There’s nothing worse than finishing a delicious meal only to be punished by your body afterwards in the form of ingestion, acid reflux or terrible stomach pains. If you’re someone who struggles with digestion issues, it’s more than likely you’ve searched high and low for anything to help, so we are here to suggest an alternative solution may have not thought of before. Your posture!
How you sit throughout your day, whether that be working, relaxing or eating, has a direct impact on the functionality of your gut.
Slouching over from your stomach while you eat, or for long periods of time throughout the day, can lead to feelings like being bloated, gassy or cramped. This can be caused by the stomach acid not having enough room to properly break your food down and essentially having nowhere to go but build up in your stomach, prompting a pretty painful next couple of hours!
Hunching over from your shoulders can also cause digestion issues within your diaphragm and oesophagus. The diaphragm and oesophagus need space to be able to pass food freely, and any tension or ‘squashing’ can slow down the movement of food, which can then cause stomach acid to rise up, which can lead to heart-burn post-meal. Not comfy!
It’s all good and well to say, “just sit up straighter when you eat”, but we know how hard that can be to remember. Try these couple of ideas to help you with your posture to improve digestion while you eat:
- Try wearing a posture corrector (check out the Pro posture corrector here) for the duration of your meal. This will really help to remind yourself to sit up straight at the time, and will even train your muscle memory to permanently improve your posture over-time so you won’t need to wear the corrector as often!
- Write yourself some post-it notes where you’ll see them while you’re eating or preparing food, try on your desk, in the kitchen, or on your lunchbox or drink bottle.
Some other things you can do to help your digestion after you eat:
- Wait about 10-15 minutes after your meal and then go for a leisurely walk to help get all of the food moving around in your gut.
- Fuel up on fibre and plenty of fluids to help keep everything running nice and smoothly.
- Take your time when you eat! Try to take your time, don’t rush your meal and eat mindfully!
We know how much of a pain it is to not be able to properly digest your food, so hopefully some of these tips will help east a bit of the discomfort. Your posture is important in so many more areas than you think, and just might do the trick!
But please note, if your pain is extreme and non-subsiding, make sure to seek help from a medical professional.