Tips for Stress free life  >  Expert Zone   > Alternative Health

       Alternative Health Tips by experts

Digestive Distress

Step 1: Collect Information

As the mix of hormones in your blood changes during your premenopausal years, you may notice the effects on your gastrointestinal tract both directly - estrogen is a gastrointestinal stimulant and varying levels may swing you from loose stools to dry ones - and indirectly, as the hormonal load places ever heavier demands on the liver.

Hormones have a strong effect on the motility of the intestinal tract. When your levels of estrogen and progesterone change (as they do throughout menopause, during pregnancy, and before menstruation and birth), your bowel patterns change, too.

Your liver is, among other things, a recycling center. It breaks down hormones circulating in the blood when they are no longer needed and makes their "parts" available for the production of more hormones. During the menopausal years some hormones (such as LH and FSH) are produced in such enormous quantities that your liver may struggle to keep up with its recycling work, and have little energy left over for digestive duties. Help yourself with these Wise Woman Ways.

Step 2: Engage the Energy

• Bless your food out loud before you eat; say grace; thank the plants and animals who nourish you; breathe in and feel grateful.

• My mother's favorite way of preventing digestive distress and ensuring regularity is to eat at regular times and go to the toilet at regular times. You'd be surprised how effective this is.

  First thing in the morning, get yourself a cup of hot water (or herbal tea) and bring it back to bed. Sip it slowly, and gnaw gently on your bottom lip. Then lie on your back and bring your knees up, feet flat on the bed; place your palms on your belly and breathe deeply. Gently begin to rub your belly (in spirals): up on the right, across the middle, and down on the left. Soon you will feel the movement gathering momentum. Sit up slowly and head for the toilet.

Step 3: Nourish & Tonify

• Yellow dock root vinegar or tincture is a wonderful ally for menopausal women with digestive distress. Daily doses of 1 teaspoon/5 ml vinegar or 5-10 drops of tincture eliminate constipation, indigestion, and gas. Yellow dock is especially recommended for the woman whose menopausal menses are getting heavier.

• Dandelion is everyone's favorite ally for a happy digestive system and a strong liver. It relieves indigestion, constipation, gas, even gallstone pain. How to use it? Have a glass of dandelion blossom wine. Eat the omega-3-rich leaves in salads. Enjoy the phytoestrogenic roots as a vinegar or tincture (a dose is 1-2 teaspoons/5-10 ml vinegar or 10-20 drops tincture taken with meals) or as a coffee substitute.

• Any rhythmical exercise, especially walking, relieves digestive gas and improves intestinal peristalsis (the movement of feces). Oriental wisdom says the liver loves movement.

• Motherwort, fenugreek, vitex, or black cohosh tinctures, taken daily, strengthen digestion and ease menopausal digestive woes. Or try a cup of garden sage tea.

• If constipation occurs due to a lessening of the moistening, lubricating cells in the colon, slippery foods such as slippery elm bark powder, oats, seaweed, flax seed, and seeds from wild Plantago (or cultivated psyllium) are wonderful allies. Adding a teaspoon/5 ml of any, or better yet, all of them to a cup/250 ml of rolled oats and cooking until thick in 3 cups/750 ml of water is a delicious way to prepare this remedy.

• My favorite remedy to relieve digestive and gas pain is plain yogurt. Sometimes even a tiny mouthful will bring instant relief. Acidophilus capsules work, too. I use both when dealing with chronic constipation or severe diarrhea.

Step 4: Stimulate/Sedate

• White flour products slow the digestive tract; so does too much grain-fed meat. Whole grain products, well-cooked beans, wild meats, and cooked greens speed it up.

• Add more liquids and soft foods to your diet - applesauce, yogurt, nourishing soups, herbal infusions - to help relieve constipation. Chew your food slowly and savor it. Drink lavishly between meals.

• Menopausal women will want to avoid the use of bran as a laxative, as it interferes with calcium absorption. Instead try prunes, prune juice, rhubarb with maple syrup, or figs.

• Ginger tea with honey is a warming, easing drink when your tummy is upset. Ahhh. Try the fresh root grated and steeped in boiling water, or put a tablespoon of the powdered stuff from your spice cupboard in a cup of hot water and enjoy.

• Crushed hemp seed (Cannabis sativa) tea - rich in essential fatty acids - is a specific against menopausal constipation.

