5 Simple Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Acidity

One of the significant causes of acidity is a lifestyle. Whether insomnia or irregular eating, almost everything wrong with your lifestyle results in digestive problems, primarily acidity, acid reflux, and gastritis. 

The best way to combat this specific issue which has now become almost like a routine, is to bring changes in your lifestyle. When you do so, you won't have to worry about suffering from acid reflux and prevent yourself from eating your favorite food and watching a binge on Netflix. You can even practice intermittent fasting once you change your lifestyle so that it won't interfere with your body and its way of digesting food.

The digestion process might be similar for everyone, but the time taken to digest a meal, especially the heavy ones like your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, isn't the same. For some people, it may take only two or three hours, while for others, it may take more than six hours. 

Therefore, thinking that only eating junk food or suffering from constipation are the main reasons for acidity will lead you nowhere. To help you out with this problem, we have listed here the five significant changes you should bring to your lifestyle to ensure you don't suffer acidity.

Maintaining a proper diet

A proper diet is one of the first lifestyle changes you need. We often neglect the food we eat and continue to include dishes from different cuisines using ingredients we are not very sure of. Some people always stick to having takeouts, dining outside at restaurants or best rolls, depending on the cafeteria for coffee, and so on. No matter how tasty the food sounds, it will always have too much oil and other ingredients that are not right for the body.

So, instead of depending on packaged foods, the ones you find at restaurants and cafes, or any junk, cook the same at your home using ingredients that are safe and full of nutrients. For example, you can use olive oil to fry any food or the air fryer for deep frying instead of oil. Similarly, instead of getting a black coffee earlier in the morning to kickstart your day, try drinking green tea or oolong because they are free of caffeine and won't cause acidity.

Including physical activities

Another significant change you must introduce in your lifestyle is increasing your physical activities. The more you work out or get involved in different physical exercises, the more your body will need to use carbs and fats to produce energy. Usually, carbohydrates and fats are the two major nutritional groups of food that require maximum time for digestion. When you load your food with these two groups, acidity and other related problems like acid reflux, gastritis, and even ulcers.

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So, the best way to get rid of acidity is to increase your physical activity. This will further increase the metabolic rate, and the carb and fat you take daily will burn out to compensate for your energy requirement. As a result, you will feel hungry, have a healthy appetite, and eliminate acidity problems.

Stopping drug abuse

Sometimes, acidity is also caused by using certain drugs and medicines that you aren't supposed to do. For example, when you take too many NSAID drugs or painkillers, your stomach produces more acid, leading to acidity. So, the best option to get rid of this issue is to limit the consumption of these drugs until and unless prescribed. 

Another thing you should be concerned about is the steroids you take. For instance, when taking weight loss pills, the ingredients present in them can cause acidity and reflux. Therefore, you should stop being dependent on steroids like this and instead use nutritional supplements of organic origin, like Ayurveda.

Managing stress and depression

Another great way to combat acidic reflexes and gastritis is to manage your stress and depression. When stressed out, your body does not respond expectedly. It can be easily seen through how your digestive system performs because the rate of digestion slows, and it takes a lot of time for the food to get digested completely. As a result, you start getting acid reflexes and discomfort due to immunization.

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Also, when you suffer from chronic depression, you cannot sleep properly at night, which directly impacts your mental health. So, you must get a long sleep of at least 6 to 8 hours continuously at night. Once you start this lifestyle change, you'll see how easy it is for your body to digest food items like red meat, fats from animal proteins, cheese and butter, and so on.

Quitting smoking and drinking

Last but not least, you should quit smoking and drinking because both are related to acidity and gastritis in many cases. Nicotine and the chemicals present in alcohol often interfere with your body and reduce digestive speed. Therefore, your body fails to digest the food on time, and you start getting acid reflexes, regurgitation, and so on.

Therefore, the last lifestyle change you need at the earliest is a complete stop smoking and drinking alcohol. If you want wines, go for aged red and white wines sourced directly from the distilleries. They are usually low in alcohol concentration, and you can feel the taste of grapes and other types of flavors that are concentrated through aging.

Conclusion

Acidity is not a disease in itself. Instead, it is one of the acute symptoms of any underlying disease yet to surface. So, suppose you do not get relief from it even after bringing these changes in your lifestyle and following them religiously. In that case, it is better to visit a doctor, preferably a gastroenterologist, to check yourself and ensure you aren't suffering from anything serious.