Vacations are meant for relaxation and enjoyment. They’re a time to indulge in your favourite foods, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this!
Despite being a fun and exciting time where you can indulge in various treats and desserts, holidays can bring about digestive symptoms like bloating (characterised by abdominal distention and a feeling of fullness) and constipation. Indulgent foods tend to be high in saturated fat and salt, both of which are known to cause digestive issues. When you’re on holiday, you’re also more likely to be sedentary (unless you’re heading on a skiing holiday or traversing an exciting city), which can further contribute to bloating.
In this article, I’m going to cover what holiday bloating is, what causes it, and some top tips for relieving it quickly.
What Is Holiday Bloating?
Holiday bloating is exactly what it sounds like. It’s bloating caused by being away on vacation!
Holiday bloating is a relatively common thing that most people you know (and maybe you yourself) have experienced at some point in their lives. Travel bloat causes abdominal distension and a feeling of fullness or tightness. It’s often accompanied by excess gas (burping and farting) and sometimes also some abdominal cramping (usually, cramping occurs with severe bloating and constipation).
What Causes Holiday Bloating?
Bloating is normal, especially when you’re on holiday. However, knowing the most common causes of this prevalent digestive symptom is important for avoiding triggers and reducing discomfort.
Of course, physically being somewhere outside of your home doesn’t just cause you to become bloated out of nowhere. It’s more the things that people tend to do whilst they’re on vacation that cause bloating and other digestive issues when travelling.
Going away on vacation may require you to travel long distances. When you are sedentary for extended periods of time, it can lead to travel bloat because your digestion tends to slow down if you are not moving around.
For example, if you have ever travelled internationally and been sitting down on a plane for several hours, you may notice that your abdomen feels full and tight. Plane bloat is probably the most common form of travel-related bloating that people experience, simply because it involves many hours of being sedentary.
Another cause for holiday bloat is the change in diet that often accompanies vacations. When you are on holiday, you are more likely to indulge in traditionally unhealthy foods, such as cakes, pastries, biscuits, ice cream, and high fat, high carb, high salt meals.
As delicious as all of these things are, they contain very little nutrition and high amounts of fat and salt, both of which can reduce the efficiency of your digestive system. When your digestion becomes more sluggish, food moves more slowly through the lower gastrointestinal tract, and you are more likely to experience bloating and constipation.
At the same time, consuming fewer healthy foods whilst you’re on holiday can worsen travel bloat because you aren’t getting the beneficial nutrients that normally speed up your metabolism and digestion.
How Can I Stop Holiday Bloating Fast?
If you love going on holidays but want to avoid getting bloated and uncomfortable during your time away from home, here are my top bloat-busting remedies for quick relief.
Drink a big glass of water
My first tip is to drink a glass of water when you’re feeling the holiday bloat. As simple as this sounds, it’s something that many people forget to try when they’re suffering from digestive symptoms.
Water can help to keep the stool soft and prevent it from getting ‘stuck’ in your colon. A softer stool is much easier to pass and is less likely to lead to constipation and associated bloating or discomfort.
Staying hydrated is an effective way to prevent constipation from occurring. However, if you’re already constipated, drinking a glass or two of water can be helpful for improving your symptoms and helping you have a bowel movement.
Go for a long walk
Walking is beneficial for your overall well-being and is a key component of a healthy lifestyle. It can be particularly beneficial for your digestive health.
The physical motion of walking can encourage peristalsis in the lower gastrointestinal tract, helping to release gas. Even a quick 10-minute walk around the block could do the trick and get things moving through your gut. If you don’t want to go outside, pace around your house or run up and down the stairs a few times. You might be surprised at how effective this can be at relieving your constipation as well!
Drink a cup of herbal tea
Herbal teas, such as chamomile, lemon balm, ginger, pepper, and rosemary teas, or known to have mild laxative effects as well as reducing inflammation in the gut. Drinking a cup of herbal tea may help to relieve mild constipation and reduce the risk of additional digestive symptoms like bloating and abdominal cramping.
Every herbal tea tastes unique, so if you aren’t keen on one of them, try a different flavour. Consider adding honey to your herbal teas to sweeten them up if you’re not keen on the earthy taste of some herbs.
Take two Wild Dose digestive enzymes
At Wild Dose, we’ve perfected our supplement, A Dose For Bloating, to make it the most effective it can be at relieving bloating. Whether you’re experiencing holiday bloat or bloating caused by something other than travelling or vacationing, taking two capsules of A Dose For Bloating a day can be enough to get rid of your digestive symptoms.
Our supplement contains seven different digestive enzymes, alongside seven plant extracts and two billion probiotic bacteria. Together, these ingredients aid your digestion and keep your gut microbiome healthy. Eight out of every ten customers see a reduction in bloating within just two weeks of taking two capsules of A Dose For Bloating each day.
Avoid having carbonated drinks for a few hours
Carbonated drinks like sodas and sparkling water contain gas, which enters your colon when you consume them. Drinking lots of carbonated beverages can cause gas to build up in your gastrointestinal tract and lead to bloating, abdominal pains, and cramps. This gas has to go somewhere, so you’ll probably experience lots of burping and flatulence, too.
If you usually consume a lot of carbonated drinks, avoid having them for a few hours to give your body a chance to break down any gas that remains in your colon and prevent further gas buildup. Instead of sodas and sparkling water, opt for still water, squash, fruit juice, tea, coffee, or hot chocolate when you’re thirsty.