• Herbal laxatives such as aloes, cascara sagrada, rhubarb root, and senna are addictive and destructive to normal peristalsis. Except in rare cases (such as relief of constipation for a ninety-year-old woman confined to a bed), I do not advise their use.

Step 5a: Use Supplements

Constipation and digestive distress are common side effects from taking iron supplements. A spoonful of molasses with 10-25 drops of yellow dock root tincture in a glass of warm water is a better way to increase iron, and improve elimination.

Step 6: Break & Enter

Enemas and colonics are last-resort techniques. They do not promote health and may strip the guts of important flora. Regular use of enemas is highly habit-forming. For the sake of your health, avoid them.

Legal Disclaimer: This content is not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, condition or symptom. Personal directions and use should be provided by a clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare practitioner with a specific formula for you. All material contained herein is provided for general information purposes only and should not be considered medical advice or consultation. Contact a reputable healthcare practitioner if you are in need of medical care. Exercise self-empowerment by seeking a second opinion.

Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081

Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.

Susun is one of America's best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women's health. Her four best-selling books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women around the world. Learn more at http://www.susunweed.com

See the complete list of Articles on Alternative Health here

Have a look at Best Selling Books on Alternative Health

Enter your search terms Submit search form

Web meditationiseasy.com

See also : Other articles on

Depression, Grief Loss, Happiness, Humor, Inspirational, Motivation,
Positive Attitude, Meditation, Spirituality Goal Setting, Wealth Building, Ethics, Stress Management Yoga, Alternative Health, Build Muscle, Exercise,   Aerobics Cardio, Fitness Equipment,  Pregnancy  Dating, Elder Care, Relationship, Acne ,  Beauty, Hair Loss
Cooking Tips, Recipes,Top Tips for everything Crafts Hobbies, Creativity, Fishing,  Photography, Pets,

Latest info on : Alternative Health

TAKE TWO: An alternative look at the day in sports Columbia Daily Tribune Like many of you, I couldn't resist reading the naughty text messages Tiger Woods allegedly sent to Joslyn James, the pornographic film ... and more »

Schools asked to try alternative discipline Louisville Courier-Journal ... meet with local education and court officials Monday night to promote alternative discipline methods as a way to stop “the school to prison pipeline. ... and more »

Central Florida News 13

Students Spend 'Alternative' Spring Break Volunteering Central Florida News 13 Tens of thousands of other college students also went on “alternative” Spring Break trips with other nonprofit organizations. The University of Maryland ... and more »

Washington Post

Alternative spring breaks connect with college students Washington Post "Alternative spring breaks" are diverting a growing number of college students from a week of sloth and excess in Florida to study post-election violence in ... Alternative Spring Break 2010The Simmons Voice Alternative Spring BreakThe Eastern Progress Online (subscription) Students reach out as part of Alternative Spring BreakCampus Times Eagle News -Orlando Sentinel -Jaunted all 32 news articles »

Coal, oil lead alternative push: Siemens Sydney Morning Herald Coal and oil companies will embrace a report which advocates spending $60 billion on alternative energy sources over the next decade, a leading technology ... and more »

Community High to host first reunion, 21 years after alternative school started Asheville Citizen-Times The alternative school will host its first reunion for students, their families, teachers and staff on Saturday. Farkas, who taught health and physical ... and more »

Dan Benishek: the alternative to Bart Sell-out Stupak Hot Air (blog) Fortunately, we have an excellent alternative to Stupak — a pro-life conservative surgeon named Dan Benishek. In one day, over joined his Facebook page. ... and more »

Alternative core CPI measures unchanged in Feb. MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Core inflation was flat in February, according to two alternative methods of figuring underlying inflation that don't ... and more »

Egypt in Search of An Alternative NewsBlaze In short, the search for an alternative to the dominant ruling party will continue. The prospects for peaceful change, however, remain dependent on ... and more »

For alt rocker Jeff Tweedy, growing up's a fine alternative MiamiHerald.com Tweedy's musical journey started in the early '90s, when he co-founded the seminal alternative country band Uncle Tupelo. That group broke up in 1994, ... and more »

Why not be an expert yourself  ?

 If you can write on any of the above topic, you are welcome to submit your
 articles in our database :

 Submit your article here   Our Article Area

You are here Home > Tips for Stress free Life > Expert Zone > Alternative Health

| Main Home  | Meditation Corner | 

                |Health Tips  | Workplace Tips  | Soul Tips  |Expert zone |

|  Recommend us  |

 Books, DVDs and accessories on meditation & yoga  |