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stephwulac

Eating Hygiene - 10 Simple Tips For Improving Digestion From A Chinese Medicine POV

Updated: Jan 24, 2023

Some call it mindful eating, I call it eating hygiene with a Chinese medicine twist to it.



Everybody talks about diets and about what foods you should and shouldn’t eat. Everyone has a theory. Chinese medicine has its own as well (which I will get into in a different article…soon…).


But what no one really talks about is how your eating habits are just as important.


Especially here in America where eating habits are god awful.

Poor eating habits are just as harmful as eating poorly.

I see this with a lot of patients who come in with digestive complaints such as irritable bowel syndrome, indigestion, weight gain, frequent gas and bloating after eating.


They generally changed to healthy light diets but still weren’t getting much relief. What they don’t realize is that they also need to change the way they eat.

 

Before we get into the 10 tips, let’s take a quick world tour.


If you go to Japan, nobody walks around eating. If you do that, people will stare at you funny. You might as well walk around wearing a clown suit. In fact, my favorite thing to do ever is to eat Japanese ramen at Ichiran (they have one in NYC now) in isolated booths so that you can really focus on the food. See it’s a cultural thing!


The ramen restaurant Ichiran, in Bushwick, offers personal “flavor-concentration booths,” where patrons, who are perhaps tired of talking about certain subjects, can experience “low-interaction dining.”Photograph Courtesy ICHIRAN — Read more at The New Yorker


You go to Europe and people take their time to eat. They spend time enjoying their food and wine (maybe even too much time n’ too much wine). Even lunch. They take it seriously. That’s probably why they are able to stay so slim:


“ We are always amazed by what the French can eat in a week’s time and still stay slim. There are very little restrictions to the types of foods the French eat regularly — chocolate, full-fat yogurts and cheese, bread, delicious desserts, rich sauces, and the list goes on and on. Yet France has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world. One look around in any major French metropolis, and you’re unlikely to see many overweight people (other than the tourists) and very rarely, anyone obese.
Some of the main reasons for this paradox are the moderate portions French people eat, as well as their set mealtimes in a day, and their love of unprocessed, whole foods. Added to which, the French naturally practice “mindful eating”, even if they didn’t invent it! It is a cultural norm that even the youngest children are taught.” — Rebeca Plantier author of French School Lunch

It’s only here in America that we live such a go-go-go life that people are always eating on the go or multitasking while eating. You see the morning commuter running to the bus while chomping down on a breakfast burrito. You see the tech office workers furiously punching keys and cursing at a program bug while shoving salads down their throats.

 

It sounds stupid and menial. But how you eat will ultimately affect your health in the future. I’ve had patients who changed simple ways of how they eat and finally found relief in digestive discomforts and even naturally shed pounds after years of trying all sorts of medications and supplements.


They too didn’t believe it could be that simple. But simple takes effort and time. And always remember; health compounds (both negatively and positively).


 

Why do eating habits matter? Parasympathetic — Rest and digest.

Fight-or-flight vs. rest-and-digest nervous systems. Source


Our nervous system is a delicate balance between the “rest-and-digest” (parasympathetic nervous system) and the “fight-or-flight” (sympathetic nervous system).


Back in the day, fight-or-flight was our reaction to real threat aka a tiger chasing after you. Nowadays it is more like a slight dip in the stock market or arguing with your neighbor over whose responsibility it is to clean the overgrown bushes separating you two.


Either way, any form of stress activates the fight-or-flight nervous system, pumping blood to our brain and our large muscles while turning off blood flow to the digestive system.


Doing this once or twice to run away from threat is totally valid, but when it becomes a lifestyle, your systems adapt to the hyper-alert fight-or-flight mode and your digestive system suffers.


TL;DR: Chronic stress causes digestive problems.


 

How do I fix it? Here are 10 simple tips to help improve your digestion.


They sound stupidly easy. But they are effective when practiced daily. And they are 100% free. (I spent 4 years in school learning stuff like this so it wasn’t exactly free for me haha! I should have just listened to grandma ugh).


1) Eat sitting down and peacefully:

  • Focus on food and eating. Avoid overthinking, getting angry, and any other thoughts that will distract from eating.

  • You can think of it as a Marie Kondo approach to eating mindfully haha. Each bite is a blessing and should be chewed thoughtfully.

  • Lunch meetings that are stressful should be avoided if possible.

Marie Kondo telling you to eat mindfully as well as declutter.


2) Eat at regular times and routinely

  • Need I say more? It helps your body adjust to preparing digestive enzymes and other such processes more efficiently. It’s the same idea as habits.


3) Try to avoid Cold temperature foods and iced water in general

  • Why? Cold causes vasoconstriction of blood vessels and muscles to contract → decreased blood flow to digestive system → compounded over many years = inhibited digestive function, stomachaches, bloating, cramping, diarrhea or loose stools, weakened digestive system.

