3 Causes of Poor Digestion
What is digestion? According to Wikipedia, digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food into smaller components that are more easily absorbed into the bloodstream. Digestion is a form of catabolism: a breakdown of large food molecules into smaller ones. Therefore, poor digestion is the body’s inability to effectively break down food into smaller particles that can be more easily absorbed. Poor digestion is more common than most know, and some signs include 
bloating, constipation, foul-smelling bowel movements (it’s not supposed to stink), low energy, gas, acid reflux, headaches, and pain in the joints, muscles, and lower back. Did you know that for optimal health, a person needs to have 2-3 bowel movements each day to ensure that the body is absorbing nutrients and moving waste? Yes, ideally after each meal.
Here are the most likely causes of poor digestion:
- Insufficient water intake. In order for your body to properly break down foods during the digestive process, it needs adequate amounts of water. Chewing your food requires the production of saliva that contains digestive enzymes that help you break down foods. If you’re dehydrated and your body can’t produce enough saliva, the foods you eat will not be broken down properly for the next phases of digestion. When your body becomes dehydrated it will pull water from wherever it can, which causes major issues with other organs’ ability to perform. A good rule of thumb is to drink about 50% of your body weight in ounces of water per day. Add a pinch of good quality sea salt to each liter of water to help increase water absorption.
- Lack of digestive enzymes. When HCL (hydrochloric acid) is low, it does not give the proper signals for the pancreas to produce the correct amount of enzymes to digest the food. It’s the function of the pancreas to produce enzymes to break down all types of food. Without that process, large pieces of food can clog the intestines causing constipation, among other problems. Another huge challenge for the pancreas is genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other processed foods which are saturated with all types of chemical additives. How can it properly break down what it doesn’t recognize?
3. Stress. When you experience stress your body activates the “fight or flight” response, which triggers stress hormones that slow down the digestive process and compromise digestion. Most of us are in a “fight or flight” mode all day, which starts the minute our alarm clock goes off in the morning! We start our days rushing around to get ready for work and get the kids off to school, skipping breakfast in the process. This rushed behavior is stressful and shuts down your digestion resulting in constipation. Your stress levels further escalate throughout the day by skipping lunch, working late, and sitting in traffic. The icing on the cake is when you binge on a large dinner in front of the TV—you basically eat enough food to make up for all of the meals you’ve missed but you feel bloated and stuffed. Keep in mind, up until this point the food you ate the day before still hasn’t left your body, so your body is all backed up—the garbage needs to go out! With this scenario, it isn’t long before your digestion becomes compromised. When your body knows that your own waste is not being removed, it doesn’t want more coming in, so you develop a constant feeling of being full, yet you’re still hungry because your body isn’t getting the nutrition that it needs. Keep your pipes clean and things moving along, by managing your stress. Try to start your day without rushing, take time to eat breakfast and lunch, eat a light dinner, and allow yourself some downtime at night—preferably not watching something stressful like the news. Use cinnamon as a flavoring in your meals as it stimulates the digestive process. Some have stated, “cinnamon is to the body what Roto-Rooter is to the plumbing in your house”. It’s important that the internal plumbing is clear, clean, and properly flowing!