Digestive Disorders Naturally
Addressing Indigestion, Stomach Aches, Constipation and Acid Reflux
Digestive disorders, from stomachaches to heartburn, are something we all face from time to time. How can we deal with these symptoms naturally?
Digestive disorders - from acid reflux to constipation to food poisoning - are some of the most ordinary afflictions. Whether you’ve eaten something that disagrees with you, you’re coming down with a cold or flu, or work-related stress has taken its toll, most of us experience digestive upset of one kind or another from time to time. Stomach ache, heartburn, acidity and indigestion can be treated with herbs like peppermint or spices such as ginger, by taking enzymes, using homeopathic remedies or by addressing the deeper causes of these symptoms - usually a combination of emotional stress and a toxic diet.
There are dozens of obvious physical reasons why we may experience digestive discomfort, and at least as many natural ways to treat them.
When it comes to treating stomach aches, nausea, bloating, or food poisoning, a favourite is peppermint essential oil - although peppermint tea and dried or fresh peppermint leaves can help as well, essential oils are more potent than tea or dried herbs. Peppermint is recognized worldwide for its benefit in soothing the digestive system.
Ginger is well-known as a remedy which can calm nausea and ease stomach tension. Peppermint and ginger are recommended for morning sickness, along with fennel and anise. All of these herbs (taken fresh, in dried form, or as essential oils) can be helpful for easing stomach aches and discomfort. Nausea can also be attributed, in some cases, to thyroid imbalance.
Fiber is always helpful, and can be found in raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and supplements containing bran products and psyllium. So is drinking lots of water (How much water is enough?).
Homeopathic remedies may also be useful for digestive upsets. Nux Vomica is renowned for soothing all kinds of stomach problems, nausea, and digestive allergic reactions. Metal Album or Arsenicum Album is often used for food poisoning. (Please read these cautions about homeopathy before self-prescribing any homeopathic remedy.)
Papaya is recommended in many tropical countries as a cure-all - it’s used for everything from helping wounds heal to calming digestive upsets. There’s a simple reason the papaya is so powerful: along with pineapple and many other fruits, papaya is rich in enzymes which support digestion. The more raw foods you can incorporate into your diet, the higher a “store” of enzymes your body will have access to in order to digest your food.
The pancreas is forced to work much harder than it was designed to in order to break down most foods in the heavily processed North American diet, and any enzymes you can get from live foods lighten its load. Incorporating more raw fruits and veggies into what you eat, or taking a good quality enzyme supplement before a meal, can seriously reduce the incidence of stomach ache, acid reflux and heartburn.
The Emotional Link: How do you Process, Absorb, and Digest the things that are happening in your life?
Digestive symptoms, in my experience, are almost always linked to emotional stress or distress. There are more nerve endings in the stomach than in the human brain - which makes the stomach a uniquely vulnerable organ when it comes to non-physical stress affecting the physical body.
The digestive system relates to how we digest and process things, and to our personal integrity. These issues correspond energetically to the solar plexus (third) chakra. When you’re strung out emotionally and it feels like you “just can’t stomach it” or “life is too much to digest,” your body can take these expressions as subconscious signals to disable the digestive system. This can be an important wake-up call about things in your life that you might want to change.
Repressed emotions can affect any part of the body; in terms of the digestive system, frustrations or pressure that you won’t allow yourself to feel can sometimes cause a hernia or a hiatal hernia. Stomach aches are one of the easiest illnesses to treat with relaxation, yoga, deep breathing or meditation practices.
If your body is struggling with what you eat... Take a look at what you’re eating
The major cause of digestive problems in North America today is acid buildup and toxicity. Both are basically ways of saying “congestion.” If your cells are polluted with the toxic bi-products of the foods you eat, your body becomes unable to process either the health-giving nourishment or toxic foods that you continue to put into it - contributing to dozens of syndromes like acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, Celiac disease, Crohn’s disease and perhaps even chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis and cancer.
The contemporary, mainstream Western diet is loaded with sugars (both good and bad), trans fats, synthetic colors and flavorings, MSG, and a host of other pollutants that starve our bodies of nourishment and leave us hungry for real food - foods which nourish us in mind, body and spirit. There is a real need for us to unite what we practice with what we preach, and to learn to use, as Hippocrates wrote, all our food “as medicine”.
Once digestive problems start, it’s often the case that some form of cleanse is needed in order to get your body’s systems back in order. Most cleanses focus on the liver, but the most effective way to begin a cleanse is by resolving the pH imbalance caused by too much sugar making your body more acidic than is ideal.
Information on pH and acid-alkali balance, candida albicans, cleansing, enzymes, raw foods, and more will be posted in upcoming articles.
See also: Breaking the Vicious Cycle: the Specific Carbohydrate Diet
