Many people suffer from problems related to disturbances in the function of the stomach, intestines and colon-

Excessive gas in the bowel is a frequent disturbance, caused by an increased gas production in the bowel content combined with a decreased absorbtion of gas through the intestinal walls.

Swallen stomach or bloating is another frequent problem. This problem is related to more basic imbalances like the mentioned excessive gas production and sluggish intestines that allows content to fill up.

Constipation is a problems related to sluggish intestinal function so that the content builds up and get hard.

Many people experince diarrhhoea because of a too rapid movement of the intestines.

Cramps or feeling of cramps are also frequent. The cramps are often a consequence of uneven stimulation of the intestines and of swelling from excessive content.

Such Functional stomach problems are sometimes caused by diseases that necessitate specific treatment. Such diseases can be inflammatory diseases like Chron's disease and Ulcerative colitis, or they can sometimes be caused by cancer.

More often they are however caused by bad lifestyle habits. Sometimes persons also react with allergy or otherways react nagatively to certain food types.

Both bad lifestyle habits and allergy cause inflammatory reactions. Possible many persons also suffer from less serious inflammatory diseaes with other causes than just the habits of the person.

In the following you find advices about good lifestyle habits that may prevent, cure or alleviate these symptoms.

The following lifestyle advices will help to prevent many stomac problems and may alleviate or cure problems allready manifest.

- Eat food with high plant fibre content. Fibres from the food stimulate the movement of the intestines, and especially of the colon, and help you avoid a stuffed bowel. Whole unrefined cereals, whole corn bread, vegetables and fruit will often give you the fibre you need.

-If you suffer from lazy stomach or colon, adding some brand to your daily diet can help. You can blend a couple tablespoons of brand together with linen seeds in a glass of water to get the effects of both these remedies at the same time.

-Some herbs or spices can help your intestines to work more efficiently, for example peppermint, buckthorn bark sienna, cayenne or ginger. However, too much of hot spices can irritate your intestines. You can also find natural products in the market that provide you with herbs that can help your intestines work better.

-Drink enough water. A too little water intake will make your stomach content hard and dry, and your intestines will then find difficulties in moving the content along.

-Eat enough, but not too much fat. The right amount of fat in your food will help giving your stomach content the right consistence. Most of the fat you consume should be a mix of fat from sources like olive oil, fish, nuts, sunflowers and almonds.

-If you suffer from hard stool or constipation, taking some days a couple tablespoons of linen seeds a day can help. Suspend the seeds in a glass of water and let it lie in the water a couple of hours before stirring up the content of the glass and drink it.

-Do not eat too much, but neither too little, and eat at regular intervals. Four meals a day is usually optimal for most persons.

-Don't eat in a hurry, and chew your food well before swallowing it.

-Get some physical exercise each day. Physical exercise where you move stomach muscles are engaged will often help to speed up your intestinal functions and help against problems like constipation or bloating, for example sit-ups. Also exercices where you move around and shake your stomach help to stimulate your stomach functions.

- Yoga exercises can help to improve the function within your stomach region. Yoga breathing exercises will not only help to improve your respiratory health, but also excert stimulative manipulation of your stomach organs. Yoga exercises where you pull the front of your stomach inwards or tense your stomach muscles will stimulate your intestines directly. Also exercises where you engage the muscles around your rectal opening and in your pelvic floor eill excert a stimulation towards the digestive system.

- Daily meditation can help to improve the functions in all your inner organs, including the digestive system. During meditation you get into a mental state that makes you relax your outer muscular apparatus and also makes you relax functions required for outer action. At the same time the same mental state will activate the parasympathetic nervous system that stimulates inner organs like the digestion and also stimulates regeneration processes in your body.

-Consume some products containing bacteria helping digestion. A healthy colon contains bacteria that help the end part of the digestion process. Yoghourt or other types of fermented milk will provide your colon with seeds for good bacteria. If you do not tolerate milk, or your colonic microbial content needs special attention, you can use products on the market that give a high supply of good bacteria seeds.

Even though the listed measures should help you get rid of functional stomach problems in some days, the problems will return in some time if you do not change your eating habits permanently and begin exercising on a regular base.

Stomach problems may also originate from hypersensitivity against food types, for example milk or wheat or from diseases that need treatment. If the stomach problems are of new origine, aggraviate or radically change character,  the problem should be medically investigated. Also if simple measures do not clear the problems, a medical investigation should be performed.

However, a medical investigation do not always find out what causes the problems. If so it can be useful to make an investigation of ones own by successively taking out special food types from the diet for some time and experience the effects. Here are some common types of food hypersensivity explained.

Some people suffer from as pecial kind of  hypersensitivity against the protein gluten in wheat and some other cereals, celiac disease. To confirm or disprove this disease, a medical investigation is needed. If celiac disease is confirmed, a strictly controlled diet that avoids all sources of gluten is the only method that can  make all symptoms go away.

Even though celiac disease is not confirmed, hypersenistivity against wheat and cereals of other kinds can still be the cause of the problems. Weat and other types of cereals can cause adverse reactions in the digestive system of many types. It can still be an idea to reduce or stop the intake of wheat and reduce the intake of other cereals to see if this action helps. However, cereals are very valuable food in many respects. Therefore you should not stop eating cereals altogether. Even though this action may cure some stomach problems, it can cause other problems by causing deficiency of many vitamins and fibre. At most you can stopp eating wheat, and reducing the consume of other cereals, but some cereals you should have in your diet.

