Hi there and welcome to the Digestive Health for Women Podcast. The show that teaches you how to nurture your gut. I'm your host, Ashley St. Clair owner and holistic nutritionist at Wellness with Ashley. Today, we're going to talk about free ways to improve your digestion. Let's get started.

A lot of times we think when we're improving our health, it needs to be hard. Or maybe it needs to cost a lot of money or have so many complex parts that it feels very difficult to do. In actuality, when it comes to our health, simple is often, the best, getting back to that ancestral wisdom, really honing in on what our body needs is so much more simple than we make it out to be.

Let's talk about some free ways that you can improve your digestion, right. Okay. So my first tip is to sit down to eat. If you've downloaded my, how to get rid of floating guide, you're on my email list, or you follow me on social media: you know, I am a big proponent of sitting down to eat. You really want to make sure that your body is in a rest state or what is scientifically called para- sympathetic. It just basically means that you're resting and your body is preparing to digest the food that you're about to consume. So this means that your body's producing stomach acid to break down the food more and all sorts of enzymes that really help break down every bite you take fully, so your body can use all those amazing nutrients.

How are you going to get into the rest state? So let's talk about some ways you can: sit down, look at your food, PSEO, gratitude, prayer, or meditate for a couple of minutes. Take some deep breaths, really think about all the amazing sights, and smells that you're taking in. So you could think about the amazing ranchers and farmers that grew or raised her food and how awesome it's going to be. When you start eating. Now, you might even find yourself a little hungry right now because you're thinking about that amazing plate you had recently where everything was beautiful and smelled amazing and then when you took that first bite, it was just awesome. So what you're going to do is do this for every meal. You're going to be just so excited about the food you're going to eat, and you're going to find that your body digests the food better.

So why is this important and how can this help your body? By being able to break down and digest the food well, you're going to find yourself less bloated with less heartburn. You're going to find yourself not having to burp as often or extra gassy. It's an amazing way to easily and quickly cut down on heartburn, bloating, and gas.

Another way to optimize your digestion is to chew your food fully. You've probably heard this over and over throughout your whole life to chew well, but you're about to take your first bite after being relaxed and being grateful for everything on your plate. And you're going to let you that bite 20 to 30 times to get everything really broken. This will allow your stomach to do its job even better.

And you just want to try to slowly enjoy your meal, which I know can be really hard. I have two small kids, a cat and a dog, and everybody seems to need something right at the minute I sit down, I get relaxed and I prepare to eat, so it can be more difficult and I completely understand. So that's why I always preach and practice progress, not perfection. You're just looking for one step better. One more step relaxed. Then you work with another step and slowly build upon each other until it just becomes a total habit and it's second nature. It's how you always do things.

Another step is that you want to be balancing your meals. This is where you have a protein like chicken, beef tofu, fat, which is like ghee or grass-fed butter, coconut oil, avocado oil, and a carb, which could include veggies, fruit, or whole grains. You have all three of these things at each meal. This will help keep your blood sugar regular. Your body will work to digest all of these foods and you'll find you're less hungry throughout the day and may also find that your energy is more stable. So you're not seeing that 3:00 PM slump where you kind of need a nap, which is so amazing.

So. You are relaxed, you are chewing your food well, and then you balanced your meals to help improve your digestion. Okay. So the next step is the hardest one, in my opinion. This step is to stay away from caffeine and alcohol when possible, which I know can be really hard. Like I just said, I have a couple of kids and I need caffeine to get going in the more. My cup of coffee is important and I really enjoy it. You may think it's silly, but it brings that centering into my life in the morning.  It really helps ground me and gets my day started off on the right foot. There's something about coffee that is just so comforting to me, but it can mess up digestion and you might find that you have heartburn or an upset stomach … or you were running to the bathroom after having coffee. You could also just find that you're kind of having an energy crash in the afternoon.

So if you consume caffeine like coffee or you consume alcohol, you just want to make sure you have it with a meal and you're not going to have those major energy spikes, and then those energy drops and your digestion is going to be so much better. Because you're not just pouring coffee into your stomach and making it extra acidic with nothing there to break down. So just make sure if you do not cut out coffee or alcohol, that you're consuming them with a meal and you'll find that your digestion improves so much.

And remember I do have my free guide on how to get rid of bloating. You can find this on my website, www.wellnesswithashley.com. The link is also in my show. So be sure to check that out. And also don't forget I'm growing my free community on Facebook, where you can connect with other ladies, just like you, who are experiencing or dealing with digestive issues where it's sometimes might feel awkward to talk about with friends or family, because they're either grossed out or they just don't understand.

So my goal is to build a community of ladies where we're working together. You're getting education and you're building great. Relationships and support, in a community of people who just totally get it. So be one of my founding members, the link is in my show notes. And I'll talk to you next week.