What Are The Seven Home Remedies For Constipation
Constipation is usually an easily treatable problem. A few changes in diet, lifestyle, and making use of certain over the counter products can help relieve it.
Here are seven natural home remedies to relieve constipation.
1. Fiber
Fiber, also known as roughage, is a plant-based nutrient. It promotes easy passage of stools in the bowel and adds bulk to the stools for easy expulsion.
It is recommended to have a daily intake of 25 grams. You can obtain the fiber from a variety of fruits and vegetables. Some of the rich sources of fibers are:
- Brussels sprouts
- Berries
- Black raisins
If you are no able to eat the fresh veggies and fruits, you can consider taking a fiber supplement such as psyllium and methylcellulose . In general, these fiber supplements are safe and effective. They need to be taken in a glass of water one to three times daily.
2. Exercise
Exercise helps in making the stool softer by decreasing the time it takes food to move through the large intestine. This limits the amount of water absorbed from the stool into the body.
Exercising most times of the week is essential in maintaining bowel health. Exercises involving a knee to chest position may stimulate bowel movements.
3. Hydration
Drink an adequate quantity of fluids, especially water and fruit juices. Drink 6- to 8-ounce glasses of water daily increases water content inside the gut. This helps soften stools and enhances bowel movements.
Drink warm water can increase bowel movements and relieve constipation.
I Loaded Up On Olive Oil
Olive oil has traditionally been used to treat constipation, and some recent research also suggests that it can be helpful. Personally, I found that consuming about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and an avocado every day really helped to keep things running smoothly.
Be sure you’re consuming pure olive oil that’s not mixed with any other oils, like canola or vegetable oil. And dont worry about the fat content the healthy fats in olive oil and avocados are great for many systems of your body.
How To Prevent Constipation
The good news is that if you have mild constipation, simple lifestyle changes can help manage the condition. Prevention tips include:
- Increasing your fiber intake: Fiber-rich foods, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains, all help improve gut function. If you have bowel sensitivity, you’ll want to avoid high-fructose fruits, such as apples, pears and watermelon, which can cause gas.
- Getting more exercise: Regular exercise can help keep stool moving through the colon.
- Drinking more water: Aim for eight glasses daily, and avoid caffeine, as it can be dehydrating.
- Go when you feel like it: When you feel the urge to go, don’t wait.
Also Check: Ibs Symptoms Mayo
What Are The Symptoms Of Constipation
Symptoms of constipation include:
- You have fewer than three bowel movements a week.
- Your stools are dry, hard and/or lumpy.
- Your stools are difficult or painful to pass.
- You have a stomach ache or cramps.
- You feel bloated and nauseous.
- You feel that you havent completely emptied your bowels after a movement.
Five Quick Remedies To Cure Constipation
Ask yourself when was the last time you went to the bathroom? If youre suffering from constipation, you probably paused to think a while before answering.
A 2011 survey by United BioSource Corporation estimated that about 30.8 % of American men and women experience chronic constipation. Be it an unhealthy diet or lack of exercise, constipation can be caused by a number of factors. Most of these however, are are easy to tackle by oneself.
Sometimes though, constipation can be severe and a doctors opinion is well advisable. In those cases, treatments such as regular enemas and other laxatives may be prescribed. But before you head to the doctor, or self-prescribe any medicines, try these simple tips to get your bowels moving.
Water Is Your Best Friend
Drink six to eight glasses of water daily to soften your stool.
Hard stool can be extremely harmful for your rectum walls, often tearing or damaging it beyond repair. The best and easiest solution for constipation is to drink six to eight glasses of water on a daily basis. Keep an empty 64-ounce bottle by your side, and remind yourself to keep drinking. After a while, you wont look at it as a compulsion anymore.
If your bathroom time is set in the morning, two glasses of warm water as soon as you wake up can get the bowels moving too.
Tickle your sweet tooth
Prunes or prune juice is the oldest remedy in the book.
A Cuppa?
Have people advised you that coffee is not good for your health? Maybe, maybe not.
Move Around!
You May Like: Bananas Gas Bloating
Best Home Remedies For Immediate Relief From Constipation
It would be surprising to know that not everyone has the same bowel movement and not necessarily you should have a daily bowel movement. As per the study, a person going 3 times a day or 3 times a week, both are considered to be normal. Lesser than this is termed constipation. Yes, the reality is that the frequency depends on person to person.
Did you know? As per the recent survey done in 2018, 22% of Indian adults suffer from constipation.
It was also observed that constipation now is just not an elderly problem, but occurs among middle-aged and young aged population too.
Constipation is defined as passing hard, dry stools for not more than three bowel movements a week. Or in simple words, any decrease in the frequency or consistency thats out of your regular norm can be a sign of constipation.
