Morning bloating is a common symptom that hundreds of thousands of people experience. There are several different causes of morning bloating, including lifestyle factors, dietary influences, and hormonal fluctuations, and we’re going to discuss them all in this article.
After we’ve covered the many different reasons why morning bloating can rear its ugly head, we will get into some helpful strategies that you can adopt to prevent yourself from waking up in the mornings feeling bloated and puffy.
What Are the Causes of Morning Bloating?
There are many reasons why you might be prone to morning bloating, and we can split these causes into a few different categories – dietary, lifestyle, medical, and hormonal. Let’s go through each on in more detail so you can identify which of these common bloat-causing things might be an issue in your life.
Dietary factors that cause morning bloating
It might be obvious, but the foods you eat impact your gastrointestinal health, and people’s dietary choices are commonly the cause of digestive symptoms like bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhoea, and abdominal discomfort.
Of course, nobody is perfect when it comes to their diet. We all (well, most of us) have days where we indulge in unhealthy foods or treat ourselves to a little more food than we actually need. There’s nothing wrong with this, but overindulging can lead to bloating. If you eat way more food than usual during the evening before you go to bed, expect to wake up with some morning bloating.
Eating a high volume of food at once can overwhelm the digestive system (metaphorically, of course. The digestive system doesn’t actually have feelings!), and cause food to move more slowly through the intestines. It takes longer for your gastrointestinal tract to break down larger volumes of foods, for obvious reasons, so the more you eat in the evenings, the more likely it is that you will feel bloated and full when you wake up the next day.
Gassy foods like cruciferous vegetables, beans, and legumes are known to cause bloating. When you eat these foods, the bacteria in your gut ferment them and produce gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. The more of these gas-producing foods you eat, the more gas builds up in your lower digestive tract, and the more likely it is that you will wake up feeling bloated.
Those of you who aren’t great at drinking water throughout the day and go to bed dehydrated or those of you who breath through your mouth when you sleep at night (causing dry mouth and dehydration) are much more prone to morning bloating, too. Drinking enough fluids and keeping your body adequately hydrated is essential for avoiding digestive issues like gas, bloating, and constipation.
Lifestyle-related causes of morning bloating
Your lifestyle can also impact your digestive health and the chance of you getting bloating in the mornings (or any time of the day, for that matter). It’s well known that a sedentary lifestyle can increase the risk of chronic health conditions like cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and more, but fewer people consider the effects of being sedentary on digestive health.
When you don’t move your body after eating a large meal, it can take longer for food to move through the gastrointestinal tract and get broken down into nutrients that then get absorbed into the bloodstream. This is why a lot of people find that they are bloated in the evenings and first thing in the morning. Most people sit in front of the television after work and barely move a muscle, and of course, when you’re asleep, you’re sedentary (unless you sleepwalk, but that’s a completely different issue)!
Medical-related reasons for morning bloating
Certain medical conditions and medications can increase the risk and severity of morning bloating.
More specifically, if you have a digestive health condition like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), you might find that morning bloating is a common issue for you. Thyroid-related issues can also negatively impact gut health and cause bloating due to their effects on metabolism.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antacids, antibiotics, antidepressants, antihypertensives, anti-diarrhoeal drugs, anti-seizure medications, opioids, and fibre supplements can increase bloating, gas, and abdominal discomfort. If you take any of these medications regularly, morning bloating could be one of your daily symptoms.
Hormonal factors that cause morning bloating
Hormones can also be the culprits of morning bloating. Hormones perform essential functions in the body, such as regulating mood, sleep, stress, sex drive, digestive function, and the menstrual cycle. Although they fluctuate naturally throughout the day or month, and these fluctuations are natural and healthy, there are times when your hormone levels can increase or decrease a little too much.
Significant changes in oestrogen, progesterone, cortisol, and ADH can lead to increased water retention and subsequent bloating. Such changes can be caused by excessive stress, calorie restriction, over-exercising, or a reproductive health condition like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or functional hypothalamic amenorrhoea (HPA).
Even the natural and expected fluctuations in oestrogen, progesterone, and cortisol can increase morning bloating. Women often find that they experience more bloating when they’re approaching their periods, and this is because oestrogen and progesterone are at their highest concentrations in the body just before menstruation.
Cortisol is naturally at its highest in the morning, and it’s a hormone that can cause water retention. Hence, you might find that you’re most prone to bloating first thing in the morning.
How Can I Prevent Morning Bloating?
Those of you dealing with morning bloating might be searching for some helpful ways to relieve this bloating and wake up feeling refreshed instead of puffy and sluggish. Below, we’ve listed some of our top tips for preventing morning bloating, including natural remedies and lifestyle changes.
Eat your last meal earlier in the evening
Eating too late in the evening can cause you to wake up feeling bloated and puffy because your body hasn’t had enough time to fully digest the food you’ve eaten and absorb and utilise the constituent nutrients. Simply moving your last evening meal forward so you eat it an hour or two earlier than usual can be enough to tackle your morning digestive issues.
