How can I stop my digestive noises?
Digestive noises don't normally require any formal treatment unless they are coupled with any additional symptoms, but taking steps such as improving your posture, taking your time eating, drinking enough water or addressing low levels of stomach acid, can often help to rectify the issue.
First of all, I'd like to reassure you that some noise from your digestive system is often quite normal. When you eat, quite soon after, this food you've eaten travels into your stomach, and the walls of your stomach start contracting.
See, there are big, strong muscles in there that contract in order to churn the foods, and in doing so, crucially mix them with important gastric juices which are secreted from cells that line our stomach.
Then, further along the digestive tract, we have bile from the gallbladder, pancreatic enzymes, and all different secretions that are added to the mix. So, some noise is, to some extent, normal as all these secretions and processes are underway. But of course, if these noises are very loud, they're quite disturbing, then you might wonder if there's something else underlying that's contributing to this.
So, whilst not necessarily serious, it can be a frustrating and embarrassing symptom and one you may be keen to address. Here I talk through some of the processes that could contribute to excess digestive noise, plus, my top tips for helping to minimize them:
1. Sit up straight
This is something I am guilty of, I have to say, not being conscious of my posture all the time! But it is important. If you sit up straight, this gives your stomach, in particular, plenty of room.
As above, your stomach needs to contract, and all of those digestive juices need to be able to flow freely. If you're hunched over, this can affect the stomach; it can become quite scrunched up, and it can affect some of these processes and your digestion won't be optimal.
Things like tight waistbands could potentially also cut in and hinder those processes too. So, we want to sit up straight, shoulders back. And when we're eating, try and give your stomach room to do its thing.
2. Eat slowly, relaxed and regularly
When I talk about eating slowly, I'm talking about more mindful eating and trying to consciously chew properly.
Chewing properly; at least 20 times per mouthful, helps to increase the surface area of your food, and it also helps to stimulate the release of salivary amylase. This is a digestive enzyme that is secreted as early as the mouth.
So, your digestive processes can be off to a good start as early as the mouth, if we give them a chance. And this helps to take the pressure off your stomach and get your digestion off to the best possible start.
Being relaxed is really important for eating well and supporting your digestion as well. When you're relaxed, your parasympathetic nervous system is more dominant. And another name for that system is your 'rest and digest' system. So, that name suggests that when this is active, you are able to digest your food properly. And this is why it's really important to try and keep to dedicated mealtimes, where there are no other distractions, and you can focus all your energy on relaxing and enjoying your meal. Enjoyment is important as well.
And this all goes hand in hand with eating quite slowly as well. Eating slowly also has the benefit that it helps to discourage overeating. When we're eating quite rushed or if we're distracted, we might not realize how much we've eaten. And if your stomach overfills, this can also contribute to noises as well. Your stomach can only stretch so far.
Then, if your stomach acid levels were on the low side to start with (I'm going to talk more about this in the next point) and you've eaten too much, it's just going to add to the problem.
Finally, eating regularly is important as well. Hunger can give rise to noises too. So, try to stick to your regular meals, usually three meals a day and snacks where appropriate. I'm not a huge fan of extreme versions of intermittent fasting, but if you're keen to try this, which can have some benefits in terms of metabolically and gut healing, then I like to go with extending the overnight fast and it's just a bit of a less extreme option that can still be effective.
3. Address too little stomach acid
I've already mentioned here that stomach acid is really important. So, it's important to understand that nowadays, people often don't have enough stomach acid, rather than too much (too much stomach acid, physiologically, is actually quite a rare situation).
As we get older, and also in times of stress, stomach acid levels go down, and we absolutely need sufficient stomach acid. We need stomach acid to break down the food we eat, absorb all of our key nutrients, and also to keep bad bacteria and infections at bay, which again could also contribute to symptoms.
Low stomach acid can also have a part to play in food sensitivities as well - another kind of common modern-day situation that's on the rise. And this is quite often due to digestive insufficiency. We don't have enough or sufficient digestive enzymes to break down certain aspects of our diet, such as gluten, or dairy, for example. So, you might notice after certain food types, you notice more noises as your stomach is struggling to break it down properly. So, this is all something to consider.
Then, if you're keen to support your stomach acid or try and get on top of some food sensitivities, (rather than food allergies as these are quite separate), introducing some herbal bitters can help. We have our Yarrow herbal bitters, and we also have our licensed digestive remedy called Digestisan, as well.
Digestisan is licensed for symptoms of indigestion and flatulence, and these are some common symptoms which are commonly associated with digestive noises as well.
So, this would be one to consider taking before your meals, and just in a small splash of water as it drops; a tincture form.
Handily, this tastes very bitter in your mouth, and it's this bitterness that is one of the first ways that we can help to stimulate our digestion into action. So, that's why it can be really helpful to take just before your meals.
4. Support your gut bacteria
The next reason that you might be having noises, and what you can do to help is to support your gut bacteria.
So, dysbiosis or an imbalance in good gut bacteria can often give rise to symptoms such as constipation, diarrhoea or flatulence, and there can be associated noises linked with all of these symptoms as well.
So, the best way to do this achieve digestive calm is to look after your stomach first of all, by helping to ensure that you have sufficient stomach acid. You're then going to have a better chance of releasing sufficient levels of digestive enzymes further along in the small intestine, such as pancreatic enzymes. Sufficient stomach acid acts as a trigger for these subsequent processes.
And these all working optimally are going to help support the internal environment of both the small and the large intestine; you're going to absorb all the foodstuffs that you need, the nutrients mainly being from the small intestine, and leave being only the undigestible portion of our food for the large intestine. And that's the way it should be, if you are digesting your food properly.
Of course, there are some additional steps you can take to support these processes. You can think about adding in a prebiotic such as Molkosan which helps to support the internal environment and pH of the gut, where these bacteria exist.
And once you've supported your system with a prebiotic, then you could perhaps also think about adding in a probiotic as a next step. But the prebiotic is a step that we shouldn't skrimp on, we shouldn't miss this out, or you might not get the best out of your probiotics.
5. Keep up your water intake
So, I talk a lot about water. So, first of all, drinking enough water can help to protect against constipation. Constipation and unhappy gut bacteria, for one; there is a bit of a chicken and an egg situation here in terms of which came first; which encourages the other? But both states can most definitely contribute to unwanted noises.
So, we would want to address both areas, but not forgetting that they are often quite closely related.
Next, on the topic of water, I would stress, trying to just stick to water wherever possible. If we add other elements into the mix such as sugar, sweeteners or gas (which is a more obvious one that's potentially going to add to your symptoms), so, for example, any fizzy drinks including sparkling water.
But, sugar and sweeteners can upset your gut bacteria, again, which can drive some of these symptoms, as we've already mentioned. And then the other one to consider is caffeine as well.
Caffeine really ignites your stress response. And as I've mentioned, this can directly decrease your stomach acid levels and this, in turn, can have a really negative impact.
So, try and limit caffeine, especially. Take it about earlier in the day if you need to a little, but try and really limit it, and consider how it might be having an impact on your digestion. It really does do the opposite of rest and digestion. It stimulates your fight and flight mode, which, as we've said, is not optimal for your digestion.
One final tip just when we're talking about water, something else you can do to keep things moving along; literally, is to keep moving, and this can just be, even a short walk once a day.
Even just 10 - 15 minutes could help to gently stimulate your gut into action.
To finish up, I just want to remind you all, that as always, if symptoms persist, if they're really severe, or if they're coupled with any other symptoms such as severe pain, vomiting, blood is either fresh or dried in your stools, anything like that, obviously, we would want you to go and have that checked with the doctor and not to put up with the symptoms.
