Holiday Preparation: Avoiding an Upset Stomach After Holiday Parties

After indulging in a holiday meal, do you ever feel bloated, gassy, and otherwise uncomfortable in your abdominal area? You certainly aren't alone. While Thanksgiving and other winter holiday meals are American favorites, they don't come without their drawbacks. For many, an upset stomach may last for hours or even days after the big feast. 

Fortunately for sensitive tummies, there are things you can do to turn the situation around. Here are some tips for avoiding an upset stomach after your annual post-holiday feasts.

Our Tips on Avoiding Post-Thanksgiving & Holiday Meal Discomfort

Whether your stomach woes come from cramming too much stuffing down your gullet or from overindulging on Aunt Edna's extra-potent eggnog, you can make a change. You deserve to enjoy your entire holiday—including the part that comes after dinner. So here are some of our top tips for avoiding post-Thanksgiving discomfort (and all meals filled with rich food, frankly).

Pace Yourself

Remember that Thanksgiving dinner isn't a race to see who can eat the most food on the table within an hour. In addition to making you feel full and bloated, overindulgence can force a lot of air down your throat. This can lead to gassiness, which is the last thing you want to worry about when you're crowded around a Thanksgiving table with family and friends.

To cut back on that gassy, overstuffed turkey feeling, pace yourself through dinner. Avoid overfilling your plate since you're more likely to eat what's in front of you. You can always go back for seconds if you're still hungry after your first serving! There is no shame in that. Finally, remember to chew each bite thoroughly before you swallow. Your teeth are great at breaking down food so your stomach and intestines can digest it more easily. But they don't work unless you use them! 

Combat Sodium With Hydration

There is a really good reason why food during the holidays tastes so much better than the food you eat the rest of the year. It's packed with things like sugar, butter, and salt. These ingredients can lead to an upset stomach, but sodium is particularly responsible for water retention and bloating that can impact some people very quickly. Eating too much sodium can create a more favorable environment for unwanted bacteria in your stomach, as well.

H. pylori, in particular, responds very well to salty foods. Overproduction of this can be quite painful and cause nausea, vomiting, or burning pain in the stomach. Fun stuff!

While it's doubtful you will avoid increasing your sodium content during this time of the year (unless you plan on skipping over all the best-tasting foods), you can combat a higher sodium intake by drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated. Though it seems counterintuitive, staying hydrated can help your body flush out the excess salt and help you feel less bloated.

Eat Your Veggies

Vegetables are pretty amazing when it comes to boosting your digestive health. Most vegetables have a lot of insoluble fiber, which gives bulk to your stool and helps you use the bathroom more regularly (which is so great when you're uncomfortably full after a meal!)

Green vegetables are also high in magnesium, which prompts healthy digestion by relaxing the muscles and allowing food to move more readily through the digestive system. They feed the good bacteria in your gut while starving the bad bacteria. This can help relieve the uncomfortable feelings of bloating and upset stomachs often caused by the overgrowth of unwanted bacteria in the gut. So don't skip over those veggies this year!

Use Polisorb After Indulging

Do you ever think, "I wish I didn't just do that," after gorging on foods or alcoholic drinks? We've all been there and done that! But what many people don't realize is that there is a "reset button" of sorts that they can press after overindulging. It's called Polisorb.

For many people, Polisorb works better than other OTC products for relieving their post-holiday stomach issues. That's because Polisorb actually removes the things responsible for your upset stomach from your body, while products like Pepto Bismol simply cover up and minimize symptoms.

Polisorb is the ideal quick-fix for abdominal discomfort because it attracts the bad bacteria, waste, and unwanted substances causing your symptoms and moves them through the digestive tract so your body can eliminate them. Since it's made with just one ingredient—silicon dioxide—Polisorb is a safe and worry-free solution. It's also tasteless, so you don't need to worry about it interfering with all the great holiday flavors on the table.

Worry-Free Holiday Indulging Shop Polisorb

Choose Fruit for Dessert

If there's one thing you can plan to see at dinner during this time of the year, it's pies of all sizes and flavors. They are undeniably tasty but can cause significant stomach upset for some people. 

If you're worried about bloating, gas, and other types of stomach discomfort, choose fruit for dessert! Though it may not sound appealing at first, fruit is designed to satisfy our body's craving for sugar. It can also soothe an upset stomach. Bananas are particularly helpful for easing stomach upset and helping the body digest all the food it just ate. 

Take a Walk After Dinner

Sometimes we feel like crashing and taking a nap after large meals. You can thank the tryptophan in turkey for that! What many people don't realize is that staying still after Thanksgiving dinner can make digestion sluggish. If you're feeling uncomfortable in your abdomen after dinner, get up and take a walk. It doesn't have to be brisk. Simply getting your body moving and your blood flowing can improve your body's digestion processes, so you start feeling better more quickly.

So there you have it. These are all great ways to avoid an upset stomach after your holiday indulgences. Give them a try this year and see how much more enjoyable your holiday can be!