Avoid eating lots of gassy foods in the evenings
Alongside shifting the timing of your evening meal, it’s worth having a closer look at the types of foods you’re eating before you go to bed. Certain foods, such as beans, legumes, and vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, cause more gas to be produced inside the gut than others.
Avoiding these gas-producing foods in your evening meal and snack will prevent a build-up of carbon dioxide inside your lower digestive tract and reduce the chance of you waking up bloated.
Similarly, try to avoid carbonated drinks like sodas, energy drinks, and sparkling water in the evening and also when you wake up. Instead, choose decaffeinated tea or coffee, herbal tea, fruit juice, or still water. Doing so will alleviate digestive discomfort first thing in the morning.
Stay hydrated by drinking enough water throughout the day
We've spoken about the reasons why staying hydrated is so important for preventing bloating, so we won’t repeat it here. However, we will reiterate that you need to drink enough water in order to alleviate morning bloating!
Six to eight cups of water a day, or more if you’re a frequent exerciser, is sufficient for most people. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily need to be six to eight cups of still, unflavoured water.
Other drinks like fruit juice, tea, coffee, and even hot chocolate contribute to your fluid intake. However, if you’re drinking lots of caffeinated tea and coffee, be aware that caffeine is a diuretic that causes to wee more. If you’re going to the toilet more, you’re losing more fluids, and you will need to drink even more water to replace these lost fluids and avoid dehydration.
Increase your probiotic intake, whether through foods or supplements
Dietary probiotics, whether in the form of food or supplements, can do wonders for your digestive health and function. You technically already have trillions of probiotic bacteria in your gut that form what is known as your gut microbiome, but if you’re dealing with a lot of morning bloating, it might be due to imbalances in this precious microbiome.
Loads of things, including antibiotic medications, gut infections like gastroenteritis, and excess psychological stress, can cause the numbers of probiotic bacteria in the gut to decrease and the numbers of harmful bacteria to increase. This can lead to inflammation in the digestive tract, exacerbating bloating, gas, changes in bowel habits, bowel irregularity, and abdominal cramps.
Taking a probiotic supplement, such as A Dose For Bloating, or increasing your intake of dietary probiotics is an amazing way to improve your gut health and alleviate morning bloating. Dietary sources of probiotic bacteria include any sort of fermented food like yoghurt, kefir, tempeh, tofu, sauerkraut, pickles, and miso. You can also consume probiotics with drinks like kombucha.
A Dose For Bloating is a simple yet highly effective way to boost the numbers of probiotic bacteria in your body (specifically in your gut). A single capsule contains two billion probiotic bacteria (Lactobacillus acidophilus and three strains of Bifido bifidum) alongside seven digestive enzymes and seven plant extracts for the ultimate bloat-relieving supplement.
Our supplement is suitable for anybody and everybody, including those of you with IBS, hormonal issues, or stress-related bloating. You’ll see the benefits of daily probiotic supplementation within just three to four weeks of taking A Dose For Bloating. If you want more info on our bloat-busting supplement, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team!
Keep your hormones in check as much as you possibly can
Unfortunately, hormones can be very sensitive to changes in your diet, lifestyle, and stress levels. There are also lots of things that can negatively impact your hormones without you even realising it or being able to do anything about it.
However, that being said, you can control your hormones for the most part. Reducing your stress as much as possible, avoiding working out too much, and ensuring that you fuel your body with the calories and nutrients it needs to thrive are all helpful ways to support your endocrine system (the body system that produces and regulates all of your hormones).
If you suspect that you have a reproductive health disorder like PCOS or endometriosis, make sure you go to a specialised endocrinologist who can provide you with an accurate diagnosis and helpful care plan to manage your condition. Managing any reproductive health problems appropriately is vital for avoiding negative symptoms like fatigue, nausea, bloating, and stomach cramps.
Take some digestive enzymes before or after your evening meal
Digestive enzyme supplements are effective at relieving morning bloating. They support your body’s natural production of digestive enzymes and make your gastrointestinal tract more efficient at breaking down the foods you’ve eaten.
Taking a digestive enzyme supplement just before or shortly after your evening meal can allow your body to metabolise and absorb the nutrients in your meal more quickly so you’re less likely to wake up feeling bloated.
Make sure you find a digestive enzyme supplement that is third-party tested, so you know you’re spending your money on a product that is actually going to work! You can check that a product has been third-party tested by either reading the information on the product page, checking third-party review websites, or reading customer reviews.
And, of course, you can also take A Dose For Bloating to provide your body with more digestive enzymes and prevent unwanted symptoms. A Dose For Bloating contains papain, bromelain, lipase, amylase, protease, cellulase, and lactase, and these enzymes will work alongside the probiotics inside our supplement to keep your digestive system efficient and healthy.