Constipation may sound like a very simple problem to tackle, but for a person suffering is a highly uncomfortable time. Due to constipation, there may be loss of appetite, bloating, stomach ache, irritability and thus it is very important to follow these 7 easy home remedies to cure constipation.
How To Relieve Constipation Naturally
Just below here is the conclusion and requirement of these Soviet MDs for How to Relieve Constipation who tested and helped to prevent chronic constipation in thousands of their patients. Their criterion and goal are hidden as your bonus content.
If your body-O2-test results are more than 30 s all the time, your blood flow to all organs and O2 content in body cells are high enough to get rid of problems with constipation. This is a permanent remedy for our topic that is How to Relieve Constipation.
In order to achieve high-body O2, you need to stop or avoid your heavy automatic breathing by teaching yourself how to breathe slower and easier 24/7. All additional instructions are in the Learning Section. Read Following links for know more about How to Relieve Constipation.
Related web pages:
Read Also: Cream Of Wheat Constipation
I Had Chronic Constipation Here’s How I Cured It
If you often struggle to go to the bathroom, you’re not alone. When it comes to digestive issues, chronic constipation is one of the most common problems. In fact, it’s estimated to affect up to 27 percent of the North American population!
Besides being unhealthy, constipation is uncomfortable, frustrating, and stressful to deal with. Believe me, I know the feeling well I dealt with chronic constipation for years.
In my early twenties, I was in an unhealthy relationship and started experiencing physical ailments from the mental and emotional turmoil I was going through.
Over-the-counter laxatives may ease the symptoms for a while but they won’t treat the root cause.
Back then, I wasn’t eating healthy, and I wasn’t nearly as educated as I am now on what foods would have been healing for my condition. To combat the constipation, I tried eliminating certain foods from my diet and adding certain foods in, but to no avail. I added more greens in since I had always associated leafy vegetables with being helpful with bowel movements. But the greens only made the constipation worse.
My dietary choices, combined with the stress of being in an unhappy marriage, wreaked havoc on my digestive system. I didnt realize that all the emotional stress I was experiencing was literally backing me up. At the time, I was stuffing my emotions and not in touch with my true feelings and my body literally started holding everything in.
Dog Constipation: Our Final Thoughts
If your dog is having tummy issues, these home remedies can help them feel better in no time. Sometimes its just as simple as making sure your dog gets more water or fiber in their diet every day. In other cases, they may need a stool softener to help them pass a blockage.
Keeping a close eye on your dogs symptoms can help you nip this constipation problem in the bud. Using natural supplements on a regular basis can also help with their overall health and wellness.
Don’t Miss: Diarrhea After Eating Lettuce
Otc Laxatives For Constipation Relief
Several types of over-the-counter laxatives can relieve constipation, such as:
- Stool softeners, like Colace or Surfak, add moisture to the stool to keep them from being too dry and hard. However, you might develop electrolyte imbalance if you use stool softeners too often.
- Fiber supplements, such as Benefiber, Citrucel, or Metamucil, increase the amount of fiber in your body, which draws water to make stool softer and bulkier. If you don’t drink enough water with fiber supplements, you may end up even more constipated.
- Osmotics, like Miralax, pulls water into the colon for easier bowel movement. Some side effects include bloating, nausea, and increased thirst.
- Stimulants or contract laxatives, such as Dulcolax or Senokot, act on the intestinal wall and increase muscle contractions to help you pass stool more easily. You may experience belching, cramping, and diarrhea as stimulants are more likely to cause uncomfortable side effects.
- Rectal laxatives, like Pedia-Lax or Dulcolax, are often used as enemas or suppositories to cause contractions in the intestinal wall or keep moisture in the stool.
Many individuals tend to overuse laxatives, which can cause your body to become dependent on them.
It’s best to avoid using them habitually because severe cases of dependence may cause damage to the tissues, nerves, and muscles of your intestines and bowels.
If you do decide to use laxatives, start with a quarter or half dose to see how it affects your body.
Does Not Having Regular Bowel Movements Cause Toxins To Build Up In My Body And Make Me Sick
Dont worry, this usually isnt the case. Although your colon holds on to stool longer when you are constipated and you may feel uncomfortable, the colon is an expandable container for your waste. There is possibly a slight risk of a bacterial infection if waste gets into an existing wound in the colon or rectum.
Also Check: Salad Makes Me Gassy
What I Can I Do Besides Taking Medications To Treat My Constipation
This is one of the most common questions I get from patients, and it makes studies of adding fiber to the diet with fruits and vegetables so appealing. What makes it hard to recommend specific treatment plans is that there is not much good data to help doctors suggest a particular plant or fiber regimen, like we would recommend standardized doses of medications.
