Anyone who suffers with IBS and the associated symptoms of bloating, pain and diarrhoea is often also suffering with high stress levels.
The symptoms often seem to worsen during excessively stressful times, so it always helps to engage in some calming relaxation techniques. There are no hard and fast rules for relaxing, you should choose the thing that works best for you.
Relaxing pastimes such as swimming, walking your dogs, light exercise or sport, yoga, meditation or any alternative methods of balancing and harmonising yourself, you should incorporate some of these things into your life.
It may come as no surprise then that a recent study at the University of British Columbia, Canada found that stress management techniques greatly improved the overall health of IBS sufferers and reduced their symptoms.
Yoga in particular has been found to have great benefits in boosting the health of your gut. Results of a study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences showed that doing one form or another of yoga twice a day can dramatically reduce IBS symptoms along with any feelings of anxiety and stress.
All the more reason to get in tune with yourself at all levels.
Continuing on with this mini series on keeping your gut healthy, we carry on looking at diet and some of the good foods you should eat to keep everything balanced and, well, healthy!
This instalment in Alternative Cures looks at yoghurt, or more specifically “live” yoghurt.
Nutritionist Nigel Denby tells us, “The foundation for a healthy gut is a healthy diet and lifestyle, both of which help maintain your gut flora. However when you take antibiotics this upsets the balance, so having a probiotic drink or live yoghurt after illness is a great way to replenish your body’s store of good bacteria.”
What are probiotics?
Probiotics are healthy, naturally occurring bacteria found in live foods such as yoghurt. When this is ingested, it helps to fight infection as well as aid digestion and maintain that healthy balance in your gut. To obtain the full benefits of probitics, you should take them daily. This can be done with live or “bio” yoghurt, a bio drink or even a probiotic multivitamin that can be obtained through health stores and pharmacists.
On their own, probiotics only do half the job. To do a complete job of balancing your gut to regain its full healthy state, you also need “prebiotics”.
Prebiotics encourage the growth of the good bacteria because they act as a fuel for the probiotics.
Clinical research fellow in clinical bowel diseases at King’s College in London Dr Charlotte Hedin says, “Prebiotics enhance growth of the good bacteria in your body rather than than importing foreign good bacteria.”
Prebiotics are found to occur naturally in fresh fruit and vegetables, in particular the tubular shaped varieties. Better stock up on bananas and leeks, then!
It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that in order to keep your gut healthy, you have to feed it the right things!
Well, here’s one of the super foods that you really should learn to love. Then learn to eat it regularly. What am I talking about?
Broccoli.
Broccoli has many health properties, the best known of them being its ability to fight the helicobacter pylori bacterium - that’s the one linked to stomach cancers.
Various medical studies have been conducted into the amazing properties of broccoli and they’re constantly reported in the news, so I won’t go quoting a load of them here. Interestingly, it has been discovered that fresh broccoli may also help to protect the stomach from gastritis, ulcers as well as cancer because it activates antioxidants that support the cells.
Cooking broccoli is also important to get the best from the vegetable. Never overcook it or you’ll destroy all the goodness. If you’re having broccoli on its own, it is best steamed, not boiled.
But broccoli really comes into its own as a cancer-busting sledgehammer when cooked together with tomatoes - especially a tomato purée or sauce. This is because the antioxidant constituents of the cooked tomatoes bind with those in the broccoli to enhance their cancer fighting characteristics, making that duo a real powerhouse of a superfood!
Personally, I find one more ingredient almost obligatory when cooking broccoli with tomato frito. That’s to fry off some finely chopped onions first, then add the tomato frito and some chopped garlic (I prefer not to fry garlic as it burns too easily), then the chopped broccoli to make a really tasty and super-healthy pasta sauce. Adding oregano and fresh basil to the sauce gives it a great flavour and the final finishing touch is more freshly chopped (never pressed) garlic raw after cooking.
See my earlier post on garlic as to why I add it raw to food!
Sometimes we feel run down and can’t attribute it to any one particular problem. What a lot of people are unaware of is the fact that intensive farming methods over the last few decades have stripped the soil of many of it’s natural nutrients.
The upshot of this is that much of the fruit and vegetables we buy in shops and supermarkets is often deficient in essential vitamins and minerals. One way of restoring your body’s nutrient balance, especially if organic produce is difficult to come by or very expensive is to use vitamin supplements.
There are many outlets for a multitude of brands of vitamin supplements and you can also buy them online at discounted prices.
Their website is welcoming and easy to navigate. There are many discounted vitamin and mineral supplements available and they offer a 90 day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the products.
If you’re considering purchasing vitamin supplements online, take a look at the Liquid Vitamin Stop website and see for yourself.
Terry Didcott is a qualified hypnotherapist and web designer among other things, but what truly inspired him to create this website was his life changing experience about thirteen years ago. Read the full article HERE
