Constipation
What is constipation?
Constipation is when your bowl movement is abnormally infrequent and difficult. It is expected of you to evacuate your bowl at least once in a day without difficulty. When your bowel movement becomes harder than usual and less frequent than that usual, then you might be having constipation. Most people (if not all) have been constipated at one point or the other; probably as a child or an adult. It is usually not a serious problem, but there are some rare severe cases where it becomes a real problem.
What causes constipation?
The causes of constipation in most cases include lack of exercise, little or no fibre diet, not taking enough water or fluid, and ignoring the urge to evacuate your bowl; but that is not all. There are other causes of constipation
- Medications: Sometimes, we take some medicines to solve a particular health issue and it goes right on to cause another. There are some pills that triggers constipation when we take them. Some of these medicines include antacids, antispasmodics, and diuretics.
- Health problems: Some health problems affect the rate at which you have bowel movement; like injuries of the spinal cord or the brain, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and gastrointestinal tract problems.
- Psychological problems: This is found mostly in children. They might have some sort of fear to have a bowel movement, or they might just feel too lazy to do so. As a result of this, they might resist the urge to pass bowel movement. If they do this often, it can result to constipation.
Symptoms of constipation
The number one pointer to the fact that you have constipation is less and difficult bowel movement. Others are bloated belly, pain in your abdomen, loss of appetite (especially in children), incomplete bowel movement, and vomiting. In children you might see things like crankiness, loss of energy, and they might start soiling their cloth unusually.
Natural treatment for constipation
Just like I already mentioned earlier, constipation in itself is rarely a serious problem. That does not mean you should neglect the initial signs of constipation. If you do not treat it on time, it might get severe and will give you a great heck of discomfort. You already know that drinking lots of water might help relieve constipation, but that is certainly not all the help you need. You can go ahead and try some of these natural ways of relieving constipation.
- Drink lemon juice: Lemon is a good way of relieving constipation. Squeeze a lemon into a glass of warm water and drink it. You can do the same with molasses.
- Get moving more than before. Exercise is always good; move your body to move your bowel.
- Get some fibre into your diet; like coffee, beans, apricot, vegetables, potatoes, berries and nuts.
- Oil: I cannot help but think of how important oil is to the effective functioning of an engine. That is exactly the case with us; we need oil to function effectively. Oil has been proven to be good for digestion; but not just any oil. To relieve constipation, you can use olive oil, castor oil, or fish oil. On a daily basis, ingest a teaspoon full of any of these oil in the morning before breakfast, before bedtime, or long after a meal. Please be cautious as not to overdose on any of these oils, just one teaspoon a day is all you need.
Other things you can do to relieve constipation are
- Take aloe vera gel or juice
- Drink prune juice
- Drink some tea made out of dried dandelion leaves
- Be obedient to nature when it comes calling with the urge for a bowel movement.
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