  • Drink room temperature water or warm water.

  • Do you ever see old Asian grandmas who live forever drink cold iced water? Nope. I don’t know what the American obsession over iced water stems from… maybe the short-lived fad that said you can burn more calories drinking cold water? It’s more like you can ruin your body’s natural digestive system over time…

  • For women: Avoid eating too much cold temperature foods and drinks especially right before and during menses.


4) Try to avoid Cold property foods (raw foods) if your digestive system is already weak

  • This includes salads — Salad is fine to eat once in a while, but it is better to avoid salads if you’re digestive system is more sensitive. The reason behind that is that in order to break down raw foods and vegetables into a form that is digestible and absorbable by your body, it takes a lot of work, energy, and circulation.

  • When you cook food, you break it down into a form that is easier to digest so your digestive system doesn’t have to work as hard.

  • If your system is already weak and you force it to work even harder, it could cause problems over the long term as you continue to weaken it. In addition, if it can’t break it down, the food sits there and accumulates as waste.

  • Because your body can’t break down the food, it can’t absorb the nutrients. So over time, you develop a deficiency and a weaker body.

  • Fruits can also create a lot of dampness and cold. Eat them in moderation, try to avoid too much consumption of it before and during menses.

  • For women: Avoid eating too much of these foods especially right before and during menses.


5) Try to avoid “Damp” property foods (basically heavy foods):

  • These heavy foods include excessive sugar, dairy, oily, fried foods.

  • You can try to add some warm and easily digestible foods.

  • A good solid staple that is really easy for the GI system to digest and breakdown is warm rice porridge in the morning.

  • Clear soups such as chicken soup, broths, etc.

  • Cooked vegetables even if it is slightly cooked. That will help break down the fibers and make it easier for your body to digest.

  • Simple lightly spiced and seasoned meats.

  • A bit of white rice or jook/porridge (brown rice can be harsh on an already weakened digestive system because of all the crazy fiber and shells). In Chinese medicine, when one has an upset stomach from the flu or from chronic illness, plain rice porridge is the go-to remedy. White rice nourishes in moderation helps to nourish the stomach.


7) Eating to 7–8/10 fullness.

  • The brain takes a while to process “fullness”. Eating to the “just full” will create less stress for your digestive system.

  • Plus, food comas can cause financial burden — you basically can’t do any high quality work for a while.


8) After the meal, try to take a short relaxing walk.

In Chinese medicine we say “the Spleen likes 60 steps after a meal”.
  • The spleen is the equivalent of the digestive function of your body in Chinese medicine.

  • This also ties into how Chinese medicine understands strokes —

Going straight to sleep after eating a large meal is the recipe for strokes.
  • That is because heartbeat and circulation slow down when you sleep. You don’t want this right after eating a large meal because you need the circulation to be concentrated in your digestive system so that it can do its thang.

  • When circulation slows down, the food you ate just sits there and doesn’t get broken down properly. It then accumulates and over time it starts to clog your circulatory system eventually leading to complications such as strokes.

9) Avoid sitting for too long when working. Take a short break every 30 mins or so, do some light stretching.

  • We say that the Spleen (digestive system function) is linked to the muscles.

  • Sitting for too long will make the muscles weak and therefore the Spleen will become weaker and your digestive function will be impaired over time.

  • We’ve all had that experience where you sit in one position without moving for a long time and then you feel gross with poor appetite and weak, (like your muscles don’t work and you feel like a blob). That’s your digestive system saying it’s upset because of poor circulation.

10) Try to avoid excessive stress and negative emotions overall:

  • But we’re all human right?! Haha we can only try!

  • Again, stress turns on the fight-or-flight mode of your body and takes away circulation to your digestive tract. Then you end up with indigestion.


 

If you still don’t understand why good eating habits are important… Here’s a summary.


Overeating, eating too much cold property/cold temperature foods, eating with heavy emotions, eating on the run, eating while stressed, eating at abnormal times, etc. will burden your GI system and disrupt the transform and transport function leading to what we see as “phlegm” which accumulates and appears as cysts, mucus, discharge, etc (it manifests slightly differently per person depending on their constitution and lifestyle).


Essentially it is all about circulation. Stress and poor eating habits mess up circulation. When circulation is poor, things get stuck and they accumulate. When circulation is good, your body will operate optimally.


Yes, you are what you eat…
But alas, you are also…HOW you eat!

Asian grandma wisdom at its finest! Hope you add some of these simple suggestions to your daily lifestyle (if you don’t practice them already).


I really wish to help influence the eating culture in America so that we can all digest better and be happy + bloat-free.


Thanks for reading!


XOXO Steph


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