stomach. If we don’t have enough, food will sit in the stomach longer than it should and bloating can occur. Ways to help bring up your stomach acid include eating foods rich in zinc (a co-factor needed to make stomach acid), reducing or managing your stress, relaxing and slowing down at mealtime, eating enough protein, and reducing alcohol consumption. Other ways to support stomach acid while you are working to bring it up are listed here.

• Sluggish liver and gallbladder. Bile, a substance that breaks down fats in the digestive process is made by the liver and secreted by the gallbladder. When your bile isn’t flowing properly, this can slow the digestive process and also lead to bloating. There are a lot of reasons why this can happen, but you can support the liver and gallbladder by eating bitter greens like radicchio, dandelion greens, and arugula, beets, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, and cauliflower, and eating healthy fats. I also love this salad.

• Pancreatic enzyme insufficiency. Just like bile, pancreatic enzymes which are produced by our pancreas (big surprise!) can also be stagnant, leading to bloating. You could try taking a digestive enzyme supplement to see if this helps your bloating or eat fruits with your meals like pineapple, papaya, and mango which contain Bromelain, which is similar to our pancreatic enzymes and can help to break down your food when you are not producing enough.

• Not enough of the beneficial flora in your gut (or too much of the bad gut bugs aka dysbiosis). A disruption in your gut flora is common and can happen for a lot of reasons. It isn’t always as simple as taking a probiotic either. Taking a probiotic or adding probiotic-rich and prebiotic-rich foods can be helpful when your gut is lacking in beneficial microbes, but sometimes this situation can come with an overgrowth of harmful or “bad” gut bugs which we call gut dysbiosis. Sometimes there can also be a fungal overgrowth (like candida albicans) or sometimes the gut bugs migrate from the large intestine to the small intestine, causing Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). Any or all of these situations can cause bloating. Stool testing is a great way to find out the makeup of your gut flora and the results usually dictate how we handle changing the terrain if that is needed.

• Parasites. We all have them somewhere in our bodies, but when they become overgrown they can cause all kinds of problems. There are many different types of parasites and they can live in different organs and tissues all throughout the digestive tract and can cause bloating. Parasites that cause bloating can be in the liver and gallbladder, pancreas, small intestine, and large intestine. Testing for parasites is not straightforward. Stool testing is notoriously inaccurate for parasites as testing processes and parasitology research is not very advanced. We can often conclude or extrapolate that parasites are an issue from specific markers in blood labs and your signs and symptoms, but I find the most accurate way to test for them is via muscle testing or bioresonance testing, which I do in my practice.

• Mold and mycotoxins. People with mold toxicity often experience food intolerances, constipation, gas, and bloating. While the exact reason may not be known, if the mold is stuck in the digestive tract it can harm the mucosal lining of the gut leading to leaky gut, food sensitivities, and immune challenges which can all cause bloating. If you suspect you’ve had mold in your home, office or if you’ve been exposed elsewhere and you struggle with bloating, it might be a good idea to get tested to see if this is a root cause.

What can I do to stop the bloating?

Here are my suggestions to try to troubleshoot your bloating on your own. If you continue to struggle, it might be time to meet with a practitioner who can help you understand why your bloating is occurring and work with you to fix the issues so that you can feel good again. While bloating is a very common symptom, it isn’t normal.

1. Keep a food journal to determine problematic foods and eliminate them for a few months

2. Slow down your eating and chew, chew, chew! Avoid drinking a lot of liquids while eating

3. Work on managing your stress. Download my free daily de-stressor ideas here.

4. Try going for a short walk after meals to get digestion moving.

5. Try the I L U abdominal massage.

6. Sip on herbal teas like peppermint, ginger, lemon balm, fennel, chamomile, or a combination

7. Work with a practitioner on where in the digestive process the gas is getting trapped and WHY it is happening