An intriguing new study entitled “Exploratory comparative effectiveness trial of green kiwifruit, psyllium, or prunes in US patients with chronic constipation” in the American Journal of Gastroenterology seeks to directly compare different, entirely natural ways to treat chronic constipation. Prunes and psyllium are well-regarded ways to treat chronic constipation. Not surprisingly, all participants were able to achieve the primary goal of increased bowel movements. It seems that kiwifruit achieved this benefit with fewer side effects.
It Seems To Be Good For The Heart
All types of fiber can be good for the heart. The American Heart Association say that dietary fiber can improve cholesterol, and lower the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and obesity .
Water soluble fibers, including psyllium, could help reduce blood triglycerides, blood pressure, and the risk of heart disease .
A review of 28 trials found that taking a median of 10.2 g psyllium per day could effectively improve markers of heart health, including lowering LDL cholesterol. This can helps reduce the risk of heart disease .
A 2020 review of 11 trials reported that psyllium could reduce systolic blood pressure by 2.04 millimeters of mercury . The authors recommend using psyllium to help treat hypertension .
Also Check: Does Xanax Help With Stomach Pain
Home Remedies For Constipation Relief
Dietary changes, drinking water, exercise, and taking supplements are among the natural ways to relieve symptoms of constipation. Identifying the factors contributing to constipation can help you decide which remedies are best. A combination of the following remedies may be necessary to treat the problem.
Castor Oil For Constipation Relief
This home remedy for constipation has been handed down for generations. One of the primary uses for castor oil is as a laxative, according to Cleveland Clinic take one to two teaspoons on an empty stomach and you should see results in about eight hours. Why? A component in the oil breaks down into a substance that stimulates your large and small intestines.
Check out these common bathroom mistakes you didnt know you were making.
Read Also: Klonopin For Ibs
It Has Prebiotic Effects
Prebiotics are nondigestible compounds that nourish intestinal bacteria and help them grow. Researchers believe that psyllium has prebiotic effects .
Although psyllium is somewhat resistant to fermentation, intestinal bacteria can ferment a small portion of psyllium fibers. This fermentation can produce short-chain fatty acids , including butyrate. Research has linked SCFAs with health benefits (
When To Seek Medical Treatment
Read Also: Align Probiotic Reviews For Diarrhea
Black Americans And Constipation
Though recent demographic research on constipation is hard to come by, a widely cited study of data from a survey of more than 15,000 people found that constipation was more frequent in Black Americans than in white Americans, with 17.3 percent of Black Americans reporting the condition compared with 12.2 percent of white Americans. According to the authors of a study published in Quality of Life Research, constipation may be almost three times more prevalent in nonwhite individuals compared with white individuals. Yet, the authors point out, Black individuals are underrepresented in trials for constipation treatments.
How Long Will I Need To Take Laxatives For
If you’ve had constipation for a short time, your pharmacist will usually advise you to stop taking the laxative once your stools are soft and easily passed.
However, if your constipation is caused by an underlying medical condition or a medicine you’re taking, your GP may advise you to take laxatives for much longer, possibly many months or even years.
If you’ve been taking laxatives for some time, you may have to gradually reduce your dose, rather than coming off them straight away. If you have been prescribed a combination of laxatives, you’ll normally have to reduce the dosage of each laxative, one at a time, before you can stop taking them. This can take several months.
Your GP will advise you about when it’s best to stop taking long-term laxatives.
You May Like: Lexapro And Probiotics
How Often Should You Poop
Again, everyone has their own range of normal and odds are high you have some idea of whats standardand notfor you. People have a wide range of frequency, says Ashkan Farhadi, M.D., a gastroenterologist at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center and director of MemorialCare Medical Group’s Digestive Disease Center in Fountain Valley, Calif. Normal could be anywhere from three times a day to three times a week.
You venture into constipation territory when youre having less than three BMs a week, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases . Issues like having poops that are hard, dry, or lumpy, BMs that are hard or painful to pass, or a feeling that you didnt get everything out despite going to the bathroom also classify as constipation, the NIDDK says.
Ask Your Vet About Over
The following over-the-counter products may treat symptoms of constipation, but make sure to consult your veterinarian before giving any new supplements or medications to your cat.
There are several types of laxatives that work in different ways. Most over-the-counter options work by causing the body to pull more water into the intestines, which helps soften the stool so its easier to pass.
Because they pull water into the intestines, laxatives can make other symptoms worse for cats with underlying chronic diseases, causing dehydration. You should ask your vet if theyre a good option for your cat.
Miralax is commonly used in cats with constipation, and Colace is also an option. Other laxatives that are designed for people can cause issues for cats.
Oil- or grease-based laxatives like Laxatone should only be used if a vet recommends them and should not be used long-term, as they can affect a cats ability to absorb nutrients from their food.
You May Like: Digestive Advantage Vs Align