It’s 10 day’s before Christmas and it’s already started…. Everywhere you go, a sea of booze and mince pies and everyone insisting that you have both so that they have a sense of jolliness and sharing rather than guilt! So here are a couple tips on weathering the storm of indigestion and the lethargy of excessive over indulgence… If you can’t say ‘no’ to one too many glasses of ‘oh be joyful’ try the alternate principle….one glass of alcohol followed by one glass of water. It’s a compromise – a deal with yourself to have fun but an act of charity to your overworked liver and your brain…..Physiologically this works well as you’re not putting a limited on how much you drink but it is unlikely that you will drink as much alcohol as you would normally (it’s a volume thing) and obviously, you won’t feel bad the next day as you will have re-hydrated your body at the same time – result ! As I have mentioned in the past, alcohol depletes your body of vitamins and minerals, do yourself a massive favour – put them back! That means uber amounts of fresh, colourful fruits and vegetables.

Drinking with food – sipping wine whilst eating is not too taxing on your body but tipping large amounts of cold liquid into your digestive system during a meal or immediately afterwards is bad news. Years ago when I was trekking in Peru, our guides who looked after us would not let us drink after a meal, they would only let us have a cup of something hot (usually a herbally type). They were not trained in nutrition but they understood what sort of food and habits were going to keep our bodies strong and energised in tough conditions. If you think about it, the body is working hard to process and digest what you have eaten – your stomach becomes a little factory, mixing and churning, muscles are working hard and digestive juices are being poured in. The bodies energy is pulled to your stomach and your core to allow all this activity to happen – that’s why you feel tired after a heavy meal. Now imagine pouring in cold liquid – firstly, it’s a shock to the system – it lowers the temperature of the stomach so those muscles that were warming up nicely can be temporally paralysed, plus those valuable digestive juices are diluted. As their job is to break the food down (so it’s ready for the next part of its journey into the digestive system) obviously this dilution hampers digestion and then we are unlikely to be able to absorb the nutrients from our food, as well as having indigestion (and probably bloating!). Peppermint tea and ginger infusions (see previous blog) are great but you can also buy lots of lovely ‘digestive/cleanse/detox’ teas from almost everywhere you shop nowadays, I personally like the Pukka range. So…. a happier digestive system makes for a happier Christmas…. enjoy