Many people are hypersenitive against lactose, the kind of sugar found in milk. This is also a kind of hypersensitivity that can be confirmed by medical investigation. To take away all milk products containing lactose from the diet a couple of weeks can also give a good indication. To get symptoms go away for good, consume of milk and milk products containing lactose must be radically reduced or stopped. Cheese do not contain much lactose, and can be a part of the diet by lactose intollerance. Other milk products should be reduced.

However, some people are also intollerant against other constituents of the milk. If there is not any responce by taking away milk and milk products containing lactose, you can try to take away all milk products from the diet a couple of weeks. If this improves the condition, intollerance against some milk component will be probable. A solution to the problem will then be to reduce or take away all milk products from the diet.

The stomach and intestines of many people react against specific food sources, for example specific fuits like apples. If one have functional problems with the stomach, the colon or other abdominal organs, it can be useful to investigate the reaction to food sorts one by one, by avoiding eating it a couple of weeks and see if one gets better.

Some people react against specific spices or too much spices in the food. It can be useful to investigate the spices one uses by cutting them out one by one some time. However, spices can also stimulate the function of the stomach, so it is not allways a good idea to avoid spices in the food.

Many people also react against over-processed food, like hard boiled or hard roasted  food. It can be useful to avoid cooking the food too hard.

C. Lifestyle measures to alleviate stomach problems caused by inflammations or infections in the intestines

Serious inflammations of the intestines like ulcerative colitis and Chron's disease often need specific treatment. Certain natural measures can however help to alleviate infections and  inflammations in the stomach organs.

The digestie organs need plant fibres in the diet to work properly. The fibres stimulate the intestines to move and they take up water and gie the intestinal content a good volume and consistancy. You get enough fibres by consuming at each meal some full corn bread or cereals and by eating fruits and evgetables.

Fibers in the vegetable broccoli and plantains (a great sort of banana) have an especially good effect. Fibers from these two sources bind harmful bacteria and hinder them from passing through the inner lining of the intestines and cause damage and inflammation in the tissues of the intestines. Using much broccoli and bananas in your diet is therefore a good measure against stomach problems.

Consuming food with omega-3-acids can help to alleviate inflammations. Such foods are fish and seafood, especially fat fish and linen seed oil. Food and oil containing mono-unsaturated acids are also good, such as olive oil, flaxseed oil, canola oil, and almonds.

Reducing the content of omega-6-oil in the food can also help, since these types of oil increase inflammation. Such fat abund in oils like soy oil, corn oil and most other oil types. However, one needs some of this fat type, and the best of it is found in nuts and sunflower seeds. Also avoiding chemically altered fat, incluing trans-fat is important, since these types of fat are effective triggers of inflammations. Such fat is often found in margarine, cookies, fast food and even bread.

Some koffee and tea each day stimulate your intestines to produce more digestive juices and to move better. Too much coffee and tea will often have the opposite effect and irritate the digestive system.

Regular exercise is not only good for the muscle stretngth and for the condition. It also stimulate the intestines to work more vividly. You should therefore hae a regular exercise program.

Natural products you can find in the market may also  help to reduce or take away stomach problems. Problems caused by bad lifestyle may be so resistant, or they may have caused so great changes in the digestive system, that lifestyle changes alone is not enough to resolve the problems totally, and therefore a help from some natural products can help to restore normal function.

One way natural product can help is by stimulating the intestines to work better. This is done both by giving the intesrinal content and the stool a better conistancy and by stimulating the movements of the intestines. Plant fibers are effective to do this. Musilage which is a special fiber in some plants have a great capacity to bind water and is especially good in giving the stool the best consistancy in addition to stimulating ovements. Natura oils in a moderate amount can also help to make the stool softer and smoother. Linen seeds and some other seeds release a slime that also makes the stool soft and easy to handle for the intestines.

The other type of natural product to help against stomach problems are those that reduce inflammatory reactions. Omega-3-oils  alleviate inflammation, especially marine omega-3-oils. Many herbs aloso help to alleviate inflammation, for example boswelia, marshmallow, plantain leaf, seabuckthorn, cellery seeeds, turmenic, ginger, white willow, green tea, skullcap,aloe vera, chamomilis, and many more.

A third way natural remedies can help against stomach problems is by making the digestion more effective. Peppermiont, ginger and cayenne tonify the intestines. Papaya contains enzymes that help break down the molecules in the food to smaller units.

A forth way herbal natural remedies can work is by stimulating tissue regeneration. The spice cayenne is good at this function.

Still another way stomach problems can be alleviated is by regulating the bacterial content in the intestines. Certain milk-based cultures are good at this.

When the stomach problems are caused by hypersensitivity to specific food sources, the total elimination of these sources from the diet may sometimes be practicaly impossible, for example when several food types cause the hypersensitivity reactions.

In these cases, stomach problems can persist.  However also when this is the case, natural products can help to alleviate these problems.

Also when you do not find out what causes the stomach problems, natural products may help to alleviate these.

These products typically contain fibres and herbs that stimulate the intestinal functions, oily or mucous substances that lubricate the intestinal content, seeds for digestive friendly bacteria, or herbs that relax cramping.